The Marshals Service in 2018 asked the public for information about Nichols’s whereabouts and activities during this period. The call for tips — using the number (216) 522-4482 — was published in the coverage of the June 2018 announcement. Whether any tips produced actionable information has not been publicly disclosed.
The specific geography of those years is known in outline: Michigan, Oklahoma, and California at various points. But those locations are documented only from Nichols’s own letters to his family in 1964 and 1965 — letters written before the period in question, in which he mentioned current and anticipated moves. Where he went after the 1965 Napa letter, and what he did and who he was from 1965 to 1978, is not established in any source available.
The question of why he chose to formally assume the Chandler identity in 1978 — rather than continuing to live under his real name as he apparently had until approximately 1976 — is also unresolved. Something changed around that period, something that led him to obtain a false identity with new documents rather than simply continuing to live informally. Whether that change involved a specific event, a specific threat, a specific encounter with law enforcement or other authorities, or simply a decision that the informal arrangement was no longer adequate protection, is not known.
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## What the DNA Technique Actually Did
The resolution of this case is worth examining as a technical matter, both for what it shows about how forensic genealogy works and for what it illuminates about the limits of other identification methods.