After nearly 50 years, DNA testing and genealogy research reveals what happened to CNY man missing in Alaska

Gary Frank Sotherden, of the town of Clay, disappeared while trapping in a remote area of Alaska in 1976. He was 25 years old. The Alaska State Police now have used DNA testing and genealogy research to identify the man from a human skull found by a hunter years ago. This photo was taken of Gary in 1972. (Provided photo)
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Brewerton, N.Y. — Nearly 50 years ago, Gary Frank Sotherden disappeared while trapping in a remote area of Alaska. His loved ones back in Central New York never knew for sure what happened to the 25-year-old man.

Now, cold case investigators with the Alaska State Police have identified the missing man from Clay using DNA and genealogy research. A DNA sample from his brother back in Brewerton helped solve the case.

Gary Sotherden grew up in the town of Clay, graduated in 1969 from Cicero High School, and traveled to rural areas throughout the United States and Canada after school. He was working on the trans-Alaska pipeline before he decided to go on a trapping trip north of the Arctic Circle.

It was around that time, the fall of 1976, when Gary went missing near the Porcupine River in northeastern Alaska.

“You always have hope,” his brother, Steve Sotherden, of Brewerton, said in an interview with Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard Sunday, “but we now know what happened to him...”

Gary’s friend who also went on the trip said they should stay on the same side of the river so they could work together, but Steve said his brother said, “no, he wanted to do it himself and be in his own area, on his own side of the river.”

“He was very independent and loved the outdoors, and he liked to do things the way he wanted to do things,” Steve said.

When Gary’s family and friends hadn’t heard from Gary by the spring of 1977, Alaska state troopers, search planes and his friend went looking for him.

Gary’s parents hired a mountain guide who was friends with Gary back in high school to help in the search, Steve said. The guide found Gary’s campsite, his driver’s license and broken glasses. Gary’s family assumed he was dead, but always still had hope, his brother said.

Twenty-one years after Gary went missing, a hunter found a human skull on July 23, 1997 along the Porcupine River, eight miles west of the Canadian border. But Alaska state troopers could not find the rest of the remains, state police said in a news release last week.

The state Medical Examiner’s Office suspected the man had been mauled by a bear, they said. Steve later learned the skull had bear teeth marks in it.

Police, however, could not identify the person killed from the skull alone.

The Sotherden family back in Central New York was still left wondering what happened to Gary.

The family had put a headstone for Gary at the family plot at Pine Plains Cemetery in Clay. It read: “Son. Gary Frank Sotherden. 1951-1977. Lost in Alaska.” (The family originally thought Gary died in 1977, but now believe he died shortly after his trip began in the fall of 1976, Steve said.)

Gary’s parents, Donald and Lucile Sotherden, died before learning what happened to their son.

This Aug. 12, 2009 photo shows snow-covered hills in the Porcupine River Tundra in Canada not far from where a skull was found years ago in Alaska. Investigators haved used genetic genealogy to help identify the remains as those of Gary Frank Sotherden, of Clay, NY, according to a statement Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023, from Alaska state troopers. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)

It wasn’t until the Alaska Crime Lab extracted DNA from the skull last April that cold case investigators had any idea who the remains might belong to. Genetic testing and genealogy research tentatively pointed to Gary Sotherden, state police said.

Steve Sotherden said state troopers in Alaska called him this past December to tell him about the remains. They had a DNA match from a second cousin, but asked Steve for his DNA to confirm the remains were those of his brother. He agreed and a Cicero police officer came to his house to collect a DNA sample, he said.

When he found out it might take a while for that DNA to come back, Steve’s wife suggested he provide DNA he had previously done from an at-home genetic testing service for faster confirmation. That worked, he said.

Steve said for years he thought maybe his brother fell through the ice, but learned exactly how his brother died when he read the medical examiner’s report. “It was much more brutal than I had hoped,” he said.

Steve said he finds solace in the fact that he spoke to Gary the day before he flew out for his trip.

“I remember saying to him, ‘Please come back and visit us. You haven’t seen us in years and you’re going to be in the (outdoors) alone for months,” Steve said. But Gary was committed to his trapping trip and told Steve he couldn’t change his plans.

His family never heard from him again.

The Sotherdens gave police permission to send Gary’s remains to a funeral home. The funeral home has since cremated the remains and sent them to his brother in Brewerton. Steve said he received his brother’s remains about a week ago.

The family plans to have a gravesite service in the town of Clay in late spring or early summer when the family can gather.

“He was very calm and kind, but also a free-spirit who did the things he wanted,” his brother said.

Have a tip or a story idea? Contact Catie O’Toole: cotoole@syracuse.com | text/call 315-470-2134 | Twitter | Facebook.

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