DNA Testing Identifies Portland Skeletal Remains as Missing Man Robert Horton

Two people exploring a wooded area near River View Cemetery in Southwest Portland made the discovery on Dec. 19, 2004, finding skeletal remains beside a fabric lean-to, cooking pans, food and clothing. Two decades later, those remains have been identified as Robert Lee Horton, a 47-year-old man who disappeared in 2004 after his family moved from Hawaii to Portland and lost contact with him when he failed to retrieve mail sent to him.

The original examination could only narrow the remains to a man between 45 and 55 years old, about 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-9. Investigators could not determine the cause or manner of death, leaving the case frozen in the worst possible category of unknown: a person with no name and no explanation. In 2010, a DNA sample was sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification for sequencing, but the profile produced no match in the Combined DNA Index System, and searches of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System and other databases also came up empty.

The case broke open years later, after the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office received a grant in 2018 that allowed advanced DNA work through Parabon NanoLabs. An additional bone sample produced an SNP profile, and in 2022 a genetic genealogy report linked the remains to distant relatives. Investigators reopened the case in 2025 after the Human Identification Program contacted Parabon for new leads, and by early 2026 Horton had emerged as the strongest candidate. Family members then provided DNA that confirmed a parental relationship with Horton’s mother, allowing Oregon State Police to formally identify the remains through kinship testing.

Parabon says genetic genealogy blends SNP analysis with public DNA databases and traditional records such as census files, vital records, obituaries and newspaper archives. The Horton identification also fits a larger Oregon pattern. In the state’s 2022 collaboration with Parabon, 43 cases were submitted, 39 produced sufficiently close matches for investigative genetic genealogy, and 21 identifications were confirmed, with nine more awaiting confirmation. Parabon also said Horton’s case marked its 200th positive identification from the Snapshot DNA analysis division since the company began offering the service to law enforcement in May 2018.

Portland Police Chief Bob Day said the identification brings a measure of closure to Horton’s family. The name is back in the record now, but the answer to how Robert Lee Horton died still sits in the same woods where his remains were found.