{"id":469811,"date":"2026-09-20T07:20:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T07:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469811\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T07:20:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T07:20:15","slug":"remains-found-on-california-beach-identified-as-missing-father-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/469811\/","title":{"rendered":"Remains found on California beach identified as missing father of 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly 27 years later, investigators said a bone that washed up on a California beach was positively matched to a missing father of three.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 14, 1999, Jonathan Raxa, 37,<\/a> was one of four crew members aboard the commercial fishing vessel Silver Spray.<\/p>\n

The boat was at the entrance to Humboldt Bay in Northern California when it was struck by a large wave that ripped the vessel’s pilot house from the boat.<\/p>\n

Al Burns, the boat’s skipper, told the Los Angeles Times<\/a> that he watched in horror as the 18-foot wave swallowed the crew. A second breaker sank the 35-foot boat and carried Burns away.<\/p>\n

\"Investigators<\/p>\n

Investigators matched a human bone that washed ashore to Jonathan Raxa, 37, a fisherman who was lost at sea in 1999. (Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office)<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The entrance to Humboldt Bay in Northern California. (John Ferrara\/KTLA)<\/p>\n

As he tumbled underwater, he recalled thinking, “I had a good feeling I was going to die.”<\/p>\n

He eventually surfaced about a hundred yards away and grabbed a five-gallon oil can drifting nearby to stay afloat. Two other crewmen scrambled aboard a raft and eventually pulled Burns to safety.<\/p>\n

However, the fourth crew member, Raxa, was lost at sea and could not be found.<\/p>\n

As the case remained under investigation by the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office,<\/a> detectives located Raxa’s son and obtained a family DNA sample.<\/p>\n

The sample was submitted to the California Department of Justice and entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).<\/p>\n

In March 2026, deputies responded to Centerville Beach after a human bone was discovered. Investigators confirmed the bone was a human sacrum.<\/p>\n

The bone was turned over to the Humboldt County Coroner’s Office, which submitted it to the California Department of Justice for DNA analysis.<\/p>\n

After the obtained DNA was entered into CODIS, authorities were notified that the bone’s DNA had been traced back to Raxa.<\/p>\n

A father of three, Raxa had been working on the boat to earn money for a trip to his native Laos, the L.A. Times reported.<\/p>\n

“This case highlights the importance of collecting and preserving DNA samples from family members of missing persons,” the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “These samples can provide critical investigative leads and assist law enforcement in identifying missing persons and resolving cases, even decades after a person’s disappearance.”<\/p>\n

Authorities notified Raxa’s family about the identification, bringing the nearly 27-year-old missing person case to a close.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nearly 27 years later, investigators said a bone that washed up on a California beach was positively matched…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,184875,114323,85253,327,183959,266],"class_list":["post-469811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-human-bone","tag-humboldt-bay","tag-humboldt-county-sheriffs-office","tag-investigators","tag-jonathan-raxa","tag-northern-california"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469811","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=469811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}