Tucson, Ariz. (KGUN) — In 2002, Edward C., a hotel in Nogales, checked into a room. I showed the front desk person my ID and it turned out he was from St. Petersburg, Florida.

It was a long way from Arizona.

However, on September 8, 2002, the hotel manager found him dead.

And to the surprise of many…his name was…not Edward C. It was Donald Hadland Jr.

Karien Binder, director of the Research Genealogy Certificate Program at the University of New Jersey’s Ramapo, began studying the case in February with students at the university.

They partnered with the DNA Doe Project and the Pima County Coroner’s Office.

But this John Doe had two names, which made the case difficult.

“The fingerprint match results were returned to Mr. Hadland, but they were insufficient to produce identification because the accounts and information were inconsistent,” Binder said.

So they used a blood sample taken from the body and used Gedmatch PRO, a DNA matching program.

The students also began to draw the Hadland family tree.

“The match we saw with Mr. Hadland in the database was pretty close, enough to quickly identify him as Mr. Hadland,” Binder said.

They reported their findings to authorities and compared them to the DNA of their next of kin.

That was the breakthrough for the incident. This John Doe was confirmed to be Hadland.

Binder and the students may be done with this, but their work isn’t done yet. They will continue to take cases from Arizona.

The real satisfaction for them is the lasting impact they made by solving the case.

“We have more cases in Pima County and we are working on more cases in Arizona, and we look forward to the next identification,” Binder said.