Man who last saw sister 39 years ago has closure after DNA testing identified her remains
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A man who had been searching for his sister for decades finally has closure thanks to advanced DNA testing.
As CBS 2's Charlie De Mar reported, Patrick Bos last saw his sister, Marie O'Brien, in 1984. He was just 12 at the time.
"It also really saddens me, because I just don't know - we never know what Marie could have been," Bos said.
Bos and is sister grew upon the Chicago's South Side – bouncing from home to home and ultimately placed inti foster care.
"A family wanted to adopt me, but not my sister," Bos said. "It's made a mark on me that has never left. It's a fingerprint. It's a scar."
Bos, who now lives in Los Angeles and works in orthopedics, had always wondered what happened to his sister. So he submitted his DNA into a public database.
"Somehow my goofy brain, I thought, you know, maybe she will show up at my door - or who knows where she's at?" he said. "Or maybe she's incredibly successful."
O'Brien never showed up. But Bos got a call from Joseph Piper – a cold case investigator with the Will County Coroner's office.
"He was almost in tears when he told me that he had been looking for her," Piper said. "They are a 100 percent match as half-brother, half-sister."
"Something really kind of crazy like you see on TV," said Bos. "He said he was a cold case investigator, and this case had been going on since the mid- to late 90s," Bos said. "He goes, you know, 'I wouldn't normally do this,' he goes, 'but I think I found the remains to your sister.'"
Let's back up to 1992 – when a fire destroyed the Rust Craft building in Joliet.
Debris from the demolition was moved to a landfill in nearby Rockdale – and in 1997, an archaeologist digging through the site found human bones.
But they have never been identified - until now.
"It was a lot of work to get to point where we are now," said Will County Coroner Laurie Summers said earlier this month.
The remains were sent off to Othram, a private lab for advanced DNA testing. Indeed it was a match.
"It certainly put a period at the end of that chapter of my life," Bos said.
It is still unknown how O'Brien died – or an exact date. Investigators know she was live in 1993 – a year after the fire – because she received a ticket.
Bos said he plans on reuniting his sister's remains with those of his mother, who passed away in 2018.