A man who went over Niagara Falls in 1990 and washed up on the shores of Lake Ontario two years later has been identified. In 1992, the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office found a badly decomposed body on the shore near the Novelis Plant. The individual was estimated to have died between six months and five years before. Despite unsuccessful attempts to identify the remains using missing persons records, in 2008 a DNA profile was uploaded to CODIS with no new leads.
In April 2022, renewed efforts to identify the remains were made. Detective Constable Sara Mummery from the Niagara Regional Police Service in Ontario obtained a new DNA sample from the remains, which was then matched to a family in Buffalo in February 2024. The person was confirmed to be Vincent C. Stack, who went missing at Niagara Falls State Park in 1990.
It was determined that his remains traveled about 15 miles to the St. Lawrence River and then over 130 miles across Lake Ontario before being discovered near Oswego in 1992. Vincent’s family was personally informed of the identification by the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office.
Detective Constable Mummery is actively investigating various missing persons and unidentified remains cases around Lake Ontario. Additionally, the Oswego County Sheriff’s Office is working on a similar unidentified remains case from 1983, hoping to find a resolution through renewed efforts.