Daughter gets some closure as cold case unit identifies man 23 years later

    SOLANO COUNTY, California (KOVR) -- The Solano County Sheriff's Office has launched the Doe Cold Case Project, focusing on unsolved crimes in the county where the victim's body has never been identified.

New eyes and new technology are leading to new discoveries already within the department.

In its first success story, the sheriff's office announced Wednesday that the project has identified a body they pulled from the Miner Slough in Rio Vista in 2001 as Craig Ott of Sacramento.

"I just miss him. I miss who he was, what he represented in our house," Craig's daughter Sheila Ott told CBS13 while flipping through old family photos. "He taught me a lot. I appreciate every moment and I go over those memories as if they are gold."

Craig, a father of three children, first went missing from his Sacramento home in January 2001. Sheila was 23 at the time and still lived with her dad. She says he took off on his bike to go to a friend's house and was never seen again.

It was not like him to not tell his daughter where he was.

"He was my best friend. Him just up and disappearing created a void, a shock an emptiness that has never been filled and honestly can't be filled," Sheila said.

When Sheila got the news this summer from Solano County investigators that her father's body had finally been identified 23 years later, she was overwhelmed with emotion.

"Disbelief. Shock. A little bit of joy. I've been looking for him as long as I was alive with him. Now I get to bring him home and I get to grieve and have some form of closure," Sheila said.

When Solano County Sheriff's investigators found Craig's body washed up in the water near Ryer Island, they worked for the next year to identify him.

The case went cold and Craig was buried as a John Doe.

"Unfortunately, the technology at the time just wasn't to the standard that it is today to be able to obtain a useable DNA sample," said Jessica Dew, a Solano County deputy sheriff and coroner investigator.

Dew in 2022 pitched the idea for a new cold case unit to her bosses at the department, who loved the idea.

"I started going through some of our old records and learned that we had 23 John and Jane Does dating back to 1963," Dew said.

The Doe Cold Case Project launched last July when they officially reopened five Doe cases, including Craig Ott's, the first to be solved.

"We basically decided that we are gonna start over from a clean slate. We are gonna re-look at every test that was run and redo some of those exams because the science has changed. We know more now than we did 20, 30, 40 years ago," Dew said. "We should be doing all that we can to try and bring these individuals home to their families and provide their families at least some answers."

Thanks to advancements in DNA technology, investigators re-tested Craig's exhumed remains and tracked down Sheila. Her DNA sample made the match.

"We never gave up hope of finding him, we just didn't know where to look," Sheila said.

The Ott family says the final missing piece to this puzzle is figuring out what happened to Craig. They want whoever might be responsible for his death and disappearance to be held accountable.

The family asks anyone with information to please come forward.

"What would you do if it was your dad? If it was your loved one or your family member? 23 years is a lot of time to have questions as to what happened," Sheila said.

The Solano County Sheriff's Office is now investigating the circumstances of Craig Ott's disappearance and death.

Any tips can be provided to Detective Christopher Cavazos at (707) 784-7050 or Coroner Investigator Jessica Dew at (707) 784-7500.

The Doe Cold Case Unit plans to announce another success story next month.