SPOKANE, Wash. — The Spokane County Medical Examiner confirmed through DNA that pieces of a skull found in the Spokane River belong to a 2015 homicide victim.
DNA from skull fragments found in 2018 and 2020 allowed the medical examiner's office to identify the remains as Bret Snow, a homicide victim who was reported missing by his family in 2015. The medical examiner's office was able to test DNA from those skull fragments using forensic genetic genealogy.
Snow was first reported missing back in 2015 which led to a search and, ultimately, a homicide investigation by the Spokane Valley Major Crimes Detectives. Snow's body was never found but four people have been convicted in relation to his death since 2019.
In 2018, a small piece of a human skull was found by a man fly fishing on the Spokane River. Two years later, another piece of skull was found in a different area of the river.
Both pieces of evidence were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons Systems (NamUs) in June 2022. After sending the remains for DNA testing, DNA profiles showed that both fragments were from the same person. A DNA sample was later collected from Snow's mother, which confirmed the remains found were Snow.
Other unsolved cold cases from the greater Spokane area have been solved due to the same genetic genealogy testing. Recently, the Spokane Police Department solved a decades-old murder, Ruth Belle Waymire who was murdered in 1984.
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