Owen Beattie

But great mysteries never die.

And in the 1980s, Canadian forensic anthropologist Owen Beattie resurrected the old obsession, relocating the human remains.

I don't think he was prepared for what he encountered on Beach Island, though, which was a level of preservation that was astonishing.

It looked like these men had just died.

After three years of consuming the lead poisoned food, Franklin's men would have been in terrible mental and physical shape.

Desperate to seek food and rescue, the men left their ships and headed south.

Owen Beattie followed the men's trail on King William Island and here he made a grisly discovery.

That's where a tent circle was located and around the outside of that tent circle was a scatter of human remains.

Can you tell me what was found at Beachy Island in 1984?

Yeah, so in 1984, anthropologist Owen Beattie decided to exhume three graves that were buried there.

And they are of John Hartnell, John Torrington and William Brayne.

Now, they were the first of the crew to perish.

They exhume Albert Johnson's body from the cemetery in Aklovac, that's 75 years after the man was forced into that plain wooden box with his bones breaking from the cold.

The team includes forensic anthropologist Dr. Owen Beattie, odontologist Dr. David Sweet, and forensic scientist Dr. Lynn Bell.

Now these are serious people doing serious science.

and they find something that rewrites almost everything the press coverage assumed about Albert Johnson in 1932.