LAFAYETTE, Ga. -- The Walker County Sheriff’s Department is hoping to help solve a 55-year-old missing person case.

A body was found in the Walnut Grove area in Walker County in late June 1953. The remains were never identified and the case remained unsolved.

Now investigators are wondering if it could be 19-year-old Ronald Tammen Jr., a sophomore who disappeared from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in April 1953.

The plan is to use technology that was unavailable in the 1950s to perform DNA tests on the remains and compare the results to DNA from Tammen’s living siblings, Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said.

If there is a match, the case would be upgraded to an active homicide investigation, he said.

“The next task would be, ‘could we ever find who was responsible for his death?’ Wilson said. “Those odds are very slim after 55 years, but I know the family of the three siblings who are still alive would certainly like to know one way or another if that is their brother that was found here in 1953.”

“We are in the early stages right now,” Wilson said.

“About six weeks ago, we had started looking into some old cases of unsolved potential homicides and this was one of the ones that had came to mind,” he said.

Walker Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Freeman started researching the case and timeline over the Internet and through old newspaper clippings, Wilson said. Freeman discovered the similarities to the body found off U.S. 27 and the missing Tammen case.

“The similarities to the autopsy report from this body that was found in Walker County were just striking -- a lot of similarities -- and that really sparked our interest at that time,” Wilson said.

After contacting the Sheriff’s Department in Butler County in Ohio, the links between the two unsolved cases began to be investigated.

“Right now we are hopeful and optimistic, and things are looking like they (the remains) could be this young man,” Wilson said.

According to Sheriff Wilson, U.S. 27 runs through Oxford, Ohio.

In the July 1, 1953, edition of the Walker County Messenger, an article, “Man’s Body Remains Unidentified; Found Near Walnut Grove,” describes the discovery of the decomposing body.

“The body was found last Wednesday in a clump of bushes about 20 feet from Rogers Road near Walnut Grove and about 200 yards from U.S. Highway 27, about five miles from LaFayette,” the article reads.

The unidentified man was described as 5-feet, 9-inches and 155-160 pounds, with dark brown hair and between ages 25 and 30.

The body had been decomposing in the area for at least a month and honeysuckle had grown through his hair. Scissors were used to cut the vines away from the scalp.

The body was eventually buried at LaFayette City Cemetery.

Tammen went missing on April 19, 1953. He was said to have been 5-feet, 10-inches and 175 pounds.

He was last seen around 8:30 p.m. that day, when he was issued fresh bed sheets, because someone had placed a fish in his bed.

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The Oxford (Ohio) Press: “Investigation of Ga. remains seeks to end mystery of Miami student missing since 1953”

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