It took nearly five decades to identify him, but Pinnacle Man—a body found frozen in a Pennsylvania cave in 1977—now has a name. Berks County Coroner's Office identified the remains as Nicholas Paul Grubb, 27, from Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. They figured it out not with new technology, but by digging through files.
Grubb's body was exhumed in 2019 after dental records linked him to two missing person cases in Florida and Illinois. … Fast-forward to early August, when there was a major break in the cold case. Ian Keck of the Pennsylvania State Police found the lost fingerprint card from Grubb's 1977 autopsy. Keck submitted the fingerprint card to NamUs on August 12, according to Holmes, and within an hour an FBI fingerprint expert matched the Pinnacle Man's fingerprints to Grubb's. One of Grubb's family members was notified by the Berks County Coroner's Office, who confirmed Grubb's identity. The family member asked the office to place his remains in the family plot.
Buried in the details and hidden behind a word, an extremely serious 47-year-old procedural error.
Previously:
• The mysterious case of the dead hiker whose body can't be identified by anyone
• The three 'mummified' bodies found in Colorado were ID'd by stepsister who tried to stop them from camping
