S.C. Police Chief's Genealogy Hobby Helps Identify 'John Doe' Found Dead in Pool in 2016

A local police chief’s quest to uncover his family history led him to solve a nearly decade-long mystery surrounding an Horry County death.

At the end of October 2025, Pawleys Island Police Chief Michael Fanning’s self-taught skills as a genealogist helped identify the body of Malquan Tyreek Hawkins. Hawkins was a “John Doe” in the coroner’s office since being found dead in a Myrtle Beach area swimming pool in February 2016.

Hawkins’ identification was difficult because he was taken into Department of Social Services custody as a young child, adopted, then put back in DSS custody as a teenager, eventually aging out of the North Carolina foster care system. The Horry County Coroner’s Office believes he last lived in the New Hanover County area but has ties to Edgecombe and Nash counties, according to an email from Chief Deputy Coroner Tamara Willard.

Hawkins’ remains were claimed by his biological family, according to Willard’s email. It was made possible by Fanning and several other genealogists who donated their time to the case.

How genealogy is helping name the dead in Horry County

The case of the infamous Golden State Killer, a serial killer in California in the 1970s and 1980s, was the first to be solved through genetics and genealogy, Fanning explained. In the case, genealogy and genetic data helped connect the killer to relatives and reveal his identity.

“Since then, obviously it’s been a major tool for law enforcement,” Fanning said.

While Fanning had been refining his genealogy skills on his own time for years, Hawkins’ identification was the first time he used this expertise in his police work. However, he always loved piecing together a puzzle.

Years ago, the coroner’s office had run Hawkins’ DNA and done a basic genealogy report on him, Fanning said. Fanning joined the identification effort around 2024, helping to “build out” the family trees related to Hawkins and find relationships between them. Using Hawkins’ DNA profile, Fanning and other genealogists were able to look for his relatives by sleuthing out mutual DNA matches.

Fanning described the process as exhausting. Using documents and paper trails, the genealogists would piece together tentative family trees, but when they went to fill in gaps with DNA research, they often found their research being taken in new and unexpected directions.

It wasn’t until 2025 that Dena Chasten, another genealogist working on the case, discovered a DNA match in Philadelphia that ended up being a half-sister of Hawkins. This new lead allowed the team to uncover Hawkins’ name, which they were then able to use to uncover bits of his past through newspaper articles and more research.

Eventually, the genealogists confirmed that the Malquan Hawkins they’d been led to was the John Doe in the coroner’s office.

While Fanning helped provide closure on Hawkins’ case, his work isn’t done yet. Fanning plans to continue offering his genealogist skills to investigations — such as the effort to identify a body discovered around the time of the 2023 Myrtle Beach Bike Week.

The main identifying mark possessed by the body found in 2023 is a tattoo with an eagle that says “army.” Authorities shared an image of this tattoo with hopes that someone would recognize it, but so far, the body remains unidentified.

A first step in this case on the genealogy side was running the John Doe’s fingerprints and DNA through the Army’s databases, Fanning explained. Next, he plans to start looking through online databases, in a process similar to the one that identified Hawkins.

Quest for family history led to solving Horry County case

Fanning doesn’t have formal training as a genealogist. His understanding of family ties and DNA clues were born out of a curiosity about his own family history.

On his mother’s side of the family tree, personal histories were murky, Fanning explained. Rumors swirled in his family about where their ancestors settled and who they were, but Fanning wanted to know for sure.

Fanning started digging into the “paper trail” of his family’s history, tracing documents and information to uncover his ancestors. Eventually, he connected his family to the Hull family, who settled in the States shortly after the excursion of the Mayflower. One of his ancestors was even an early founder of the village of Barnstable in Massachusetts.

Further back down the familial line, Fanning’s family came from English aristocracy.

Fanning’s curiosity didn’t stop there.

He began to venture into the DNA side of genealogy, combing through “consumer index” DNA databases. These are services such as Ancestry.com and 23andMe, where paying customers submit their DNA to a vast database with hopes of learning more about their own backgrounds. When distant relatives submit their DNA samples to these services, the databases can connect them to one another.

That’s exactly what happened for Fanning. Through these services, he was able to connect with many distant cousins who had also submitted their DNA. He even had his parents submit samples, because they were one less generation removed from potential connections, strengthening the results, he explained.

The DNA evidence helped him confirm what he’d discovered about his family through paper trails, and opened up a new world of research to him. Eventually, he helped several friends who were adopted connect with their biological parents by using this acquired expertise.

Fanning, hailing from New York, joined the NYPD in 1986, where he used his investigative skills in different ways, serving on a hate crimes unit, negotiating hostage situations and more. In 2006, he retired and moved to Pawleys Island, taking an officer post at the local police department just a few months later around April 2007. Eventually, he took over as the department’s leader.

Lack of data, trust creates barriers for law enforcement

The data available for genealogy research differs between independent researchers and law enforcement. Sometimes, restrictions on the data law enforcement has access to can make solving cases more difficult, Fanning said.

Commonly used DNA testing databases like Ancestry.com and 23andMe don’t allow their data to be used for law enforcement investigations. If Fanning tried to use one of these databases for his police work, the company could ban him and put a stop to his investigating for good, he explained.

Two databases do make their data available to law enforcement — GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA — but these sites are far less popular among consumers looking into their genetics, according to Fanning.

Fanning said there is often distrust from consumers about offering up their DNA data to law enforcement, which he understands.

However, he encourages people to move their data over to these sites that can be used in investigations, because the more data is available, the easier it becomes for law enforcement to solve tricky cases through genealogy.

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