The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office has officially identified the remains of 22 year-old Ryan Stone, finally putting a decades-long missing person’s case to rest.
Florida resident Ryan L. Stone, de scribed by his family as a “loving and caring person”, was last seen alive in 1994. In Nov 1997, his remains were found off the 600 block of Fort Florida Rd, according to the Sheriff’s Office, but they were unidentifiable thanks to the in accessibility of forensic testing at the time. Stone remained a John Doe until just recently, when the combined efforts of the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, Medical Examiner’s Office, and third party company Othram Labs brought his identity to light and delivered his family some closure.
While it’s not uncommon to hear about cold cases being solved thanks to ad vancements in DNA technology, 28 years might still seem like a long time for human remains to be unidentified.
When asked about the delay in identifying Stone’s remains, Madison Worley, a Forensic Investigator with the Volusia Medical Examiner’s Office, explained:
“As in almost every field, technology in forensics is ever evolving and has enabled our office to identify Ryan Stone. When Mr. Stone’s remains were found in 1997, DNA technology was relatively new to the scene and was very costly, with limit ed funding.”
She explained that over the course of the last thirty years, Stone’s remains - along with the other unidentified remains at the Medical Examiner’s Office - were entered into the Combined DNA Index System, also known as CODIS. The ME’s office spent several years searching CODIS for genetic matches; unfortunately, accord ing to Worley, no genetic “hits” ever occurred due to Stone’s family having not been previ ously logged in CODIS, and the search continued.
The technological advance ment that eventually led to the identification of Ryan Stone is known as Forensic Genetic Genealogy, which allows inves tigators to build a family tree for the deceased and potential ly identify their living family members. Thankfully, this method proved successful in identifying Ryan Stone’s father, a Seminole County resident. According to law enforcement, upon being interviewed he admit ted that he had not seen his son Ryan in nearly three decades.
“Our office never gave up and will never give up on any of the persistent UHR [unidentified human remains] cases we have,”said Worley, of the Medical Examiner’s Office. “We submit them for state-of-the-art testing as soon as funding becomes available to identify and reunite them with their loved ones.”
Stone’s family was informed once his remains were positively identified.
His cause of death has yet to be confirmed, though law enforcement has confirmed that no evidence of foul play was found when his remains were first identified. The investigation into his death is reportedly ongoing, and the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office has asked that anyone with information about Ryan Stone around his time of death should call the Major Case Unit at 386-245-1535 or email Detective Teske at [email protected].
