The Toronto police have successfully identified a man whose remains were discovered in the city center more than 17 years ago.
The man has been identified as Alcides, of Portuguese origin. The family has been informed about his identity and the location of his burial.
The announcement was made by Investigator Mike Kelly from the Toronto Police Service’s homicide and missing persons unit on Wednesday, November 19.
The identification was made possible due to advancements in technology, specifically a tool related to “genetic genealogy.”
The case dates back to March 29, 2008, when a homeless man found a body under a Toronto subway bridge.
Authorities collected the remains and spent years trying to identify the victim who, they believe, was also homeless at the time.
No crime was suspected from the beginning, but the mystery of the man’s identity and story persisted until recently.
“Alcides was never reported missing, but those who loved him always wondered what happened to him, as they hadn’t heard from him in years,” Mike Kelly stated.
In 2023, the police employed investigative genetic genealogy (IGG) to identify the Portuguese national. IGG is a technique used by police to solve criminal cases or resolve cold cases.
IGG “involves the use of genetic data from samples collected at crime scenes and DNA databases to identify individuals through genetic matches, or partial matches, with biological relatives,” explained the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, which provided guidelines for police use of the tool.
Alcides is thus the ninth and most recent person to be identified using IGG in Toronto, as part of a humanitarian initiative called Project 31 by Canadian authorities.
The project, launched in 2022, was named in honor of the 31 long-unidentified deceased persons for whom DNA material is readily available.
The goal of the project is to identify all 31 individuals using DNA-based techniques, including IGG.
In Alcides’ case, it was through samples from a brother, not residing in Canada, that authorities managed to identify him after publicizing various characteristics of the found body.
As highlighted by Mike Kelly, this discovery not only closes a police case but also offers families of the missing a chance to complete their grieving process.
“It is something we would all wish for ourselves and for the people we love: that they know what happened to them and regain the dignity of their names. That is the most important thing we can offer these people,” the investigator emphasized.
The Toronto police continue to work on solving the remaining cases of unidentified bodies.
