Human Skull Found In 1986 In Bucks Identified: DA

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified where Richard Thomas Alt lived. He is from Trenton, N.J.

MORRISVILLE, PA —Authorities have identified the human skull found on the banks of the Delaware River more than 35 years ago as a Trenton, N.J., man.

Richard Thomas Alt was identified using a private forensic DNA laboratory based in Texas, Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub said Monday.

Alt was 31 years old when he was reported missing to the Trenton Police Department in early 1985.

Bucks County Detectives partnered with Texas-based Othram Inc. to use forensic-grade genome sequencing and forensic genetic genealogy to identify Alt, authorities said.

Alt 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, Mercer County.

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.

This investigation began in June 1986 when a fisherman found a human skull on the banks of the Delaware River by the Morrisville Boat Ramp.

The fisherman lived in Buckingham Township and took the skull to the Buckingham Township Police Department. 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.

In September 2022, Bucks County detectives retrieved the skull from the Coroner’s Office and sent it to Othram, Inc. in Texas, for forensic genealogy testing.

Earlier this year, officials from Othram 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 Richard Thomas 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.

The investigation was conducted by detectives with the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office, the Bucks County Coroner’s Office, the Trenton Police Department, and Othram Inc.

Othram, the world’s first private DNA laboratory built specifically to apply the power of modern parallel sequencing to forensic evidence, was founded in 2018, and is located in The Woodlands, Texas.