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INUVIK - The Mad Trapper could have been an American or Scandinavian, but not a Canadian.

Those are the results forensic anthropologist Lynne Bell of Simon Fraser University in B.C. discovered recently by analyzing one of the legendary figure's teeth.

Lynne Bell, a forensic anthropologist, worked with a team of researchers to figure out that the Mad Trapper was not Canadian-born. - photo courtesy of Lynne Bell

In 1932, Albert Johnson, as he was also known, sparked a six-week territory-wide manhunt after shooting a police officer. He was eventually shot and killed and was later buried in an Aklavik grave.

In an effort to find the true identity of the former outlaw, the Canadian Police Research Centre got in touch with Bell based on her groundbreaking research using human tissue to determine where a person was raised. She then joined a team of researchers working to find out more about Johnson.

Bell measured oxygen isotope levels from a sample of the trapper's tooth enamel and determined they weren't consistent with water systems found in Canada.

Tooth enamel stores samples of the isotopes called 'signatures' which are found in drinking water. The measurements came out similar to those found in the U.S and Scandinavia.

"Those signatures are different depending on where you live geographically. For instance, our teeth, as they form, store information from the environment that we're living in and those signatures come from mostly drinking water and food," said Bell.

Her work was featured on the documentary The Hunt for the Mad Trapper, which premiered on TV's Discovery Channel last week.

Bell also studied a tissue sample from the trapper's femur and determined he ate a lot of corn.

She also studied a piece of his fingernail, which she said offered an idea of what he ate during the last six or seven months of his life, which coincided with the period he was on the run.

She measured nitrogen levels found in the fingernail which would indicate the amount of protein he ate. Though his nitrogen levels were way down, she said, he wasn't at the stage of starvation when he was killed. In fact, she said he was found with a dead squirrel.

Bell said it's frustrating her experiment couldn't be more precise about the origins of the Mad Trapper, but added that might be appropriate for a man who has remained elusive for so many years.