Remains of man in Snohomish County cold case identified after 41 years

EVERETT, Wash. — After 41 years, the remains of a man found in Snohomish County have been identified.

After nine attempts from four different labs to obtain a usable DNA sample, the remains were identified last month, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.

A man from Rome, Georgia, 28-year-old Ronald David Chambers, was reported missing in King County by his family in 1979. Chambers was last seen by his wife when he left their SeaTac motel in a rental car on Dec. 17, 1978. His family never saw him again.

Foul play was suspected in his disappearance and a suspect was identified, but without a body, police couldn’t prove a crime had been committed.

Human remains were discovered by a landowner in north Snohomish County on Aug. 3, 1980. The skull showed evidence of a gunshot wound. The unidentified remains were buried in Arlington in May 1981.

“While it was common practice at the time to bury unidentified remains, skeletal remains that are discovered today are kept at the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office until they are identified,” the news release said.

Over the years, the case grew cold.

In 2008, Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office cold case detective, Jim Scharf, and retired Snohomish County Superior Court Judge, Ken Cowsert, began reexamining the case.

On Aug. 8, 2008, the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office entered the case into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, and the sheriff’s office entered the case into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database, but the case remained unsolved.

With the emergence of new DNA technology, Scharf obtained a search warrant in 2011 to have the body exhumed to obtain a DNA sample for the purpose of identifying the remains.

Samples from a bone and a tooth were sent for DNA extraction, but the process was unsuccessful and the remains were kept at the medical examiner’s office.

In 2020, the sheriff’s office received funding from the FBI to have Othram Inc., in The Woodlands, Texas, try to get a usable DNA sample from the remains.

The following year, the lab was able to extract a useable sample and developed a DNA profile that could be uploaded to genealogical databases.

On Nov. 16, 2021, Othram’s genetic genealogists were able to provide the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office with the name of a possible match: Ronald David Chambers.

On Dec. 29, 2021, the relationship was confirmed by Family Tree DNA, and the remains were officially identified as Chambers. In February 2022, dental charts from Chambers’ military records also confirmed the identity.

The suspect in Chambers’ murder, Robert Helberg, was last seen driving the victim’s rental car the day he disappeared.

No arrest was ever made in the case, and Helberg died in prison in 1993.

The sheriff’s office said Helberg is a person of interest in additional homicide cases.

Anyone with information about Robert Helberg’s activities from 1978 to 1985 is asked to contact the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office tip line at 425-388-3845.

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