Genetic genealogy linked the long-unknown man to relatives in Texas and California.
ST. PETERSBURG, FL — Police in St. Petersburg say they have identified a homicide victim who was known only as “John Doe” since a 1980 motel shooting, using modern DNA testing to put a name to the man nearly 46 years after he was killed.
The identification closes one of the city’s oldest unanswered questions in a double-homicide case and gives the victim’s family a chance to grieve with certainty. Investigators say the man had no identification when he died, and fingerprint checks at the time did not produce a match. Decades later, advances in forensic testing and family-tree research, paired with reference samples from relatives, allowed detectives to confirm who he was.
The victim was identified as Johnny Lee Bradshaw, who was 29 when he was shot to death in April 1980, police and the medical examiner’s office said. Detectives said Bradshaw was from Tennessee and had family ties that later helped investigators trace him. The Tampa Bay Times described him as originally from Texas. For years, police knew his face only through an artist’s rendering and a few items recovered in the case, including a distinctive Italian horn pendant he wore. Investigators circulated those clues, hoping someone would recognize him, but the trail went cold.
Bradshaw died alongside another man, Jack Roy Davis, in a shooting at the Siesta Motel on 34th Street, detectives said. Davis was identified immediately. Bradshaw, the second victim, remained unidentified and became known in records as St. Petersburg John Doe. Investigators said both men had been shot in the head. At the time, detectives interviewed witnesses, collected evidence and tried to build a picture of who the unknown victim might be. Without a name, they struggled to track his last movements, his friends, or why he was in the motel room.
Detective Wallace Pavelski, who has worked cold cases for the St. Petersburg Police Department, said the lack of tools in 1980 made identification difficult. There was no usable paper trail, no ID card in a wallet, and no quick database match that could connect the victim to a missing-person report. Police said he had no fingerprints on file that could be compared to existing records. “He didn’t have any ID on him,” Pavelski said in an interview shared by the department. “He didn’t have any fingerprints on file. And obviously, back then, we didn’t have DNA in the system.”
Even after DNA testing became common, detectives said early technology often did not help in cases involving older remains or limited evidence. In 2010, investigators exhumed Bradshaw’s body in another attempt to identify him, and his remains were kept at the medical examiner’s office for testing and review. That effort still did not produce a name. The case sat in the background of St. Petersburg’s homicide files, marked by one clear fact: one victim had a full identity and story, and the other did not.
Over time, investigators also pursued the homicide side of the case. Detectives said a man and woman from Knoxville, Tennessee, were identified as suspects soon after the killings. The man, Kyle Watson, and his girlfriend, David Ann Thomas, came under suspicion as investigators tried to piece together the events surrounding the motel shooting. But police said the case took a dramatic turn before detectives could bring the pair back to Florida to face arrest.
After returning to Tennessee, Thomas shot and killed Watson, according to investigators. Thomas was later convicted in connection with the St. Petersburg double homicide and served prison time, authorities said. Police and outside reports have described her conviction as tied to her role in the crime, including driving the getaway car and being an accessory after the fact. Investigators said she later died. With Watson dead and Thomas no longer alive, the criminal case around the suspects became harder to pursue, and questions about motive and the victims’ ties to the suspects lingered.
Still, detectives kept the identification effort alive because naming a victim can reshape an investigation, even decades later. A name can point to a hometown, a job, a circle of friends, old records and old grudges. It can also bring forward people who stayed silent because they did not realize the victim was someone they knew. Police said that for years, their best public-facing clues were the artist’s rendering and the Italian horn pendant, a type of charm sometimes worn as jewelry. The details were entered into national systems for missing and unidentified people, including a listing in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
The breakthrough came when investigators turned to forensic genetic genealogy, a method that blends DNA sequencing with family-history research. Police said they submitted new samples from the case to Othram Labs in Texas, a private laboratory that specializes in working with difficult or degraded forensic evidence. Othram scientists generated a DNA profile that could be used for genealogy research, and a team then built leads by looking for genetic connections that suggested relatives. From there, detectives followed the trail like traditional investigators do, using names, documents, and interviews to narrow the search.
Police said the work eventually pointed to relatives living in Texas and California. Investigators collected a reference DNA sample from a relative and compared it to the profile built from the unidentified victim, confirming the match and establishing Bradshaw’s identity. Records provided by the testing team and police describe Bradshaw as born Oct. 8, 1950, and missing from Tennessee. Authorities said the confirmation meant that the man long known as John Doe was not a stranger after all, but someone with family who had been looking for him for years.
Bradshaw’s two living sisters told investigators they had been searching for their brother since he vanished in 1980, police said. The news, detectives said, offered a kind of closure that can be rare in old cases. Pavelski said his focus in cold cases is to connect victims back to their families and to restore dignity. “My biggest thing is getting closure for the families and then, putting the victims with the families where they’re supposed to be and getting them buried properly,” he said.
In a statement announcing the identification, the police department praised the mix of persistence and science that finally produced an answer. “Through years of relentless dedication and the use of advanced forensic technology, our detectives have worked tirelessly to restore names, identities, and dignity,” the department said. The statement framed the identification as the last unresolved “John Doe” homicide victim in St. Petersburg, a milestone for a city that has carried the case for nearly half a century.
Even with the identification, many parts of the 1980 killings remain unclear. Investigators have not publicly detailed why the men were at the motel, what happened in the hours before they were shot, or what evidence tied the suspects to the crime. It is also unclear what relationship, if any, Bradshaw had to Davis beyond being in the same room that night. Police said both men were killed at the same location, but the broader story of how their paths crossed has not been laid out in full public detail.
Authorities also have not said whether they consider the homicide fully solved in a legal sense. With Watson dead and Thomas deceased after serving time, there may be no one left to prosecute. Still, investigators often keep old cases open when questions remain about additional participants, accomplices, or the full chain of events. Police have not ruled out the possibility that someone else helped plan the crime, helped cover it up, or knows details that have never been shared with detectives.
The identification may also help detectives fill gaps that were impossible to address without a name. Detectives can now look for any missing-person report tied to Bradshaw, track where he lived, and determine how he traveled to Florida. They can also search for records of contacts or associates who might still be alive. Cold-case investigators often say that even small bits of context, like an address, an employer, or a friend’s name, can lead to new interviews and new information, especially when a community sees a victim as a real person again rather than a case file.
For Bradshaw’s family, the most immediate change is certainty. For decades, the sisters’ search for their brother did not have an ending. Police said the identification gives the family a chance to reclaim him and decide what comes next for his remains. In some cases, families move the victim to a hometown cemetery or hold a memorial that was never possible when there was no official confirmation. Police have not said publicly what Bradshaw’s relatives plan to do, but investigators described the identification as a step toward giving him a proper resting place.
The case also highlights how quickly forensic science has changed since 1980. Detectives noted that even in the early 2000s, testing often could not provide a lead when there was no match in criminal databases. Genealogy-based approaches have opened a different path by linking an unknown profile to relatives who may never have been involved in crime. That shift has led to a steady stream of identifications in Florida and across the country, as agencies revisit cases once thought unsolvable.
For St. Petersburg detectives, the announcement marks a clear end to one chapter and the start of another. The long-unknown man now has a name, but investigators still face the harder task of explaining how he ended up in a motel room on 34th Street and why he was killed. Police have not announced any new arrests, but they said the identification restores Bradshaw’s identity and could help refine the narrative of the double homicide.
As of Friday, police said Bradshaw is no longer St. Petersburg’s last unidentified homicide victim, and the department considers the identification a major cold-case success. Investigators said they will continue to review the 1980 case file for leads that could clarify motive and any remaining unknowns. The next milestone is a fuller accounting of the evidence and the circumstances of the motel killings, now that the second victim’s identity is known.
Author note: Last updated February 14, 2026.