MONROE — Using new advances in DNA testing, authorities have identified the partially decomposed skeletal remains found in a wooded lot in Monroe County in 1986.

Monroe County Sheriff Troy Goodnough on Thursday announced that the remains found Oct. 17, 1986, were those of Shaun Daniel Brauner of Detroit. They were found on Albain Road, west of Lewis Avenue, in Ida Township, Mich.

At the time, Dr. Suwait Kanluen, assistant medical examiner in Wayne County, ruled the death a homicide, noting that the man died of massive head injuries. Medical officials initially believed the body to be that of a white man in his early 20s but later adjusted their estimate to between 35 and 45 years of age.

What officials did not know at the time, and what would not be proved conclusively until November, was that the remains were those of a man who went missing from the Detroit area in the summer of 1986.

In June, 1986, Ronald Wnuk told police he had fatally struck his landlord, Mr. Brauner, with a baseball bat. He claimed self-defense, alleging that Mr. Brauner attacked him with a screwdriver as they argued about overdue rent and a broken furnace, according to media reports at the time.

That summer, Wayne County prosecutors felt there was not enough evidence to proceed with charges against Mr. Wnuk, who was thought to have dumped Mr. Brauner’s body in the River Rouge.

The case remained dormant until the fall of 1989, when actor Harrison Ford, who doing research for an upcoming role — chief deputy prosecutor Rusty Sabich in Presumed Innocent — spent time shadowing officials in the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office. As part of his research, Mr. Ford allegedly sat in on a “charging conference,” a time when prosecutors and investigators re-examine case files that had not yet been charged. Mr. Wnuk’s case was the one reviewed that day.

On Nov. 3, 1989, Mr. Wnuk was arrested for Mr. Brauner’s murder.

Mr. Wnuk was acquitted by a jury on June 26, 1990. A month later, he sued the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office and members of the Detroit Police Department. According to media reports at the time, he alleged that then-Wayne County Prosecutor John O’Hair decided to charge him after having a conference about the case with the actor.

“It was literally a dead issue since June of 1986,” Mr. Wnuk’s then-attorney, Lawrence Strauss, told the media at the time.

The lawsuit was dismissed in June, 1991.

While Mr. Brauner’s murder case had been adjudicated, Monroe county officials still did not have a name to go with the remains found in the woods off of Albain Road.

In 2018 DNA was extracted from the remains, and officials were able to enter a partial DNA profile into the Combined DNA Index System. Despite being in CODIS, officials were unable to identify the remains.

In late 2021 Monroe County officials were notified that the National DNA Index System had found a possible association with a “family reference sample.” The sample possibly belonged to a sister of the man.

A detective from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office met with the possible family member and learned that her brother, Mr. Brauner, had been missing since June, 1986. With a DNA sample from Mr. Brauner’s sister, officials reached out to Othram, a DNA lab in Texas, for assistance.

Othram is able to extract the DNA from bones and can also do forensic genealogy.

DNA collection and analysis has advanced significantly in the past 10 years, according to an Othram official. In the past, DNA in CODIS consisted of only 20 markers. Using current technology, Othram is able to create up to 1 million data points for a single piece of DNA.

“We compared the profile from the bones to the DNA profile from a potential sister. When you do a comparison, you can see the amount of DNA shared between two individuals,” said Colby Lasyone, Othram chief of staff.

“Removing DNA from bones is tricky,” Mr. Lasyone said. “When you are talking about the identification of an individual you have to be certain, the technology we have developed helps to remove uncertainty in this case and many others. When you remove that uncertainty, you can draw final conclusions.”

Testing in November confirmed the remains were those of Mr. Brauner.

On Thursday, citing Mr. Wnuk’s acquittal in 1990, Sheriff Goodnough announced the Monroe County sheriff’s homicide investigation into the remains found in Ida Township is closed.

First Published March 13, 2025, 1:51 p.m.