In June 1997, skeletal remains were discovered in a grassy area of Holopaw, an unincorporated community near St. Cloud, Florida.
St. Cloud is a city in Osceola County, located by East Lake Tohopekaliga, just south of Orlando.
Travelers who had stopped by Highway 192 found the remains and reported them to the Osceola County Sheriff's Office.
Upon investigation, authorities determined the remains belonged to a man, approximately 5'9" to 6'1" tall and weighing between 200 and 225 pounds.
He was estimated to be between 50 and 70 years old at the time of his death.
At the scene, the man was found wearing size 12 Nike tennis shoes, beige pants (size 40x32), and a dark blue polo shirt.
A handgun was also recovered, and it was concluded that the man had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Despite efforts to identify the man through the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) as case UP534, no matches were found, and the case went cold.
The man came to be known as Holopaw John Doe, named after the area where he was discovered.
In 2023, the Osceola County Sheriff's Office turned to Othram, a forensic laboratory in Woodlands, Texas, to see if advanced DNA testing could help identify the man.
Othram’s forensic genetic genealogy team conducted research that provided new leads.
Investigators followed these leads and reached out to potential relatives of Holopaw John Doe.
They collected DNA samples from these individuals and compared them to the unidentified man's DNA profile.
This led to the positive identification of the man as William Wallace Stabler Jr., born on January 23, 1933.
Further investigation revealed that William Wallace Stabler Jr. had a history as a career criminal.
In April 1960, he escaped from a prison camp in Weott, California, where he was serving a sentence for first-degree robbery.
He had been transferred there from San Quentin Prison.
After a few months on the run, he was captured and brought back to Humboldt County for trial.
Throughout the 1970s, Stabler continued his criminal activities, including multiple robberies, and was eventually caught following a high-speed chase where he fired at police officers with a rifle.
Despite his criminal behavior, Stabler maintained a pen pal relationship with one of the officers he had shot, which continued until his parole.
In 1981, Stabler shot at two police officers responding to a domestic violence call in Corte Madera, California.
To evade capture, he forced a man at gunpoint to drive him out of San Francisco, then stole the man's car to continue his escape.
By the time of his identification in 2024, Stabler still had active warrants for his arrest in Marin County, California.
Stabler’s case gained nationwide attention when he was featured on the TV show "America’s Most Wanted."
This exposure generated tips, including sightings of him in New York during the early 1990s, where he was reportedly seen shopping at a Banana Republic store with his Doberman Pinscher named Daisy.
It was also reported that he was working as a video game repairman.
The last known photo of Stabler was from 1988, when he was arrested in Los Angeles under the alias "William Hudson."
For over two decades, there had been no solid leads on his whereabouts.
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