MOHAVE COUNTY, Ariz. – Human bones found 15 years ago by workers pouring cement near the Hoover Dam have finally been identified as a Michigan man.
Bones discovered
This story dates back to Nov. 11, 2009. Workers had been contracted to pour cement for the Highway 93 widening project in Arizona.
They took a break at mile marker 3 near the Hoover Dam. While they were standing on the west side of the highway, one of the workers saw what appeared to be a bone, according to the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office.
Two men walked around the area and found more bones. They thought they looked like human bones, so they told a supervisor.
When the supervisor called National Park service agents, a police officer on traffic detail called deputies with the sheriff’s office.
Agents and construction workers searched the area further and found more bones, a sun-bleached pair of jeans, a damaged white towel, a sun-bleached red T-shirt, one black shoe, and a green sleeping bag, officials said.
During another search a few days later, officials said they found more remains.
All items were sent to the Mohave County Medical Examiner’s Office, but despite an investigation that continued for years, no match was made.
DNA tests fail
A detective got one of the bone samples from the medical examiner on Feb. 2, 2022, and sent it to the Arizona DPS lab for a DNA profile. He wanted to submit it into the Combined DNA Index System to identify the person.
Another sample was sent to the University of North Texas, where an extracted DNA sample was stored for analysis and ID purposes.
But the person was still not identified.
Funding for case
Investigators learned in April 2024 that a genetic lab in Texas had received grant funding to pay for forensic genealogy testing in this case.
The sample extract at the University of North Texas was sent to the lab to create a DNA profile and upload it to a genealogy database.
Ancestors identified
Earlier this month (October 2024), investigators learned that the bones belonged to a person descended from ancestors born in the mid-1800s and living in Michigan.
Officials interviewed possible relatives and found out that they hadn’t seen their brother, William Herman Hietamaki, since he visited his sister in New Mexico in 1995.
The last his siblings knew, Hietamaki had been traveling in the southwest United States.
Positive identification
Those conversations led officials to conduct reference testing on Hietamaki’s siblings, and that confirmed that it was his remains that had been found in 2009, according to authorities.
Hietamaki was born April 4, 1950, and lived with his family in the Trout Creek, Michigan, area.
He went to high school in Michigan and then mechanic’s school after graduation.
He left the state to travel. Hietamaki was known for hitchhiking and living a “nomadic liftstyle,” officials said.
Medical examiners couldn’t determine his cause of death, but they believe he died between 2006 and 2008.
