Two names have finally been attached to remains that sat unidentified in Orlando for decades. The Orlando Police Department’s Cold Case Unit says it has identified Vincent Todd Peterson, who died in 1982 at the age of 16 at a construction site, and Keith Lloyd Landis, who was 49 when his case went unresolved starting in 1996.
According to a post from Orlando Police, detectives used forensic genetic genealogy to identify Peterson, a case that had shown no signs of foul play. Landis’s identity, by contrast, was confirmed through a more direct method: DNA comparison with his sister. Both cases were resolved through collaboration between the Cold Case Unit and the District Nine Medical Examiner’s Office, which oversees medicolegal death investigations for Orange and Osceola counties.
Cold Case Unit Resolves Decades-Old Unidentified Remains CasesAfter decades of unanswered questions, detectives with the Orlando Police Department’s Cold Case Unit have identified two men whose deaths had remained unresolved since 1982 and 1996.In the 1982 case, detectives… pic.twitter.com/mr79RLgjds
— Orlando Police (@OrlandoPolice) August 17, 2026
Landis is reported to have died of natural causes, closing out a case that had gone unresolved for roughly 30 years. Peterson’s case, older and more complex, required the kind of advanced DNA testing that has become central to how Orlando’s detectives now approach their oldest files. The Cold Case Unit has said its identifications reflect a broader commitment to using advances in forensic science and DNA technology to identify unknown people and bring closure to families.
A Unit Built to Clear a Backlog
The Orlando Police Department’s Cold Case Unit was officially established in March 2021 to systematically organize and re-examine a backlog of more than 250 unsolved homicides and missing person cases, according to FOX 35 Orlando. Before the unit’s creation, case files were reportedly stored in hundreds of unorganized boxes. The squad notched its first cold case win in February 2022, when modern DNA re-testing connected a convicted armed robber to two fatal 1987 downtown beatings that had gone unresolved for 34 years, with the suspect accused of striking sleeping or isolated victims with steel rebar…