Sixty years after a homicide victim's remains were found in western Illinois, he has been identified as a California teenager who had been missing since 1965.

The remains were identified as Ronald Joseph Cole of Fillmore, California, which is about 25 miles from Santa Clarita, California, by the DNA Doe Project.

The Ventura County Sheriff's Department said he was formally reported missing on Oct. 25, 1983, though he had vanished nearly 20 years earlier. Family told police they suspected he disappeared under suspicious circumstances, and that his half-brother was responsible.

While his half-brother was named as a prime suspect, Ventura County deputies weren't able to find any physical evidence of a crime, a crime scene or find Cole or his remains, and the half-brother died in 2007.

The missing person's case remained open in California.

Meanwhile, in 2024, the Henry County Sheriff's Office in Illinois began to review a cold case involving skeletal remains that found on Oct. 27, 1966 near a creek southeast of Geneseo, Illinois. Among the remains were a human skull with an obvious bullet hole, law enforcement said.

The sheriff's office asked the DNA Doe Project to help identify the remains, which they sent to Astrea Forensics, a lab that specializes in extracting genetic profiles from highly degraded forensic samples.

On Saturday, the remains were identified as Cole's through matches with family members.

The Ventura County Sheriff's Office said the Henry County sheriff holds jurisdiction to investigate the homicide.