{"id":243192,"date":"2026-03-30T10:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T10:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/243192\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T10:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T10:13:08","slug":"severed-leg-discovered-on-us-beach-identified-as-remains-of-long-missing-banker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/243192\/","title":{"rendered":"Severed leg discovered on US beach identified as remains of long-missing banker"},"content":{"rendered":"

A severed leg that was discovered on a remote US beach in 2022 have been identified as the remains of a banker who went missing in 1999.<\/p>\n

Walter Karl Kinney disappeared without a trace in August 1999 and was reported missing by his family when he was just 59 years old.<\/p>\n

Authorities thought they had a breakthrough that same year after a single leg was discovered near Bodega Head, roughly five miles down the road from where recent remains were uncovered. <\/p>\n

However, based off the limited evidence regarding a size 12 walking shoe, officials were unable to pinpoint the remains and the case went officially cold.<\/p>\n

A new revelation came to light in 2003 after authorities looked into medical records after being pushed by the banker’s daughter. <\/p>\n

Ultimately, an X-ray of his feet matched the remains in the shoe and Kinney was declared dead.<\/p>\n

\"AA new development has come to the light in the long-running case (Sonoma County)<\/p>\n

While you may think that would have been that, the missing persons case resurfaced in June 2022 after a family’s hunt for seashells along Salmon Creek Beach in California<\/a> ended in a shocking discovery.<\/p>\n

During their exploration of the sandy beach in Bodega Bay, the family uncovered a human-looking bone in the sand.<\/p>\n

For years, the same man had been identified as ‘John Doe’, though thanks to work done by the DNA Doe Project in collaboration with police<\/a>, DNA profiles were able to link the deceased man back to that of Kinney, who had been missing for nearly three decades.<\/p>\n

They uncovered the DNA from the leg uncovered in 2002 was a perfect match for the individual identified more than two decades ago in 2003.<\/p>\n

\"WalterWalter Karl Kinney went missing in 1999(Instagram\/@dna_doe_project_official)<\/p>\n

DNA Doe Project team leader Traci Onders said: “This case was unusual \u2013 it\u2019s not often we see someone end up as a John Doe twice. But thanks to investigative genetic genealogy, we were able to resolve this mystery and provide some answers to everyone involved in this case.”<\/p>\n

The group added in a statement: “The DNA Doe Project is grateful to the groups who we worked with to solve this case: the Sonoma County Sheriff\u2019s Office, who entrusted this case to us; Genologue for sequencing; Astrea Forensics for bioinformatics; GEDmatch Pro for providing their database; our generous donors who joined our mission and contributed to this case; and the DNA Doe Project\u2019s dedicated teams of volunteer investigative genetic genealogists who work tirelessly to bring all our John and Jane Does home.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Sonoma Sheriff’s Office added: “Thank you to the DNA Doe Project for helping us put a name to the human remains found at Salmon Creek Beach.<\/p>\n

“We value this partnership as we continue working together to identify remains found in Sonoma County.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A severed leg that was discovered on a remote US beach in 2022 have been identified as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,131,133,132,3586],"class_list":["post-243192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}