John Doe Identified in Cape County

GORDONVILLE, Mo (KBSI) – Human remains found in Cape County.

After 40 years, John Doe was identified as 59-year-old Louis Charles Borchers of Gordonville, Missouri.

According to dnasolves.com  Dr. Jennifer Bengtson along with students of Southeast Missouri State University and Cape Girardeau County Sheriff’s Office worked together in identifying remains.

Bengston says, “It’s always a collaborative effort, but we have been able to help law enforcement agencies from different parts of Missouri to resolve their long term unidentified human skeletal remains cases.”

Hannah Fulton is an undergraduate at Southeast Missouri State University and she says her part in the discovery was extensive reading and looking through hundreds of newspaper files. Fulton shares, “It’s a lot of reading, it’s very reading intensive and that can tend to really bore a lot of people but it’s something that I really enjoy.”

Fulton says she has interest in exploring a future with archival research within the anthropology field,  “Anthropology is a holistic field so it really all ties in together. This has been just super interesting to me.” 

Borchers was institutionalized at the Farmington State Mental Hospital, about 63 miles away from Gordonville.

Records indicate that he walked away from the hospital and was not heard from again.

The wooded area where remains were discovered was on land that had previously been owned by his family and where he was known to have enjoyed spending time in his younger years.

No foul play is suspected in his death.