CUYAHOGA COUNTY — The remains of a 20-year-old Ohio man who went missing 45 years ago have been identified.
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On April 23, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost and Dr. Thomas Gilson, medical examiner for Cuyahoga County, announced that the remains of Cleveland resident Danny Lee Mitchell had been identified.
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“Everyone counts, everybody matters – and thanks to forensic advancements, Danny Mitchell’s identity has been restored,” Yost said. “Our team has gone above and beyond to compassionately work this case, reminding everyone that through partnerships, decades-old cases can be solved.”
Mitchell was last seen on April 2, 1980, at a house in the 6300 block of Euclid Ave.
He was described as 5 feet 7 and 150 pounds with a close-cut Afro, according to a Call & Post newspaper story at the time of his disappearance.
The story said he was wearing blue jeans, an orange flowered shirt, and a black jacket, and was known to wear his 1978 class ring from John Adams High School.
Nearly four decades passed before investigators were able to make any headway regarding his disappearance.
In November of 2017, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) unveiled a clay facial reconstruction of a man whose remains had been found in Summit County in February 1982.
Mitchell’s family members reached out to the BCI and provided DNA samples after believing that the clay reconstruction resembled Mitchell. However, the remains were determined not to be Mitchell’s.
Four years later, the remains were identified as Frank Little Jr., who was also a Cleveland resident who had been missing for decades.
In 2020, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office launched an internal initiative to add cold cases to NamUs, a national database of missing and unidentified persons that facilitates comparisons across cities, counties, and states
This revealed a possible match between one of the Cuyahoga County unidentified-remains cases and Mitchell’s.
The remains had been found in May 1980 in an abandoned residence less than a quarter-mile from the house where Mitchell was last seen alive and only several weeks after he was reported missing.
The case had gone unsolved for so long due to DNA testing limitations at the time the remains had been found, and they were eventually buried in Potter’s Field, a Cleveland cemetery used as a final resting place for unknown, unclaimed, or indigent people since the early 1900s.
Investigators used a cluster of scalp hair, which initially did not yield a DNA profile, but after additional testing, provided a partial profile confirming a maternal link between Mitchell’s living relatives and the unidentified remains in 2023.
However, this was still not enough for a conclusive DNA match.
After federal funding was acquired by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to help resolve cases of unidentified remains in 2024, Astrea Forensics was hired to conduct additional DNA testing on the remains.
In February 2025, Astrea successfully developed a DNA profile from the hair sample, which was compared to a DNA sample from Mitchell’s siblings that confirmed the remains found in May 1980 were Mitchell’s.
“We are pleased to provide answers to this part of the investigation so that it may help bring some closure to Danny Mitchell’s family,” Gilson said.
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