Woman known only as 'Cinnamon,' found dead on a boat off Key West in 1999, identified through DNA

For 27 years, the woman found dead aboard a boat moored off Key West in September 1999 had only a nickname: "Cinnamon." On Wednesday, Oct. 7, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office announced that DNA testing and genetic genealogy had finally given her a name, Cumie Doylene McCutcheon, who was 56 when she died.

The identification came after the Florida Department of Law Enforcement told Keys detectives earlier this year that DNA research pointed to McCutcheon, the Sheriff's Office said. Investigators then collected a DNA sample from her son, and the comparison confirmed the match, according to the agency's announcement as reported by WTVJ NBC 6 and WPLG Local 10.

"I want to thank the men and women of the Sheriff's Office and the FDLE for their hard work on this case and for providing closure to this family," Sheriff Rick Ramsay said in a news release. The Sheriff's Office said it worked with FDLE and the Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office on the case.

A body on a boat, and no name

The Sheriff's Office said the woman's remains were found in September 1999 aboard a liveaboard boat near the Fleming Key and Garrison Bight mooring field, where boaters anchor and live aboard their vessels on the north side of Key West.

A case summary published by Othram, the Texas forensic laboratory that worked on the DNA analysis, gives more detail. According to Othram, investigators found the remains on Sept. 29, 1999, aboard a derelict cabin cruiser off Sigsby Bay after an anonymous caller, who said he was her boyfriend, directed them there and said she had been suicidal. The caller told investigators she went only by "Cinnamon" and had never told anyone her real name, according to the summary.

Her remains were badly decomposed, which made visual identification impossible, and her fingerprints produced no match, the summary says. The Othram summary says her death was believed to have resulted from a possible overdose involving amphetamines and alcohol, and that suicide was considered a possible manner of death. The Sheriff's Office has not said whether the identification changes its view of how she died, and it has not described the case as a homicide.

With no name, no matching prints and no missing person report that fit, the case went cold. She was entered in the national missing and unidentified persons database, NamUs, as unidentified person case UP6210.

How the DNA broke the case

The breakthrough came through forensic investigative genetic genealogy, the technique that pairs advanced DNA sequencing with public family-tree research to find relatives of an unknown person.

According to Othram's case summary, FDLE, working with the Sheriff's Office and the medical examiner, submitted forensic evidence from the remains to Othram's laboratory in The Woodlands, Texas. The lab built a detailed DNA profile, known as an SNP profile, and FDLE's in-house genetic genealogy team used it to search genealogy databases and build out family trees. Those trees produced the leads that pointed to McCutcheon.

The final step was conventional: a direct DNA comparison with her son, which the Sheriff's Office said confirmed the identification.

Othram said the identification is the 71st publicly announced case in Florida in which investigators have used its technology to resolve a case.

One of several Keys cold cases closed this year

The McCutcheon announcement is the latest in a string of decades-old Monroe County cases that FDLE and the Sheriff's Office have closed in 2026 with genetic genealogy and related forensic work.

The table below lists the Keys cases announced this year.

The Jenkins case, which FDLE announced on Sept. 2, followed a similar path. The New Jersey sisters were last seen hitchhiking on Stock Island on May 2, 1973, and their bodies were found the next day off U.S. 1 near mile marker 99.5 in Key Largo, according to FDLE. The agency said its Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy Program accepted the case in 2023 and worked with Othram to develop an SNP profile, and its genealogists identified Snyder as a possible suspect. A DNA sample from a relative collected in 2026 confirmed the link. Snyder died in Idaho in October 2008 and was never charged.

In January, the Schlake identification was paid for through the State Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy Grant Fund on behalf of the Sheriff's Office and the medical examiner, WLRN reported. "Even when cases go cold, we remain committed to providing justice and solace to those affected," Ramsay said at the time.

Florida's investment in genetic genealogy

Florida lawmakers created the grant fund to help local police agencies and medical examiners pay for the expensive sequencing and genealogy work that standard crime lab DNA testing cannot do. Legislative coverage of the bill, SB 678, described a $500,000 annual appropriation administered by FDLE and cited a statewide backlog of roughly 19,000 cold cases, along with about 900 unidentified human remains cases.

Agencies across the state have tapped the program. In Volusia County, for example, the medical examiner's office received about $30,000 to run genealogy analysis on four unidentified remains cases, WFTV reported.

FDLE's own genealogy team does much of the family-tree research in house, as it did in both the Jenkins and McCutcheon cases. "Whether a violent crime was committed two days ago or two decades ago, FDLE will use every resource and technology available to search for answers for the victims and their families," FDLE Commissioner Mark Glass said in announcing the Jenkins findings in September.

What's next

The Sheriff's Office has not released further details about McCutcheon's life before she arrived in the Keys, where she was from, or how she came to be living on the water off Key West in 1999. Officials said only that her son provided the DNA sample that confirmed the identification.

Investigators have not said whether they will seek to reexamine the circumstances of her death now that she has been identified, or whether they have been able to locate the man who called in 1999.

For the agencies involved, the case is another test of how far genetic genealogy can reach back. With the state grant fund in place and FDLE's genealogists working cases in house, Monroe County has now closed cases dating to 1973, 1999, 2014 and 2017 within a single year.