Skull ID'ed As NJ Man Missing Since 1984

MORRISVILLE, PA — Authorities identified a skull found in Pennsylvania as a Trenton man who went missing nearly 40 years ago.

Bucks County detectives concluded that the skull belonged to Richard Thomas Alt — a suspected homicide victim who was reported missing in early 1985. Authorities partnered with Texas-based Othram Inc. to use forensic-grade genome sequencing and forensic genetic genealogy to identify Alt.

A fisherman found the skull in June 1986 on the banks of the Delaware River by the Morrisville Boat Ramp in Pennsylvania.

"I can’t even imagine wondering and worrying about a lost family member for even a day, let alone for 37 years," said Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub. "That wait is now over for Mr. Alt’s family. I’m just glad that we could give them some peace of mind with this identification, and the eventual return of his remains to his family."

Alt, then 31, was last seen on Christmas Eve 1984 by his parents.

At the time of his disappearance, Alt and his girlfriend were suspected homicide victims in New Jersey. Her body was discovered in April 1985 in the Delaware River in Trenton.

The cases remain unsolved, according to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office. The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office considers the investigation closed due to a lack of evidence of any crime being committed in Bucks County.

The investigation began in 1986, when the fisherman took the skull to local police in Buckingham Township, Pennsylvania. Bucks County detectives took possession of the human skull in October 2019 during a probe of a homicide investigation, but then relinquished it to the Bucks County Coroner’s Office.

Later that year, the Bucks County Coroner’s Office entered the skull into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) database.

Last September, Bucks County detectives retrieved the skull from the coroner’s office and sent it to Othram, Inc. in Texas, for forensic genealogy testing. Othram recently contacted Bucks County detectives and told them they found a possible match to the skull on a public genealogy database where users can upload their DNA profile.

Building a profile from a contributor on that database, Othram officials believed the skull belonged to Alt. Bucks County Detectives spoke to Alt's daughter, a 49-year-old Florida woman, on Jan. 4.

The woman told detectives she was 11 years old when her father, Richard Thomas Alt, went missing in Trenton. She said her father’s girlfriend was murdered in 1985 and her father had not been seen since, authorities said.

She agreed to share her DNA results from the genealogy site with Othram. Four days later, Othram returned with a confirmed parent/child relationship match to Richard Thomas Alt.