New Initiative Helps Solve Unidentified Cold Case
The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office (CCMEO) and the Ohio Attorney General’s Office (AGO) announced today that a John Doe found nearly 45 years ago in Cleveland was finally identified. His name is Danny Mitchell, a 20-year-old Cleveland resident who went missing in April 1980.
The identification marks the first funded by a new initiative at NCMEC, the Children’s Justice Project. Announced last year, the Children’s Justice Project is a collaborative effort between the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and NCMEC. The project aims to accelerate the identification of children and youth who were found deceased and remain unidentified.
“After 45 years, we finally know that John Doe 1980 is Danny Mitchell,” said John Bischoff, vice president of NCMEC’s Missing Children Division. “This identification is a powerful reminder that time does not diminish the importance of seeking answers—or the need to keep hope alive. We are grateful to have worked alongside so many dedicated partners and agencies to help give Danny’s family the answer they’ve waited decades to receive."
Currently, NCMEC is assisting with 640 cases of unidentified child remains. The new initiative hopes to identify and advance as many cases as possible, providing new resources to even the most challenging cases.
And for this case, that’s exactly what it did.
John Doe was discovered in a Cleveland building slated for demolition in May 1980. Bound with an electrical cord, the remains were unrecognizable. Though the cause of death was undetermined, medical examiners believed that the remains belonged to a Black male, between the ages of 18-30.
Just a few weeks earlier, in April 1980, 20-year-old Danny Mitchell was reported missing. He was last seen at a house on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, less than a quarter mile from the building where John Doe 1980 was located.
For years, no one realized that the two cases—Danny Mitchell and John Doe 1980—may be connected. That changed in 2017, when Danny’s family happened to see a press conference held by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) about an unidentified man found in Twinsburg, Ohio, in 1982. Danny’s family, who had been searching for him for decades, thought it may be him, so they submitted DNA, hoping for answers.
The remains weren’t a match, and the man found in Twinsburg was later identified as someone else. But Danny’s family renewed interest in his case, leading BCI to add his information into The National Missing & Unidentified Missing Persons System (NamUs). Then, in 2020, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office added John Doe 1980 to NamUs. That entry prompted a possible match and raised a new question: could this John Doe actually be Danny Mitchell?
Investigators tried to use DNA to find an answer, but because of limited evidence, they weren’t able to confirm that the two cases were connected. Still, they didn’t give up. In 2022, the team reached out to NCMEC for help.
NCMEC worked with Danny’s siblings to collect DNA and coordinated with investigators to send hair samples, the only available evidence in this case, to Astrea Forensics, a lab that specializes in difficult cases. The first round of testing came back incomplete—not enough to confirm a match.
Then in October 2024, NCMEC received funding through the Children’s Justice Project to try again. This time, the testing worked. Astrea Forensics was able to build a suitable DNA profile from the Cleveland case. From there, they shared the profile with Innovative Forensic Investigations, who compared it to DNA from Danny’s siblings by uploading it to GEDmatchPro, a free online database that compares DNA data.
That’s when, finally, after more than four decades of questions, the results were confirmed. The man found in Cleveland in 1980 was missing person, Danny Mitchell, and a mystery that had prompted investigators for nearly 45 years was finally solved.
At the press conference today, Jennifer Lester, the BCI criminal intelligence analyst who worked on Danny’s case, thanked NCMEC for their support.
“Teamwork is an understatement of what happened in this case,” said Lester. “I want to mention the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. They are a huge part of this case. They are why we are here today. Without their assistance, we wouldn’t be here.”
She said in working with his family, they shared that he was a wonderful person.
“He loved church,” Lester said. “He loved dancing, singing and he loved his family.”
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To learn more about unidentified cases at NCMEC, visit our website here: https://www.missingkids.org/theissues/helpidme.