The National Park Service said Wednesday that human remains found in a sleeping bag in Washington state in 2000 have been identified.
The remains belong to Joseph Louis Serrao Jr., a man originally from Hawaii who moved to Washington and last had contact with his relatives in 1998, the National Park Service said.
Mr. Serrao’s remains were first found in a tent in 2000 by a researcher in a remote area of Olympic National Park, 100 miles west of Seattle, the National Park Service said.
Officials did not specify the cause of Mr. Serrao’s death. He was born in December 1960 and would have been in his late 30s when he died.
At the time of his discovery in 2000, the King County Medical Examiner’s Office determined he had been dead six months to four years, the National Park Service said.
The medical examiner’s office sent a DNA sample from the remains to the Othram forensic genealogy laboratory in 2024. Othram figured out possible family connections to the remains in 2025, ultimately leading to the successful identification of Mr. Serrao.
“This case remained unresolved for nearly 30 years, but investigators never lost sight of the goal of identifying this individual and finding answers for his family. … I hope it brings some measure of closure to those who have spent so many years wondering what happened to Joseph,” National Park Service Investigative Services Branch Deputy Chief Debra Flowers said in the agency’s release.
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