Coroner Identifies 'Boy X' 35 Years Later

By: Associated Press | NBC4i.com
Published: February 05, 2009

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DAYTON, Ohio -- A coroner says long-unidentified remains found in 1974 have been positively identified as an Ohio teenager missing for 35 years.

The Montgomery County Coroner's Office says DNA tests identified the remains of the child known as "Boy X" as Jimmy Dean Johnson.

The 14-year-old ran away from a Cincinnati home for trouble children shortly before the body was found, bound and beaten, near a railroad embankment in Dayton.

Officials exhumed the remains in October after the boy's sister, Rosie Johnson, contacted the Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab.

Johhson, who lives in Alabama, had read a Dayton Daily News article about the case and suspected "Boy X" might be her long-lost brother.

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