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In a mysterious turn of events along the Northern California coastline, partial remains of a 59-year-old banker who disappeared in 1999 have been discovered twice, separated by a distance of five miles and a span of 23 years.
Walter Karl Kinney, originally from San Diego but residing in Santa Rosa at the time of his disappearance in August 1999, became the focus of a perplexing case when a human leg was found on Bodega Head in Sonoma County. The leg, still wearing a size 12 Rockport ProWalker shoe with a custom orthopedic insert, provided the first clue in the baffling mystery.
Without further evidence, investigators at the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office had to put the case on hold. However, a significant lead emerged in 2003, as reported by SFGATE.
A woman from Cleveland, Ohio, reached out to the sheriff’s department, revealing that her father, Walter Kinney, had been out of contact with the family since the 1990s. She noted that although it was not uncommon for him to lose touch due to a history of alcoholism and related legal troubles, the extended silence was concerning.
Upon reviewing Kinney’s medical records, investigators noted his documented foot issues. A comparison with the X-rays of the leg found at Bodega Head confirmed a positive match, providing a crucial breakthrough in identifying the remains.
In June 2022, some 19 years after he was initially identified, a family walking Salmon Creek Beach, approximately five miles north of Bodega Head, spotted a long leg bone with surgical hardware protruding from the sand.
Sheriff’s investigators were called out, but a search of the beach revealed no additional human remains. As the case grew cold over the next several years, investigators ultimately reached out for help.
In 2026, four years after the Salmon Creek Beach discovery, experts at the DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit genetic genealogy investigative organization, helped investigators in Sonoma County develop a DNA profile from the bone, thought to be a tibia.
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Partials remains of Walter Kinney were found approximately 5 miles and 23 years apart along the Sonoma County coastline. (Google Maps) -
The partial remains of Walter Kinney were discovered at Bodega Head in Sonoma County in Aug. 1999. (Google Maps) -
The partial remains of Walter Kinney were found on Salmon Creek Beach in June 2022. (Google Maps)
A team of volunteers began working on the case and quickly found a thread.
“They zeroed in on a family who had moved from the East Coast to California, settling in the San Diego area,” according to the nonprofit. “As they began looking into the descendants of this family, the team came across Walter Karl Kinney, born in 1940. Though Kinney was born in San Diego, he had later moved to Santa Rosa, not far from Salmon Creek State Beach.”
This led to the discovery of a news article about remains that had washed up in August 1999 at Bodega Head. Just eight days after Kinney had been identified as a candidate, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office reviewed DNA Doe’s findings and confirmed that the remains formerly known as the Salmon Creek John Doe did in fact belong to Kinney.
“It’s not often we see someone end up as a John Doe twice,” DNA Doe team leader Traci Onders said. “Thanks to investigative genealogy, we were able to resolve this mystery and provide some answers to everyone involved in the case.”
Just exactly how Kinney died and whether foul play was involved is not known.
In 2003, his daughter described him to investigators as a man who was “smart, sensitive, almost to a fault,” and said, “This world was just too harsh a place for him.”