Fifty years ago, a 15-year-old boy left his home in Boise, Idaho to hitch-hike along the Oregon coast in search of jobs and a better life. His family, however, never heard from him again. All of these decades later, authorities were finally able to identify his body using the DNA of a child that the man didn’t know that he had. The boy’s name is Winston Arthur Maxey III. (1)
Winston Maxey Finally Found Using DNA of an Unknown Child
In 1971, Winston Maxey set out hitchhiking from Idaho to Oregon in search of a better life. Just weeks later, however, authorities found his body in Coos County. The only thing is at the time, they didn’t know the body belonged to him. Unfortunately, the DNA and identification technology at the time combined with the state of the body didn’t allow them to identify the body. They buried him in the local cemetery, but the case remained open.
Fast Forward To Present Day
In 2017, authorities exhumed Maxey’s body to take a DNA specimen. They then registered the sample in the National Missing and Unidentified Person database. From there, Parabon Nanolabs analyzed the sample. (2)
Finally, in May of 2021, the lab was able to develop a DNA profile of Maxey. They did not know his name, but they did know his ancestry; eye, skin, and hair color; facial structure, and composite profile. Two months later, they matched his genealogy and ancestry with a man in the Idaho area.
Coos County detectives reached out to the family to collect DNA samples. The samples matched and they finally had the unidentified body’s name: Winston Maxey.
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A Surprise Twist
The detectives made another surprise discovery about Maxey: He had unknowingly fathered a child just before leaving home back in 1971. The family had given the baby girl up for adoption and she had been searching for her biological family for years.
She learned her mother’s name with the help of a private investigator in 1988. She quickly built loving relationships with her biological family, particularly her grandfather. Her mother told her her father’s name, however, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t find him.
Where In The World Is Winston Maxey?
In 2016, she created a Facebook page called Where In The World Is Winston Maxey and filed a missing person report. She began working closely with the police to try and find information on her missing father. Parabon contacted her in August 2021 because they believed her to be a match with an unnamed person in their database. Sure enough, that person was her father, Winston Maxey.
“Today, the press release went out, the John Doe had now been identified,” she wrote on Facebook. “It brings me and my family some closure but we still do not know what happened.”
What Happened To Winston Maxey?
As his daughter already stated in her Facebook post, no one knows what happened to Winston Maxey all those 50 years ago or how he died. His daughter, however, still has hope that they will learn his cause of death. She continues to post on her Facebook page asking that if anyone has any information at all, please reach out. Though she and the family have accepted his death as the reason they never heard from him again, they are still seeking closure.
The family believes that if someone knows something about their deceased loved one, they will do the right thing and contact them. The Coos County Sheriff’s Office is working with the Maxey family to get Winston Maxey’s remains to them so that they can bury him alongside the rest of his family.
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