Body found on Lake Ontario identified decades later as man who went over Niagara Falls

April 3 (UPI) -- A body found on the shores of Lake Ontario in New York more than three decades ago has been identified as a man believed to have gone over Niagara Falls, before his remains were carried 140 miles.

The Oswego County Sheriff's Office announced the positive identification Tuesday of Vincent C. Stack, 40, whose remains were "badly decomposed and mostly skeletal" when they were discovered in April 1992 near the Novelis Plant near Oswego.

According to the Medical Examiner's office, the unidentified person was believed to have died anytime between six months and five years before the body was discovered. Investigators worked to match the remains to missing persons cases at the time, but were unsuccessful.

By 2008, a DNA profile of Stack's remains were uploaded to the CODIS database, which also yielded no new leads for the next 14 years, according to the sheriff's office.

In April 2022, investigators renewed efforts to identify the remains by obtaining a new DNA sample and comparing it to unsolved cases in the Lake Ontario region in both the United States and Canada.

In February, the sample was matched to DNA collected from Stack's family members. They had reported him missing around Dec. 4, 1990, in Niagara Falls State Park.

Stack was believed to have gone over the falls. According to investigators, his remains would have traveled approximately 15 miles to the mouth of the river, and then more than 130 miles across Lake Ontario, over a period of one year and four months, before being discovered.

Stack's family was recently notified in person by the Oswego County Sheriff's Office about the identification, as investigators thanked a long list of people who have worked on the case over the decades.

"They assisted in obtaining additional DNA samples and were a driving force in bringing closure in this case," the sheriff's office said in a statement, while expressing hope that DNA will help them solve a similar unidentified remains case from 1983.