CANTON, Ohio (WEWS/WXYZ) — A mysterious John Doe Case that baffled Stark County, Ohio, investigators for a few decades has been solved.
The skeletal remains of a man found in 2001 have been identified as Anthony Gulley from Pontiac, Michigan.
The identification finally provides some answers for Gulley's relatives, who desperately tried to figure out what happened to the young father for more than three decades.
"I always said, 'I pray before I go, I can find out whatever happened to my brother.' I wanted some answers. I wanted some closure," his sister Elizabeth Gulley said.
Investigators told WEWS, WXYZ's sister station in Cleveland, Ohio, that Gulley was 24 years old when he was murdered in Michigan in 1994. His remains were discovered about 250 miles away on private property near an oil well on Trump Avenue in Canton Township in 2001.
"The bones were bleached white back in 2001, which would indicate that they had been out there for some time and had a large exposure to the sunlight," said Sgt. Bryan Johnson with the Stark County Sheriff's Office.
For more than 20 years, the identity of the person bewildered investigators. In fact, detectives originally thought it was a woman.
However, in 2023, Johnson sent the remains to Ohio State University, where anthropologists determined this was a John Doe, not a Jane Doe.
A facial reconstruction revealed in 2023 showed the remains were that of a Black male between the ages of 21 and 44. Leads from the public came in, but possible names were ruled out through DNA testing.
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"Once again, we hit a wall," Johnson said.
But Johnson didn't give up. He sent DNA from the remains to the DNA Doe Project, and using genetic genealogy and social media searches of missing people, the organization came up with Gulley's name as a possible match.
"When they told me they had a name for our John Doe, I was ecstatic," Johnson said.
For Gulley's two daughters, Raven Williams and Yoshi Carroll, it finally brought an answer to the question that haunted them for 31 years: where is my dad?
When asked if she thought the day would ever come that her dad would be found, Williams said, "Absolutely not."
After Johnson told the family about a possible match, relatives agreed to DNA swabs, which ultimately confirmed Gulley's identity.
"It's life-changing. It's something that you just never think you're going to receive," Carroll said. "It's a different type of weight lifted off our shoulders."
For Elizabeth Gulley, it's hard to put into words what it meant to find her brother after all this time.
"I shed a few tears, but it was more of — finally," she said. "It didn't seem real. It felt like in the moment, I was living like a CSI moment."
She told WEWS that her brother didn't show up for his job at a car dealership in September of 2023. Less than two weeks later, his rental car was found burned up in Akron, but there was no sign of Anthony Gulley.
WilLiams and Carroll were ages 3 and 4 at the time and have little to no memories of their dad.
"We've had to spend, again, over 30 years just trying to cling to each other, Carroll said.
Detectives determined the victim was shot and killed in a Pontiac hotel before his remains were dumped in Stark County.
Johnson said the suspect, George Washington — who also went by Ricky — got into a shootout with Akron police in 1994 before shooting and killing himself.
While charges can't be filed against Washington following his death, a report from the Stark County Sheriff's Office indicates "it is believed that Anthony Gulley was killed by Ricky Washington."
For the family, giving Anthony Gulley his name back doesn't bring justice. The family believes they'll finally experience closure when they bring him back home within a month.
"He's not home with us yet. When he's here, his remains are here, then maybe I can use the word closure," Williams said.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and Stark County Sheriff Eric Weisburn will release more details on the case at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. BCI Criminal Intelligence Analyst Samantha Reeb and Traci Onders with the DNA Doe Project will also be in attendance.
