Joseph Henry Loveless

Joseph Henry Loveless (December 3, 1870 – May 1916), formerly known as Buffalo Cave John Doe, was an American criminal who escaped prison after allegedly murdering his common-law wife, Agnes, with an axe in May of 1916. On August 26, 1979, his torso was discovered in a cave in Dubois, Idaho, followed by his limbs on March 26, 1991. However, it was not until late 2019 that the remains were positively identified as his. The positive identification was made possible by forensic genealogists.

Early life Joseph Henry Loveless was born on December 3, 1870, at Payson, in what was then Utah Territory. His mother, Sarah Jane Scriggins, was from Massachusetts, while his father, Joseph Jackson Loveless, was from Indiana. Both of his parents were early Mormon pioneers from the Latter Day Saint movement.

Murder of Agnes Loveless On the night of May 5 to 6, 1916, Joseph Henry Loveless allegedly hacked and seriously wounded his wife Agnes with an axe while she was asleep in her bed in their hut in Dubois, Idaho, with two of their children. After attacking his wife with a axe, Joseph Henry Loveless quickly fled the scene. According to reports, shortly after Joseph Henry Loveless fled the scene, their seven-year-old son Edison Loveless discovered Agnes Loveless's seriously wounded body covered in blood and ran to neighbors crying for help. When the authorities came to the scene and searched the area, Joseph Henry Loveless was nowhere to be found. As a result of her severe wounds, Agnes Loveless died two days later, on the morning of May 8, at around 7:00 A.M. Reports from the time identify her murderer as "Charles Smith", whom some additionally named as her husband, while their neighbours had testified that Joseph Henry Loveless and his common-law wife, Agnes, had been fighting earlier in the evening of May 5, several hours before he attacked and seriously wounded her with a axe, after she returned from a dance in the city. Charles Smith was one of Loveless's many aliases. This caused Lee Bingham Redgrave, a forensic genealogist with the DNA Doe Project, to speculate that Loveless died in 1916. The cause of death is unknown, though multiple sharp tools were used to dismember his body.

Identification In 2019, Idaho State University anthropologists, Samantha Blatt and Amy Michael, along with Clark County authorities solicited help from the DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit that seeks to identify previously unidentified deceased persons via forensic genealogy. Researchers constructed a genealogical tree for the unidentified remains. Because one of Loveless's grandfathers was a polygamist with four wives, the tree was large, with hundreds of cousins and other relatives. Loveless was considered a plausible candidate, though, as his gravestone was found to be a cenotaph (not accompanied by his remains). Loveless's 87-year-old grandson was identified as living in California, and he agreed to take a DNA test, which confirmed that the remains were those of his grandfather Joseph Henry Loveless.