DELOIT, Iowa (KCRG) – A medical examiner’s office collaborated with a DNA lab in Texas to identify a missing western Iowa man. Shirlee Lewis Henkel, a 1987 John Doe, was identified by Othram, a DNA lab in Texas, along with the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office. He was entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons system in 2008 after investigators were unable to figure out his identity.
Henkel was a veteran of the U.S. Air Force who was born in Deloit, Iowa, in 1942. In 1994, his family held a funeral for him with a gravestone in Saint Clair Cemetery in Ute, Iowa.
Othram received forensic evidence and an extensive DNA profile was created for him, leading to a follow-up investigation. Potential relatives of the man were found by investigators…