The Berks County Coroner’s Office has confirmed the identity of a man found deceased in a cave by hikers near The Pinnacle on the Appalachian Trail, Albany Township, Berks County, on January 16, 1977. He was identified on August 12, 2024 by FBI fingerprint experts as 27-year-old Nicolas Paul Grubb of Fort Washington, PA.
The positive identification of the above decedent culminates the effort to identify him and locate his family. The most recent breakthrough came when a cold case detective for Troop L, Reading Barracks, Pennsylvania State Police located the original fingerprint cards for the decedent and submitted them to NamUs, a national centralized repository and resource center for missing, unidentified, and unclaimed person cases across the United States. In this case, an FBI fingerprint expert was able to determine a match in less than an hour.
This case highlights the difficulty in working cold cases, as well as the considerable effort taken to return unidentified and unclaimed persons back to their loved ones. Over the last 15 years, no less than 10 missing persons were compared to Nicolas Grubb using fingerprints and dental x-rays.
In August 2019, the decedent’s body was exhumed from Potter’s Field in Berks County to extract DNA and re-examine the remains. Both the initial DNA extraction in 2019 and the subsequent genealogical DNA analysis in 2023 failed. A last attempt was considered to perform a facial approximation, but unfortunately the facial bones were broken or missing pieces during the exhumation process. The Coroner’s Office was considering re-interring the remains when the latest discovery was made.
The cause of death was determined at the time to be Overdose of Phenobarbital and Pentobarbital. The manner of death was noted by investigators to be Suicide. Both the police and death investigations are still active until a final determination can be made.
“Nicky” as he was known by family, received an honorable discharge in 1971 after serving with Company C, 1/111th Infantry of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.
The decedent’s next of kin have been notified and were very appreciative of the combined efforts of the Berks County Coroner’s Office, Pennsylvania State Police, Federal Bureau of Investigation and The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
