(Pierre, SD) — A man whose body was found in the Missouri River near Pierre in 1976 has been identified thanks to advances in forensic technology. The South Dakota Attorney General’s Office states there was no identification on the body when it was found. Partial fingerprints were taken, but a match couldn’t be made at the time without a potential subject to compare them to. In 2020, the case was reopened by Pierre Police Department Detective Trevor Swanson, and the remains of the unidentified individual were disinterred on October 8th, 2021. A DNA profile was obtained by collecting samples from the remains. Detective Swanson remained assigned to the case, and in 2022, the DNA profile was compared to genealogy databases. A potential match was found for 39-year-old Stephen Earl Boice of Seattle, Washington.
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