A family who provided a sample for DNA testing has helped forensic experts successfully identify their relative who went missing 31 years ago. The Hamilton County Coroner’s Office in Indiana confirmed in a statement that human remains — discovered in 1996 on suspected serial killer Herb Baumeister’s 18-acre estate in Westfield known as Fox Hollow Farm — matched the DNA sample from the family of Manuel Resendez.
“Manuel Resendez was reported missing [in] August 1993,” the Jan. 25 statement reads. “The identification of Manuel Resendez was the result of the dedication of many forensic experts working collaboratively in an effort to identify nearly 10,000 human remains recovered from Fox Hollow Farm.”
PEOPLE has reached out to the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office for more details about Resendez and the identification process for him and other victims.
Resendez was 34 when he went missing in the ’90s, according to the Indianapolis Star. The publication said he was originally IDed, via dental records, in the ’90s as one of Baumeister’s roughly two dozen victims, but Resendez’s relatives wanted a DNA match to confirm that finding.
The coroner’s office had asked families of young men who disappeared in the ’80s and ’90s to submit DNA samples, which has led to other recent identifications aside from Resendez’s because of matches to human remains found on Baumeister’s Westfield property, according to NBC News.
Hamilton County coroner Jeff Jellison thanked forensic specialists and law enforcement for identifying Resendez’s human remain through DNA tests.
“A special thanks goes to the hardworking people at the Indiana State Police Laboratory and Dr. Krista Latham of the Biology & Anthropology Department at the University of Indianapolis,” he said in the statement.
