Missing teen’s remains headed home after 39 years of waiting and wondering
Decades of questions have been answered after DNA testing confirmed a missing Michigan teen was buried in an unmarked Georgia grave.
Since 1979, law enforcement officers working 785 miles apart have been trying to solve a dual mystery — what happened to Drew Greer of Addison, Michigan, and who was the unidentified 15-year-old killed on a Bibb County highway on Valentine’s Day?
Remains exhumed in April at Macon’s Evergreen Cemetery belong to Andrew “Drew” Jackson Greer, who ran away and presumably was headed to Florida nearly 40 years ago.
Retired Bibb County sheriff’s deputy Anthony Strickland never gave up on identifying the John Doe whose funeral he attended not long after becoming a law enforcement officer.
Michigan State Police Sgt. Larry Rothman breathed new life into the missing person cold case in 2014.
“This case kinda stuck with me early on,” Rothman told The Telegraph last spring while in Macon for the exhumation.
Drew’s family had gone to the media, hoping to find out what happened to him.
Rothman reopened the case and added Drew’s information into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, known as NamUs.
After his retirement in 2000, Strickland couldn’t let the case rest and periodically searched on his computer for information.
Rothman had just about given up when he prayed for a break and got it.
Strickland found Drew in the database and phoned Rothman 39 years to the day that the young man disappeared on Feb. 12, 1979.
They worked with the Bibb County District Attorney’s Office to secure a court order for the exhumation and arrange for the GBI Crime Lab to extract a DNA sample for testing.
Assistant District Attorney John Regan even called for a chaplain to be at the graveside as the remains were unearthed.
Strickland and Rothman gathered in a prayer circle April 17, each knowing in their hearts that their quests were nearing an end.
The DNA was sent to the University of North Texas where a forensic analyst showed the sample was 1.9 trillion times more likely to be from Drew Greer than not.
“Together, the DNA results and police reports conclude they are one in the same,” a Michigan State Police news release stated.
The news came too late for Drew’s parents.
In 2015, Greer’s father and namesake died not knowing what happened to his boy.
Drew’s mother passed away two years later.
Authorities are working to return his remains to surviving family members.
The young man who died while hitchhiking on Interstate 75 is going home.
Information from Telegraph archives contributed to this report. To contact writer Liz Fabian, call 478-744-4303.
This story was originally published August 15, 2018 at 6:29 AM.