SANTA CRUZ — With the help of gene sequencing advances, investigators have identified a man found dead of apparent foul play 41 years ago in Natural Bridges State Park.
According to a release posted to the website of DNASolves, an arm of Houston-based lab Othram Inc., the “John Doe” unsolved likely homicide victim was 28-year-old Rodney Alan Rumsey, of Woodland.
In 2022, the California Department of Justice, in collaboration with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, submitted forensic evidence to Othram. The company’s scientists used the forensic evidence to develop a DNA extract and, later, a comprehensive DNA profile for the man. The lab’s in-house forensic genetic genealogy team produced new investigative leads that were sent back to law enforcement, whose investigators determined that Rumsey was born May 25, 1954. Additional details of his life remained sparse, according to Othram.
Santa Cruz Police Department Lt. Karina Ceceña said that the unsolved homicide had now been moved to “active” investigation status, due to the victim’s identification. She confirmed that the department continued to treat Rumsey’s death as a possible homicide.
The Sheriff’s Office, Ceceña said, had access to the body’s DNA evidence through its Coroner’s Unit.
“It’s an open case. Obviously, now we have an ID on the victim so we’re kind of starting over now,” Ceceña said. “We’ll actually interview family and go from there.”
According to Sentinel reports from 1982 and 1983, a hiker had located a “partially mummified” body on the afternoon of Oct. 6, 1982. The decomposed body was lying facedown in thick brush on the eastern shore of the Moore Creek outlet at Natural Bridge State Beach. Rumsey, with brown hair and a 2-inch-long beard, was wearing a Levi’s jacket, two pairs of blue jeans, a red plaid long-sleeved shirt, a dark red vest and a well-worn pair of blue running shoes with brown laces.
The body’s most identifying traits, investigators said at the time, were his two tattoos — one of a red rose with three leaves on his left forearm and the other an Indian skull in black ink with red accents on his right forearm.
Earlier Sentinel reports hint at Rumsey’s long ties to the area. In the papers’ court log briefs on Oct. 28, 1973 — nine years earlier — a Rodney Alan Rumsey, 19, was placed on two years of formal probation and sentenced to 37 days in jail for joyriding.
Othram’s costs for processing the casework were provided by the Roads to Justice program, according to the DNASolves site. The DNASolves database is solely focused on enabling human identification for law enforcement investigations.