"Boy's Rock Collection Reveals Jawbone of U.S. Marine Killed in 1951"
Genealogy students at Ramapo College in New Jersey confirmed that a jawbone found in a boy's rock collection in Arizona actually belonged to Captain Everett Leland Yager, a US Marine who died in a 1957 training exercise. The jawbone, complete with teeth, had been held by the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office since 2002. Traditional DNA tracking failed, but whole genome sequencing led to a family tree profile, and the Ramapo students, along with a high school-aged intern, identified a lead candidate who turned out to be Yager's daughter. DNA results confirmed the match, and the jawbone will be sent to Yager's surviving family. The mystery of how the jawbone ended up in Arizona remains unsolved.
