Remains of a body found in 2000 have finally been identified, thanks to a DNA test used by investigators to identify victims of serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
The identification solves a 41-year-old missing persons case in New Jersey, according to Fox
The remains are of Steven Soden, a 16-year-old boy that went missing on a camping trip in 1972.
Soden and his sister lived a the Paterson City, N.J., orphanage in the 1970s. He was on a camping trip at Bass River State Forest with his sister and Donald Caldwell, a 12-year-old friend, when he and Caldwell went missing. The boys were never seen again.
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"We always had hopes we'd somehow find him alive," said 73-year-old Ron Soden, Steven's brother.
Soden's father lived in Chicago, and relatives suggested Soden may have run away to live with him, NBC New York reported.
His sister suspected that if he did go to Chicago, her brother might have run into Gacy. She submitted DNA to Illinois in 2012 to determine whether he might have been one of Gacy's victims, seven of which are still unidentified.
Gacy was executed in 1994 after he was convicted of sexual assault and murder of at least 33 teenage boys.
New Jersey State Police determined that Soden was not one of the victims, but his DNA led to bones found in the Bass River. An off-duty state trooper found the bones in 2000, but detectives could not identify the remains.
Investigators were able to link the bones to the DNA Soden's sister provided, though, solving the missing persons case.
With Soden's case closed, New Jersey police detectives are trying to determine what happened to Caldwell.
