Elton Orlando Jackson was 58 years old when he disappeared from Jackson, Mississippi. Online missing-person records listed him as a Black male who had been missing since January 3, 2017, and his case was classified as endangered missing. The public details available about the beginning of the case are limited, but they describe a man who vanished from his own city with very little known afterward.
According to later investigative information released by Othram, Elton disappeared in 2016 after telling his girlfriend he was going to walk to a nearby store. He did not return. At some point after he disappeared, his phone was returned by an unidentified person, a troubling detail that left more questions than answers for those trying to understand what had happened to him. He was officially reported missing on January 3, 2017.
For years, Elton’s name remained among the missing. His loved ones were left without the certainty that families need, and the case appears to have had few public details that could explain where he went, who last saw him beyond the account involving his girlfriend, or what circumstances may have led to his disappearance. The Charley Project listed the case as originating in Jackson and noted that Elton was 58 at the time he went missing. The spare public record reflects how painful some missing-person cases can be: a person disappears, the official facts remain thin, and the absence itself becomes the story. In Elton’s case, the known timeline began with an ordinary errand, became a missing-person investigation, and then stretched across multiple years without public resolution.
A major break came in March 2023, when human cranial remains were found near a car wash on Terry Road in Jackson, Mississippi. Othram reported that a search of the area did not locate additional remains, and the case was transferred to the Mississippi Office of the State Medical Examiner in Pearl, Mississippi, where it was recorded under identifier ME23-0229. The skull was fully skeletonized and in poor condition, but analysis suggested the remains were likely those of an adult male. The unidentified remains were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System as UP112359. Later in 2023, the Mississippi State Medical Examiner, working with the Jackson Police Department and Hinds County Deputy Coroner Jeramiah Howard, submitted forensic evidence to Othram in The Woodlands, Texas, to determine whether advanced DNA testing could help identify the unknown man.
Othram scientists developed a DNA extract from the forensic evidence and used Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing to build a genealogical profile. Investigators then used forensic genetic genealogy to develop leads, which pointed law enforcement toward potential relatives. DNA reference testing confirmed that the remains belonged to Elton Orlando Jackson, who was born on May 25, 1958. The Charley Project later marked his case as resolved, noting that his skull had been found in March 2023 and that his remains were identified afterward. Although Elton was ultimately located deceased, the exact date of his death is not publicly established in the available sources. His identification did, however, return his name to him after years of uncertainty and gave his family and community an answer to at least part of the long silence surrounding his disappearance.
Elton Orlando Jackson’s case began as the disappearance of a 58-year-old man from Jackson, Mississippi, after he reportedly set out for a nearby store and did not come back. His phone being returned by an unidentified person added a disturbing and unresolved element to the story, and for years his whereabouts remained unknown. In 2023, remains found near a Terry Road car wash opened a new chapter in the investigation, and advanced DNA testing eventually confirmed those remains as Elton’s. The case is no longer an active missing-person case because he was located deceased, though the publicly available information does not provide a known date or cause of death. In overview, Elton’s case moved from a quiet missing-person report in Jackson to a years-long search for answers, and finally to an identification made possible through forensic science, leaving behind both resolution and lingering questions about what happened after he walked away that day.Last Seen: Jan 3, 2017
