Due to the diligent efforts of a Kentucky State Police civilian employee, a 30-year-old missing persons’ case has been solved.

In May of 2014, the KSP Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) Section received prints from a 1984 death investigation from Dr. Emily Craig, Regional Systems Administrator with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).

The prints had been submitted to the Jefferson Co. Sheriff’s Office and the Jefferson County Corrections Department in 1984, but they were unable to identify the victim. The prints were entered into NamUs in 2008.

Keith Dollinger, a forensic specialist analyst with KSP AFIS, was asked to review the missing person’s case due to his familiarity with the NamUs system. Initial examination suggested that the victim’s prints had been improperly recorded at the time of the autopsy.

In reviewing the fingerprints, Dollinger recognized, based upon pattern classification and ridge-flow within the fingerprint pattern, that one set of prints appeared to be transposed (left-hand fingerprints on a right-hand strip card and right-hand fingerprints on a left-hand strip card). Searches of the FBI’s AFIS system yielded a match to Roy Andrew Langley, (DOB 11/22/1949), who had been struck and killed in 1984 by a semi-tractor trailer while walking on I-65 near Elizabethtown.

The victim’s sister was located in Texas and formally notified of her brother’s death.

KSP Forensic Supervisor Paul Dorman said Dollinger’s expertise and dedication to his job led to the case being solved.

“Keith’s dedication and desire to make sure every possible test has been done in every case he receives not only solved this case, but provided the victim’s family closure,” says Dorman.

Dollinger is an eight-year veteran of the agency and resides in Simpsonville, Ky.