A joint-agency effort including the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office Cold Case Task Force, the Sheriff’s Office Coroner Division and a genealogy lab called Othram helped identify the remains of a man who was lost at sea in 1997.
The remains were identified as Jeffrey Lyndon Hulliger, born May 30, 1960. Hulliger was 36 years old when he disappeared at sea alongside his friend and boatmate Greg Mitchell during a fishing trip off the coast of Moss Landing on January 14, 1997.
In October 2021, a commercial fishing vessel recovered partial skeletal remains ensnared in a net offshore. The body was clothed in a one-piece fleece garment, likely an under-layer for a dry-suit or emergency survival suit. There was no identification, just five keys and two coins.
The remains were transferred to the Monterey County Sheriff-Coroner’s Division, where the initial forensic analysis found the deceased person was a male, likely 35 to 50 years old, between 5 feet 8 inches tall and 6-3 in height. The case was entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, but no matches were found. With no identity and no leads, the case went cold.
In 2022, the Cold Case Task Force opted to try advanced DNA analysis and sent a sample to Othram, a forensic genetic genealogy lab in Texas that has worked with the county before.
From there, a viable DNA profile was created and used to develop investigative leads. Investigators found potential relatives, conducted follow-up interviews and confirmed a familial match through reference DNA testing.
Hulliger and Mitchell had been aboard a vessel called The Salmon Patty when they radioed a distress call, reporting they were taking on water near a research buoy about 12 miles offshore. The Coast Guard launched an extensive search, and even found debris from the vessel, including a survival suit and life preserver, but no bodies were ever recovered. Today, Mitchell remains missing.
According to news reports at the time, the boat was equipped with two survival suits, a life raft, and a satellite beacon, which never activated.
Hulliger’s body had been in Monterey Bay for 24 years before being discovered, earning him the nickname “The Ancient Mariner,” a nod to the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem about a lone sailor’s long and harrowing journey at sea.
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