The mystery of a blackened human jawbone, found on a New South Wales Central Coast beach almost three years ago, is one step closer to being solved.
The mandible was found by Woy Woy resident Toyah Evans when she was walking her dogs along Umina Beach in June 2020.
Following the discovery, police scoured the sand for more clues but the mystery has since been unravelled by experts from across the country.
The latest theory is that the bone belonged to a teenager who drowned off the coastline more than 80 years ago.
Emeritus Professor Richard Wright, an anthropologist, told the ABC he found a newspaper article detailing the drowning of a 15-year-old boy near Umina Beach at Ettalong in 1940.
The boy's body was never recovered.
"I put that to the police as a lead and that's what they're following up now," he said.
"They're seeing if they can get a match with the DNA extracted from the mandible and one of the relatives that are alive now."
Father, son both drowned
Mr Wright said he started digging into the archives after a colleague, bioarchaeologist Bonnie Clark, raised the possibility that the bone was older than initial police theories suggested.
The newspaper article that Mr Wright found revealed that a 15-year-old boy, Donald Montgomery, fell overboard while on a boat at Ettalong in July 1940.
His father, Samuel, dived in to save him, but neither survived.
Forensic odontologist Phil Kendall analysed the jawbone when it was first found on Umina beach in 2020.
His scans revealed the likely age of the person.
"I think I estimated [they] were about 15 — plus or minus a year," Dr Kendall told the ABC.
Preserved by peat
Mr Wright said it was likely the mandible turned black after being preserved in peat.
"I'm sure it was at one time or another embedded in black peat," he said.
"[The peat] formed during the end of the last ice age, when sea levels were low and these were swampy valleys."
Forensic anthropologist and archaeologist Penny McCurdle, who has also worked on the case, said all the pieces were adding up.
"I'm getting excited but not overly excited … I know these things don't always work out," she said.
"But yeah, quietly confident and hopefully it'll be great to get a result and put this little fella to bed — put him to rest."
NSW Police have confirmed that samples of DNA from living relatives of Donald Montgomery have been sent, along with the jawbone, to the United States for testing.
News shared on police podcast
The breakthrough was reported in a NSW Police podcast this week.
"Every line of inquiry is leading us to believe that it is Donald … even the family themselves," Acting Inspector Donna Bruce told the podcast.
"It's just great that we now have this technology that can confirm it, definitively, that the bone belongs to that person."
DNA test results are expected back within weeks.
