Posted 10/3/21


Officials say a young hitchhiker who died in a car crash in Ider, Alabama in 1961 and was buried in a grave marked “UNKNOWN” has finally been identified through DNA testing.

The Hitchhiker was Killed when a vehicle from which he’d accepted a ride crashed and plunged into a river in Bibb County, the hitchhiker didn’t have any identification. Community members raised money for his burial, and a tombstone was engraved with the date of the wreck… March 27, 1961.

Coroner CW West said a team of genealogists using DNA from the body confirmed the remains to be those of 15-year-old Daniel Paul “Danny” Armantrout. They've contacted a surviving brother, who plans to come to Alabama later this year.