Nearly five decades after his body was found on the banks of the James River, John Charles City Doe has been identified as 27-year-old Nick S. Lopsis. Though he was a native of Prince William County, Lopsis was living in Richmond at the time of his disappearance. He was last seen leaving his residence to go to a workshop, after which he was never heard from again.
On August 28, 1979, partial skeletal remains were found along the bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. Authorities estimated that this unidentified man was 17-23 years old, between 5’3” and 5’9” tall, and possibly Hispanic. He wore a white shirt with blue stripes, khaki colored pants, and a brown belt 32″ in length.
The Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner later brought this case to the DNA Doe Project, whose expert volunteer investigative genetic genealogists work pro bono to identify John and Jane Does. At the outset of the genealogy research on this case, it was clear that the unidentified man was Caucasian and had deep roots in West Virginia, but it also appeared that he had a recent ancestor from Southern Europe…