Boater finds jawbone belonging to 22-year-old who went missing in 2020, NY cops say

More than a month after a boater found a human jawbone in a river, police in central New York said it belongs to a 22-year-old who went missing in 2020.

Laboratory DNA testing has linked the bone to Matthew Barber who had not been seen since November 2020, according to the Elmira Police Department.

Authorities are continuing their investigation into Barber’s disappearance after the bone was found in the Chemung River, which runs through New York and northern Pennsylvania, the department said in a June 28 news release.

Police said no other skeletal remains were found when the boater discovered the bone on May 11, according to an earlier news release.

Barber, who was described as disabled, was believed to have been traveling to Pennsylvania around the time he went missing, the Elmira Star-Gazette reported.

Now authorities are calling on the public to contact Elmira police at 607-737-5626 if they have any information related to Barber’s disappearance.

Chemung is roughly 180 miles southwest of Albany.

This story was originally published June 28, 2022 at 4:26 PM with the headline "Boater finds jawbone belonging to 22-year-old who went missing in 2020, NY cops say."

Julia Marnin

McClatchy DC

Julia Marnin covers courts for McClatchy News, writing about criminal and civil affairs, including cases involving policing, corrections, civil liberties, fraud, and abuses of power. As a reporter on McClatchy’s National Real-Time Team, she’s also covered the COVID-19 pandemic and a variety of other topics since joining in 2021, following a fellowship with Newsweek. Born in Biloxi, Mississippi, she was raised in South Jersey and is now based in New York State.