Partial human remains found in a wooded area near the Tulalip Indian Reservation in Snohomish County, Washington, on May 16, 2016 have been identified as those of Tyler Ronald Sullivan by the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office working with the Firebird Forensics Group. The remains consisted of a human skull with four upper teeth but no jaw. Despite extensive efforts by various agencies, the person's identity remained unknown until Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG) was employed by Firebird Forensics Group to help solve the case.

Authorities entered information about the remains into databases such as the National Missing and Unidentified Persons (NamUs) and the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC), but there were no matches to dental records in the NCIC database. A section of the occipital bone was sent to the University of North Texas for mitochondrial DNA extraction, and the resulting file was uploaded to the CODIS database. Through this process, it was determined that the unidentified person was an adult Caucasian male. A forensic artist, Natalie Murry, produced a
sketch based on the remains, but these investigative methods yielded no results in terms of identification.

In 2018, DNA was extracted from two teeth and an autosomal DNA SNP profile was created. This file was uploaded to two genealogical databases, GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA. Participants in the Firebird Forensics Group, including Barbara Rae-Venter and Junel Davidson, identified a close relative of the unidentified person in less than 60 working hours. The Snohomish County Medical Examiner's office contacted this relative, who confirmed that a family member, Tyler Ronald Sullivan, was missing and that he had disappeared on October 29, 2013, in the area of the Tulalip Resort Casino. Dental records were later matched to the cranium, and the family member’s DNA was compared with that from the remains to confirm Tyler’s identification.

Authorities are still seeking information about what happened to Tyler Sullivan.