In 1991, a woman was found lying in the street near Akron, Ohio, half naked and set ablaze. She was quickly identified as Rachael Johnson, a young single mother who had last been seen walking in the parking lot of a local convenience store. A thorough investigation by Akron police looked at everyone Rachael knew even remotely – investigators were certain that she knew her killer. They were right, but it was not until decades later that forensic genealogy pointed them to someone they had never considered – someone who Rachael’s family knew all too well.

On November 1st, 1991, hunters in Circleville, Ohio discovered unidentified human remains in a shallow grave near a private farm. Based on the size of the remains, the authorities thought that they belonged to a young woman. They also found evidence that the Doe's head had been moved with some kind of toothed saw, possibly indicating a homicide. After searching for missing women who might be a match for the Doe, police came up empty, and the case went cold. Over the years, various teams and experts worked with the remains, and the DNA gathered from them, and eventually discovered that the Jane Doe they had was actually a John Doe; the victim was a male. Eventually, DNA & genealogy led the authorities to ID the remains as belonging to Robert A. Mullins who was reported missing by his family. He had disappeared in Ohio in late 1988, or early 1989 when he was 21. Now the investigators knew who their victim was, but the search to find out the circumstances of his death, and who was involved, goes on.

Season 3 of DNA: ID kicks off with a massive 3 part episode; In 1982, young Naval recruit Pam Cahanes had finally finished boot camp and graduated with her apprentice airman class. A weekend Liberty Pass allowed Pam to leave the Naval Training Center Orlando base for the first time in months. But Pam didn’t live to enjoy her newfound freedom. She was found strangled in her underwear, in the yard of a vacant house, shopping bags of personal items and her clothing strewn around her. Despite an extensive investigation, DNA evidence, and a prime suspect, her case went cold. This case was one of the first in Florida to use Forensic Genealogy to identify a suspect, someone never named in the case file. And when that person’s DNA was entered into CODIS, the investigators learned that he WAS named in the case file – in a murder case in Hawaii two years before Pam’s.