A ‘John Doe’ found ‘violently murdered’ in a shallow grave in the Florida woods in 1980 has finally been identified as a Marine veteran after decades of mystery.
The badly decomposed body was found in December 1980 in the woods of Pomona Park with a gunshot wound, blunt force trauma to the chest and a fracture to the base of his skull.
Detectives were unable to identify the body or identify a suspect, and the file was closed with the victim known as ‘John Doe #36’ for the next four decades.
Now, new DNA techniques have allowed Putnam County Sheriff’s investigators to identify the victim as father of two William Irving Monroe III, a former Marine and Vietnam veteran.
Sheriff Gator DeLoach said the discovery gave Monroe’s family ‘peace to know we have identified their brother who will be properly memorialized.’
The vet’s surviving son, Michael, who was eight when his father disappeared without a trace, said it was ‘overwhelming… just knowing I wasn’t abandoned’.
After 40 years of mystery, John Doe #36 was identified as William Irving Monroe III
A sheriff’s deputy found the body half-submerged in a shallow grave during a routine patrol in December 1980.
Detectives determined that the victim had died of a gunshot wound to the neck about two or three weeks before the body was found.
He had no identification on him, and through interviews detectives came to believe he was a migrant worker working on a nearby farm. He was buried with a plain metal cross marking his grave and the case went cold.
In February 2023, Captain Chris Stallings reviewed the evidence and contacted DNA testing center Orthram about the case.
They used the latest technology to build a DNA profile and searched a genetic database to build a potential family tree.
This led detectives to his brother and identified the body as that of Monroe.
Through interviews with his surviving family, they determined that Monroe was living in Orlando at the time and that he may have been to Pomona Park because his ex-wife and two sons lived in the area.
One of his sons, Michael, was only eight when his father disappeared, the other, Chris, died in a car accident in 1994. Michael told WJXX that his father was his ‘hero’.
He said: ‘I went everywhere with him so when he was gone it took a lot out of me,’ he said. ‘I’ve wondered about it all my life.
‘Just knowing that he was found and that I wasn’t abandoned as a child… it’s overwhelming, I don’t know how else to put it. It’s shocking.’
Putnam County Sheriff Gator DeLoach announced the identification Friday
DeLoach said that for years after he disappeared, Monroe’s family believed he might have been murdered in the Virgin Islands.
They confirmed that he stopped contacting them in 1980 and they did not know his whereabouts. He was last seen at a convenience store in 1980, and a labor camp driver said he had picked up someone matching his description around the same time.
His family said Monroe suffered from PTSD after fighting in Vietnam.
There are currently no suspects in the case.
