William Lewis Crummey has his name back more than 20 years after his remains were found inside the sleeper compartment of a tractor-trailer in Tampa. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office announced the identification on July 23, 2026, after a reopened cold-case investigation combined newer DNA analysis, family-tree research and a direct comparison with one of Crummey’s siblings.
The key distinction is that forensic genetic genealogy did not itself prove Crummey’s identity. It produced leads to possible relatives. Investigators then obtained a known family sample, and laboratory comparison confirmed the identification on July 15.
That two-step process explains why the case moved after a conventional database search had failed—and why “a DNA match solved it” is too simple a description.
The short answer
Hillsborough investigators had already uploaded a DNA profile from the remains to the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS. No match appeared. After the case was reopened in 2025, the sheriff’s cold-case unit and the county medical examiner partnered with Othram, a private forensic laboratory, to pursue forensic genetic genealogy. The work pointed investigators toward Crummey’s family, and the sibling sample provided the direct confirmation.
Crummey’s relatives told investigators they had not heard from him since early 2005. The sheriff’s office said his remains were found that September at American Used Truck Parts in Tampa, but the agency did not state a cause or manner of death in its announcement. This was the resolution of an identification cold case, not an announced finding that a homicide had been solved.
Why CODIS did not produce a name
CODIS and forensic genetic genealogy ask different questions. CODIS compares forensic DNA profiles against profiles in law-enforcement indexes, including qualifying offender and forensic records. A confirmed match can generate a named lead, but if the person’s profile is not represented in the relevant indexes, the search can return nothing.
The U.S. Justice Department’s policy on forensic genetic genealogy says traditional forensic typing generally examines a relatively small set of short tandem repeat markers. Genealogical analysis instead examines hundreds of thousands of single-nucleotide polymorphisms spread across the genome. Those markers can reveal shared stretches of DNA between the unknown person and possible biological relatives.
In other words, CODIS looks for a qualifying profile that directly corresponds to the evidence. Genealogy can start with a more distant family connection and work inward through public records, family trees and further investigation. A failed CODIS search therefore does not mean the sample contains no usable DNA; it means the database comparison did not yield a confirmed match.
What changed when the case reopened
The sheriff’s office and medical examiner revisited Crummey’s case in 2025, roughly two decades after the original investigation stalled. Othram says its scientists developed a more extensive DNA profile suitable for forensic genealogy and used it to generate investigative leads.
Those leads were not treated as a final answer. The Justice Department describes genetic associations as investigative leads that require traditional genealogy and other police work to establish the true relationship. In Crummey’s case, investigators located a sibling, obtained a reference sample and compared it with the DNA from the remains.
That final comparison matters because family-tree research can contain errors, people can share names, and genetic databases generally estimate relationships rather than provide a civil identity. The sibling sample connected the forensic profile to a known close relative and allowed the laboratory to confirm the name.
One identification among three
Crummey was one of three men named in the sheriff’s July 23 announcement. Investigators also identified William McClain, whose remains were found in a wooded Tampa area in 2011, and Cartis Jackson, whose remains were found near Wimauma in 2012. The medical examiner had determined McClain died of natural causes. The public release did not describe a cause or manner of death for Crummey or Jackson.
All three cases were reopened in 2025. McClain was identified on May 27, 2026, after DNA work generated leads to extended relatives and comparison samples were obtained. Jackson was confirmed on June 1 after genealogy produced possible family leads and a possible sibling provided DNA for direct comparison.
What this case does—and does not—show
Crummey’s identification shows the value of preserving remains and evidence long enough for later technology to extract more information. It also shows why old cases can move without a dramatic new witness: the change may be in what laboratories can recover from an existing sample and which family connections investigators can responsibly pursue.
But the method is not automatic, and it raises privacy questions. Justice Department policy directs participating agencies to use services that give users notice of law-enforcement access, protect genetic information and treat genealogy results as leads rather than proof. Rules and practices can vary outside federal cases, so the safeguards applied in any particular local investigation depend on the agencies, databases and legal authorities involved.
The confirmed fact here is narrower and more human: a man who was unnamed for more than two decades was identified as William Lewis Crummey, and relatives who had not heard from him since 2005 finally learned what became of him. The public record does not yet answer every question about his death, but it no longer leaves his identity unknown.
