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Two staff members with the Utah Division of State History say they are not persuaded by evidence behind the recent announcement that a southeastern Utah burial site near Comb Ridge contained the remains of long-lost wanderer Everett Ruess.
Issues surrounding the burial site, the bones it contained, and subsequent DNA tests linking them to Ruess' living relatives are so numerous that only another round of "independent" genetic and forensic studies will settle the matter, say Kevin Jones, state archaeologist, and Derinna Kopp, physical anthropologist, in a joint statement titled "Everett Ruess: A Suggestion to Take Another Look," posted last week on the division's Web site.
"The case of Everett Ruess is of such a high profile that it is imperative to leave no stone unturned," according to Jones and Kopp. "We're not suggesting that the mystery of Everett Ruess's disappearance has not been solved. We do hope, however, that additional, independent studies will be conducted to address questions that still remain."
The Utah scientists claim the burial site's skeleton was damaged by the FBI and other officials before it could be examined. They also state that no investigator reports have been opened for peer review.
Discovery of the burial site on Navajo land, and initial forensic analysis linking fragments of skull bones found there with a photograph of Ruess, was announced in the April/May issue of National Geographic Adventure . In a May 7 follow-up, a team of biologists and anthropologists at the University of Colorado in Boulder, in association with National Geographic, stated that extensive DNA tests linked the bone remains with those of Ruess' closest living relatives.
Some who have studied and followed the legacy of the artist and romantic vagabond, who disappeared near Escalante in 1934, said they support the call for additional studies. "If there's no other DNA test, there's always going to be that lurking suspicion that it wasn't him -- so the mystery goes on," said Ken Sleight, an expedition leader living in Moab, Utah, who discovered markings left by Ruess in southern Utah.
While Ruess family members are satisfied with the work and conclusions of the U.C. Boulder studies, they have no objections to more studies on the remains, said Brian Ruess, a software salesman living in Portland, Ore., and nephew to Ruess. "For the time being we are not going to cremate the remains," he said. "If deemed appropriate, we may submit them to further study."
In a phone interview Wednesday, Jones repeated his questions about the identification process. The surface of the skeleton's teeth seem work down by a stone-grown corn diet, routine
"I'm not convinced that it's him," Jones said. "A lot of people threw aside their skepticism with the announcement of the DNA tests. They don't realize that DNA is just another line of evidence, and can yield mistakes as well."
As might be expected, Kenneth Krauter, a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at U.C. Boulder who oversaw the DNA tests, and his colleague Dennis Van Gerven, an anthropology professor, bristle at the implication that their original studies on the remains weren't independently produced. Both said they performed copious hours of analysis on the remains without pay. Neither of them were aware of the Ruess mystery prior to their work on the remains.
Krauter said DNA from the bones was no more degraded than many saliva samples he examines that travel via post. "In fact, DNA preserves quite well in a hot and dry environment," he said. "Courts of law require use of 13 markers for DNA tests. With this test it was 600,000 markers. I'm puzzled by people who think that's not likely to be correct."
Van Gerven said his analysis of the bones excluded every chance that they were not the remains of Ruess before they were passed on for DNA testing. Ruess was also known to live on and off American Indian reservations since the age of 16, which could account for the skeleton's ground-down teeth.
"We have found the remains of someone with a striking facial similarity to Everett Ruess, with a striking similarity to the skeletal development of an Anglo man who died in his early 20s, and who shares approximately 25 percent of approximately 600,000 nucleotides with the living relatives of Ruess," Van Gerven said. "If this isn't Everett Ruess, what's the other most probable explanation?"
