Students at Ramapo College in the US state of New Jersey have announced that the 'rock fragment' found 20 years ago by an Arizona boy for his collection is a jawbone belonging to US Navy Captain Everett Leland Yager, who died nearly 70 years ago during a training exercise in California. The rock, which was handed over to the police in 2002 by the parents of the unnamed collector boy, was kept by the police and then examined by the Ramapo College Center for Investigative Genetic Genealogy in 2023.
"IT'S NOT A ROCK, IT'S A JAWBONE"
"US Navy Captain Everett Leland Yager died during a military training exercise in July 1951. His lifeless body was found in California and buried in Missouri, or at least it is thought to have been.Years later, a boy who wanted to collect rocks added it to his collection, probably during an exploration in Arizona. But it wasn't a rock, it was a human jawbone.
In July 2023, students at the Ramapo College IGG Training Camp studied the case. A DNA sample was taken from Captain Yager's daughter for direct comparison with the jawbone profile. By March 2024, the DNA sample confirmed the parent/child relationship, the case was solved, and it was confirmed that John Doe (unidentified person) was indeed Captain Everett Leland Yager.
Since the accident occurred in the air over California, no one is sure how the jawbone ended up in Arizona. Our guess is that the bone, picked up by a bird, may have fallen into the Arizona Environment."
