Identity of man found dead in 2002 in Nogales hotel now known

The identity of a man found dead inside a hotel room in Nogales two decades ago has been solved thanks to DNA testing.

In September 2002, a man checked to the hotel claiming to be from St. Petersburg, Florida. He had an 8-inch surgical scar along his hairline and told the hotel manager that he’d been consulting a doctor in Mexico about surgery on his head, according to the DNA Doe Project.

The manager later found the man’s body, hours after he had died.

The man was between 49-73 years old, about 6-feet tall with brown eyes. He wore a silver necklace with a “C” medallion.

The name he used at the hotel led authorities to nothing but records of identity theft and fraud. A fingerprint search came back with the name of Donald Hadland, Jr., but investigators were unsure whether that too was a stolen identity.

The death was treated as a John Doe case for more than 20 years.

The Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office on Wednesday said it could not immediately confirm the man’s cause of death. This year the agency approached the DNA Doe Project with this Nogales case.

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Founded in 2017, the volunteer non-profit organization has the goal of helping investigators and law enforcement identify people using genetic genealogy. It creates family history profiles with a combination of DNA tests and traditional genealogical methods, such as oral interviews and historical records.

A blood sample was taken from the Nogales case for DNA analysis by the project in conjunction with the new-Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG) Center at Ramapo College of New Jersey. The undergraduate certificate program teaches students how to conduct research and effectively work alongside investigating agencies and forensics labs.

The profile was uploaded to a database to help law enforcement and investigative authorities match raw DNA files with those in their system. Almost immediately, the name ‘Hadland’ began popping up.

“This case was unique as there was an investigative lead to the identity of Donald Hadland, Jr., to begin with,” Cairenn Binder, the Ramapo program director said in a news release. “Our students … were able to compile additional supporting information using investigative genetic genealogy to demonstrate how Nogales John Doe’s genetic matches were consistent with Donald Hadland, Jr.”

Confirmation of the man’s identity was obtained by a comparison with the DNA of a close family member, the news release said, and thus Donald Hadland, Jr., had his name back.