SONOMA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA — Authorities have identified partial human remains found on Salmon Creek Beach in Sonoma County, California, in June 2022 as those of Walter Karl Kinney, a former banker who vanished in 1999. The remains were discovered by a family searching for seashells.

Kinney, 59, of Santa Rosa, California, was last seen on August 10, 1999. The identification marks the second time remains belonging to Kinney have been discovered and identified along the Sonoma County coastline.

The long bone found in 2022 contained surgical hardware and came to be associated with a person dubbed Salmon Creek John Doe. A DNA profile was developed from the bone and uploaded to the GEDmatch database in January 2026.

Investigative genetic genealogists with the DNA Doe Project linked the bone to Kinney's missing person case after conducting forensic tests and tracking down some of his relatives. The team working on the case found a family that had moved from the East Coast to the San Diego area and came across Walter Karl Kinney's name while looking into that family.

During their investigation, the team found an article about human remains that had washed ashore in 1999 south of Bodega Bay. In 2003, a woman contacted investigators about her father, who had been missing since August 1999. Remains found in 1999 were identified using X-ray records as those of the woman's father shortly after she contacted police in 2003. This information helped connect both sets of remains to Walter Karl Kinney.

"It's not often we see someone end up as a John Doe twice," said Traci Onders, team lead at the DNA Doe Project. "But thanks to investigative genetic genealogy, we were able to resolve this mystery and provide some answers to everyone involved in this case."

"Thank you to the DNA Doe Project for helping us put a name to the human remains found at Salmon Creek Beach. We value this partnership as we continue working together to identify remains found in Sonoma County," said Eddie Engram, Sheriff of Sonoma County.

No other remains were unearthed at Salmon Creek Beach in 2022. Kinney's daughter described her father as smart and sensitive and said that the world was too harsh a place for him.