By Pepper Fisher
SEATTLE — After seeing how the Clallam County Sheriff’s Department successfully used crowdfunding to solve the “Jane Doe” case of a shoe containing a human foot that washed ashore near the mouth of the Elwha River in 2021, the Seattle Police Foundation is using crowdfunding to cover the cost of DNA testing for a similar unsolved cold case.
In 2017 and 2018, multiple body parts and a shoe washed ashore along Discovery Park. Seattle police detectives and the King County Medical Examiner’s Office have yet to determine who the person is or how they died.
The Seattle Police Foundation said the cost of DNA testing is expected to be $15,000. But, as Chief Criminal Deputy Amy Bundy told KONP in January, even if a law enforcement agency has those funds available, these cases are put on the back burner by the State Crime Lab, sometimes for years, because they are not considered active murder cases.
The Clallam County Sheriff’s Office turned to Othram Labs, a private company in Texas who offered to do the research quickly at a cost of $8,000, and local citizens ponied up.
In our case, DNA testing revealed that the remains belonged to 68-year-old Jerilyn Smith, a Sequim woman who was reported missing on in 2018. It was believed at the time of her disappearance that Smith had taken her own life by jumping off the Elwha River Bridge west of Port Angeles.
(SPF photo)