Sheriff’s Office Identifies Remains of Hunter Who Vanished Near Dos Rios in 2021
Missing person case closed by DNA test of a bone recovered by a fisherman
Nearly five years after a McKinleyville hunter disappeared during a rainstorm, a single bone found by a fisherman has led investigators to identify his remains, the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office announced.
John Thomas Davis III, 48, was reported missing on Oct. 25, 2021, after a hunting trip along Highway 162 near Dos Rios went wrong. On June 16, 2026, the California Department of Justice confirmed that a bone recovered by an Eel River fisherman earlier this year was a positive familial DNA match to Davis’ mother and father, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
The identification brought closure to a search that had spanned nearly five years, a dozen operations, and hundreds of logged hours across Northern California.
Davis and his son left McKinleyville around 4 a.m. on Oct. 23, 2021, to hunt bear and deer near Mile Marker 8 on Highway 162, the Sheriff’s Office said. The pair parked at the bridge, hiked roughly three miles southeast, and set up a tent along the Eel River. In the early hours of Oct. 24, they woke to floodwater pouring into the tent from an overnight rainstorm. Davis chose to stay in the area while his son walked back toward their vehicle. The son waited hours at the car, but his father never arrived. When he returned to the campsite, both his father and the tent were gone.
Family members searched the area on Oct. 24 without success, and the following morning Davis’ son drove to Willits to report him missing.
When deputies reached the area, the Eel River had risen high enough that searching its banks was considered dangerous, according to the Sheriff’s Office. That afternoon, roughly 12 Search and Rescue personnel, deputies, and detectives began combing the area with ATVs and a drone. The initial search turned up nothing.
Over the following 10 weeks, the Sheriff’s Office logged seven operational periods and hundreds of hours with mutual-aid teams from across Northern California. In the years that followed, the effort grew to include National Guard overflights, California Highway Patrol search planes, and Butte County air assets. A 10th operation on July 8, 2022, again found nothing, and the search was suspended pending new leads.
The break came by chance. On Feb. 1, 2026, a person fishing on the Eel River about two miles north of the Dos Rios Bridge found a long bone they believed to be human, marked its location by GPS, and turned it over to deputies. Chico State University’s Forensic Anthropology Department confirmed the bone was human, and detectives asked the state Department of Justice’s Missing Persons DNA Program to analyze it. A renewed search on Feb. 3, 2026, recovered personal items that Davis’ family later identified as possible matches for belongings he carried in 2021. The DNA confirmation followed in June.
The most recent operation, on July 11, 2026, drew more than 70 Search and Rescue volunteers from multiple counties, including a large contingent from the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. Searchers worked the Eel River from Davis’ last known location past the 8-Mile Bridge and the Dos Rios Bridge to the spot where the first bone was found. Additional bones were collected but determined to be non-human; they are being sent to Chico State for formal analysis.