Forensic anthropologist Lindsay Trammell of the 51ºÚÁÏ County Medical Examiner’s Office joins Detective Lee Morris of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office crime scene unit as they work to exhume human remains from the grave of a “John Doe†on Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024, at Friedens Cemetery in Bellefontaine Neighbors. The remains will be sent for DNA testing in hopes of finding the identification of a man found in the Mississippi River in 1994.
JEFFERSON COUNTY — Investigators here say they have identified “John Doe,†the man who was pulled from the banks of the Mississippi River near Rush Island in September 1994.
Sheriff Dave Marshak said DNA testing and a set of decades-old fingerprints helped authorities identify the man as Benny Leo Olson, of Edwardsville. Officials do not suspect any foul play in his death.
Advances in DNA technology have helped officials to identify a number of previously unnamed individuals and solve cold cases stretching back more than 30 years, including identifying Wyona Michel earlier this month. Her body was discovered by a farmer in June 1990 in rural Madison County, Illinois.
Three years ago, investigators in O’Fallon, Missouri, were able to solve the murders of four women in 1990 using DNA. Prosecutors were able to charge Gary Muehlberg for the deaths of Robyn Mihan, Brenda Pruitt, Donna Reitmeyer and Sandy Little. He has since pleaded guilty and is serving several life terms.
People are also reading…
In the Jefferson County case, Olson’s body was exhumed in September 2024 so that authorities could collect new DNA samples that could be compared with other samples in a national database that did not exist at the time of his death.
A team of investigators, including medical and genetics experts, worked to extract and sequence Olson’s DNA. They were ultimately able to partially match it with DNA from a distant relative on his mother's side, officials said.
Interviews with family members led investigators to learn about Olson.
Olson, who grew up near Manchester, graduated from Parkway Central High School. He admired Cadillacs and Lincolns and loved playing show tunes on the piano, especially “My Fair Lady,†his half-sister Catherine Heston said.
“He was 14 years older than me, and my half-brother, but I never thought of him as anything other than a brother,†Heston told the Post-Dispatch. She described a brother who taught her how to drive, who moved about 200 miles north of 51ºÚÁÏ to Henderson County, Illinois after high school and chauffeured his grandmother’s elderly friends to doctor’s appointments or the grocery store.
“When other people his age wouldn’t want anything to do with that, he was perfectly happy to spend his time with a bunch of 70-year-old ladies,†she said.
Olson, his sister said who was a “perpetual student,†attended 51ºÚÁÏ Community College-Meramec, Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois, and at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
It was while he was at SIUE in 1980 that he was charged with four counts of conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of solicitation for murder after he tried to pay someone to burn his stepmother’s house down in Madison County, Illinois. An Illinois judge ruled that he was not competent to stand trial.
Fingerprints taken from that arrest helped present-day investigators confirm his identity, said Grant Bissell, a spokesperson for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department.
Olson, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, would spend 11 years in a mental health facility in Illinois before being released in the early 1990s, Heston said.
The family had not had any contact from Olson since August 1994 when he called his half-sister during what she described as a “paranoid delusion.â€
“He called me and told me that people were after him, that they were out to get him,†she recalled Tuesday. She said Olson then mentioned a police officer and she described pleading with him to go talk to the officer.
“And then he hung up — that was the last I ever heard from him,†she said. A month later his nearly naked body was found floating in the Mississippi River in rural Jefferson County.
For weeks — and then years — after his body was pulled from the river, investigators tried everything they could to find Olson’s next of kin.
They gave the news media detailed descriptions of the man and released sketches of his face. The Post-Dispatch published a news brief about the body being discovered, noting only that he was 5 feet, 10 inches tall, weighed about 160 pounds, had a three-day beard, and was wearing only socks.
He had no tattoos, distinguishing marks or injuries hinting at his identity.
Investigators at the time combed through missing person reports and attempted to match his fingerprints to those in national and state crime lab databases.
Nothing worked.
But while police searched for Olson’s family, Heston said the family had already scattered from 51ºÚÁÏ â€” she moved frequently, moving from Valley Park to St. Charles County back to 51ºÚÁÏ County and then living in New York City for a time. Her parents had moved to Amarillo, Texas, in the 1980s and her other brother had also moved to Texas.
So they never came forward, but she said they often wondered what had happened to Olson. Her mother kept a box full of mementos of Olson, including his high school class ring, family photos, and other keepsakes.
“We knew something must have happened, but you never really know,†she said.
But when investigators called her in June to share the news, her first thought was that brother, who would be 76 today, was somehow still alive.
“As time went on, my hopes diminished,†Heston said. “I knew it was going to be less and less likely that he was going to still be alive.â€
As one of Olson’s two surviving siblings, she said the family has no immediate plans to visit his gravesite in 51ºÚÁÏ, to take his remains to Texas to be buried alongside his parents or to put a headstone at his grave in 51ºÚÁÏ.
“I’m just not a very sentimental person,†she said.
Daughter of cold case victim, Deanna Howland, praises police for DNA breakthrough on 2004 murder of her mother.
