Nearly 50 years after a fatal traffic collision claimed his life, a “John Doe” has finally been identified.
On June 2, 1978, a Volkswagen Beetle carrying five teenage passengers was traveling westbound on Arlington Avenue in Riverside when the driver lost control, crossed the center divider, and struck a sport utility vehicle.
The driver of the Volkswagen was the sole survivor of that vehicle and told investigators at the time that he had met the male passenger only the day before, knowing little about him. The three other victims were identified at the time, but their families had no information about the fifth passenger, “John Doe.”
Despite years of investigative efforts, the victim remained unidentified until now, nearly 50 years after his death. The Riverside Sheriff’s Coroner’s Bureau has identified the victim as 18-year-old Mark Alan Smith.
The breakthrough was made possible with the assistance of the Bureau of Justice Assistance’s Missing and Unidentified Human Remains grant program, which provided the Riverside Sheriff’s Coroner’s Bureau with the resources needed to perform an exhumation, and the GenGenies, a non-profit corporation that funded the forensic genetic genealogy work that ultimately produced the leads needed to identify the victim.
