Forensics: Canada can't claim Mad Trapper
In 1932, Albert Johnson, as he was also known, sparked a six-week territory-wide manhunt after shooting a police officer. He was eventually shot and killed and was later buried in an Aklavik grave.
[Forensic anthropologist Lynne Bell of Simon Fraser University] measured oxygen isotope levels from a sample of the trapper’s tooth enamel and determined they weren’t consistent with water systems found in Canada.
She also studied a piece of his fingernail, which she said offered an idea of what he ate during the last six or seven months of his life, which coincided with the period he was on the run.
She measured nitrogen levels found in the fingernail which would indicate the amount of protein he ate. Though his nitrogen levels were way down, she said, he wasn’t at the stage of starvation when he was killed. In fact, she said he was found with a dead squirrel.
