RICHMOND, TX — The Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office and a private forensic firm are using advanced DNA testing and family-tree research to identify a man whose partial remains were found along FM 359 near Richmond in 1964 and whose homicide has gone unsolved for 62 years.
The victim, known to investigators only as “Stubby,” was never identified because his head, hands, and feet were never recovered — making fingerprint comparisons and facial reconstructions impossible. Detectives exhumed what remained of him in 2024 and sent samples to Moxxy Forensic Investigations, a private firm specializing in cold cases. That effort produced a DNA profile strong enough for investigative genetic genealogy, a method that combines DNA analysis with traditional family-tree research to find potential living relatives. Investigators now believe the man had predominantly East Asian ancestry, a detail that could narrow the search considerably and represents the first concrete biological lead in the case’s six-decade history.
According to the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office, the original investigation dates to 1964, when remains were discovered along FM 359 in Richmond, Texas, southwest of Houston. At the time, detectives believed the man was white — a conclusion that modern DNA analysis has since contradicted — and estimated he was between 40 and 60 years old, stood roughly 6 feet tall, and weighed about 175 pounds. His death was ruled a homicide, but without identifying features, investigators had no path forward. The remains were eventually buried at San Gabriel Cemetery in Richmond in 1984, where they stayed for another four decades before the sheriff’s office decided to try again. Detectives exhumed the remains in 2024 specifically to search for DNA compatible with modern forensic technology. Detective Eli Cisneros of the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office is leading the current effort alongside Katie Thomas of Moxxy Forensic Investigations.
Researchers working the genealogy side of the case have identified family-tree connections involving the surnames Palacat, Auna, and Napeahi. Investigators caution that those names are research leads only and do not necessarily mean the victim used one of them or that anyone bearing those surnames is directly connected to the case. The surnames emerged through a process of building outward family trees from distant DNA relatives found in genealogy databases — a technique that, according to well-known genetic genealogist CeCe Moore, is best described as an effort to “reverse-engineer someone’s biological identity” through shared DNA and public records. The method does not produce a confirmed identity on its own; it points investigators toward living relatives whose DNA can then be compared directly. Until such a confirmation is made, “Stubby” remains officially unidentified, and his killer remains unknown.
Investigative genetic genealogy has become one of law enforcement’s most powerful tools for cracking cold cases in which traditional methods have failed. The technique gained wide attention after investigators used it to identify the Golden State Killer in California in 2018. Since then, it has been applied to dozens of cases across the country. In Texas alone, forensic genetic genealogy recently helped identify Kelly Lee Brower, 68, as a suspect in the 1981 sexual assault and murder of 23-year-old Yolanda Herrera in Bexar County — a case that had gone cold for more than four decades. Othram Laboratories analyzed DNA from Herrera’s original autopsy evidence in 2025 and identified Brower, who was arrested in Cottonwood, Arizona, on Aug. 19, 2026, and later confessed to the killing, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. The technique also resolved a 36-year mystery in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, where a woman found dead in 1990 and known only as “Penny Doe” was identified in August 2026 as Windy Buchanan, a 19-year-old originally from the Louisville, Kentucky area, after Pennsylvania State Police partnered with Othram Labs and traced the remains to Buchanan’s living sister.
The Fort Bend case shares structural similarities with other unidentified-remains investigations in Texas and nationally. In both the Herrera and Buchanan cases, standard DNA databases — specifically the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, known as CODIS — could not produce a match because the victim’s profile was never previously entered into the system. CODIS works by comparing DNA from crime scenes or unidentified remains against profiles already on file, meaning it can only help if the person had previously been arrested, convicted, or voluntarily submitted a sample. For victims like “Stubby,” who disappeared without generating any law enforcement record, the system offers no path forward. Forensic genetic genealogy sidesteps that barrier by searching for distant cousins and other relatives in public genealogy databases, then building a family tree backward toward the unknown individual. Clarion County District Attorney Drew Welsh explained the limitation clearly after the Buchanan identification: “Previously, there had been efforts with DNA, but the matching of that DNA could only go to an exact match of an individual who was already in a system,” Welsh said.
The Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office is now asking the public for help filling in the human side of the investigation — the part no laboratory can provide. Authorities are specifically asking people who lived in or traveled through the Fort Bend County or Houston area around 1964 to consider whether they knew an adult man who disappeared, stopped writing letters, or was never reported missing. Given the revised finding that the victim had predominantly East Asian ancestry, investigators may be looking for someone connected to communities not commonly associated with the area at the time, which could explain why no missing-person report was ever filed. Authorities note that missing-person reports from that era were inconsistently kept, and that social or language barriers may have discouraged families from contacting law enforcement. The surnames Palacat, Auna, and Napeahi carry connections to Filipino and Pacific Islander family lines, though investigators have not confirmed the victim’s national origin and stress those names remain unverified leads.
Anyone with information about the case can contact Detective Eli Cisneros with the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office at Elias.Cisneros2@fortbendcountytx.gov or Katie Thomas with Moxxy Forensic Investigations at katie@moxxyforensics.com. The case remains an active homicide investigation, and investigators have not announced a timeline for when a confirmed identification might be made. The next milestone will come if a living relative submits DNA for direct comparison, which would either confirm or rule out the genealogical leads developed so far.
