(Web Desk) - A man who was discovered frozen in a cave nearly 50 years ago in Pennsylvania has now been identified.
For a long time, Grubb was known as the “Pinnacle Man" which is a moniker which referred to the Appalachian mountain peak where his body was found by two hikers on January 16, 1977.
When an autopsy of the dead body was carried out, the authorities had not found any foul play and ruled that he died because of a drug overdose, reported The New York Times.
However, the officials were not able to identify the body of Grubb from his appearance, dental information, belongings, fingerprints and clothing which were collected for examination and were later misplaced.
While speaking to the reporters, Berks County’s Coroner John Fielding said that “detectives from the state police and investigators from the coroner’s office” had revisited the case periodically in the last 15 years and compared his information “to no less than 10 missing persons through fingerprints and dental X-rays”.
In August 2019, the police exhumed the body of Grubb after his dental records were found to have links with two missing person cases reported in Florida and Illinois.
The body was taken to Reading Hospital where a forensic anthropologist, forensic pathologist and forensic odontologist examined it.
Although the DNA samples of Grubb didn’t match any missing person cases, Pennsylvania State Police trooper Ian Keck in August 2024 found his missing fingerprints.
An hour after the card of DNA samples was submitted to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), the print was matched to Grubb’s fingerprints by an FBI fingerprint expert.
After this, a family member also confirmed his identity and appealed to the Berks County Coroner’s Office to bury Grubb's remains in a family plot.
“This identification brings a long-awaited resolution to his family, who have been notified and expressed their deep appreciation for the collective efforts that made it possible,” said Fielding.
“It is moments like these that remind us of the importance of our work to provide answers, to bring closure and to give the unidentified a name and a story," he added.