His body washed ashore near the Ontario-U.S border in 2003. Now, police have an ID
The Ontario Provincial Police say the identity of an American man’s body found almost 22 years ago near the Ontario-U.S border has been solved using investigative genetic genealogy, giving his family closure.
On May 29, 2003, a man’s body was discovered from the Livingston Channel Detroit River, just west of Amherstburg, Ont — a small town south of Windsor.
For more than two decades, police were unable to ID the body. The OPP’s Essex county detachment began an investigation and several attempts were made to identify the remains with no positive results.
The man was wearing dark coloured pants, a dark shirt and a winter coat as well as mountain shoes.
In early 2023, DNA was submitted for investigative genetic genealogy to identify the man. A few months later, police said through genealogy support by Toronto Police, a “presumptive” ID was determined.
“In September 2024, a family member’s DNA was used to confirm that the male was 48-year-old, James Raymond Stewart of Detroit, Michigan who went missing in November 2002,” police said.
The following month, Stewart’s family members traveled to Amherstburg, Ont. to visit Stewart’s gravestone.
The family said Stewart was born May 31, 1954. His sister said in a video posted to YouTube by OPP that Stewart was a “sensitive” and “quiet” man. He worked a couple years in the navy in the 70s and then worked in Detroit area restaurants.
The family lived in Arizona and his sister said Thanksgiving was always bittersweet as that was around the time Stewart went missing.
“It’s closure for us because we had no idea,” his sister said. “Both of our parents died and had no idea.”
“So we’re just celebrating the fact that now we have closure … He wont be a John Doe anymore.”
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