Author Topic: OLD SAYBROOK JOHN DOE: M, 30-35, found in the Connecticut River in Old Saybrook, CT - 31 March 1998  (Read 215 times)

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http://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Missing-in-Connecticut-Giving-a-name-to-the-11547255.php

Missing in Connecticut: Giving a name to the 'missing missing,' databases and DNA may help identify unnamed remains (video)

Michelle Tuccitto Sullo, Investigations Editor

Published 12:00 am, Saturday, February 4, 2012


The region's nameless dead have been found floating in the Connecticut River, hidden in ditches and dumped in forests and near highways. Around the state, human remains have been found by street sweepers, hunters, hikers and passers-by and unearthed by construction crews.

Police have worked for years trying to figure out who they are -- a young woman found murdered in East Haven still remains nameless after 37 years.

East Haven police Detective Sgt. Bruce Scobie said police would like to solve the mystery, know her name and capture her killer.

Scobie, a father himself, thinks about Jane Doe's parents and relatives.

"You wonder if this person had family somewhere at one time," Scobie said. "Are they out there wondering? Did they pass on, never knowing what happened to her? It is hard to believe no one ever missed her. There must be someone out there with a story of a friend or cousin who disappeared. Someday, I'd like to hear that a name has been put to her."


According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Crime Information Center, the country's number of unidentified deceased was at 7,551 as of Jan. 1. However, it isn't mandatory for law enforcement to enter all cases into this database, according to a center spokeswoman.

FACEBOOK PAGE: Missing in CT

RELATED: Investigators hope circulating photos will help identify unknown remains

U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy, D-5, who has proposed the federal "Help Find the Missing Act," or "Billy's Law," in honor of missing Waterbury man William Smolinski Jr., estimates there are 40,000 sets of unidentified remains nationwide. Murphy's proposal seeks to create an organized system to match remains to missing people, and an incentive grants program for law enforcement and medical examiners to report information to NCIC, the U.S. Department of Justice's National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, and the National DNA Index System.


"Unless you put information about unidentified remains on NamUs, you are cutting out the most important investigators, the loved ones of the missing," Murphy said, as NamUs is open to the public. "The Internet is perfectly positioned to solve these cases, yet we aren't using it to its capacity."

On Friday, NamUs, which launched in 2007, listed 41 cases of unidentified remains found in Connecticut, going back to 1972. It listed 8,165 open unidentified remains cases for the country.

While various databases can help match the missing to the unidentified, investigators frequently aren't using all available databases. Older cases predate DNA extraction technology. In many area cases, the unidentified bodies were buried, so investigators don't have DNA to add to databases unless they exhume the bodies.

Of the 41 cases of unidentified remains listed on NamUs for Connecticut, only three show DNA samples have been submitted, with no DNA samples taken even for many cases in years when the technology was available, the site shows.

Under state law effective in October 2011, in cases involving remains where homicide is suspected, the office of the chief state medical examiner has to obtain tissue samples, bone and hair for DNA typing, and these samples must go to the Division of Scientific Services within the Department of Public Safety.

While several cases of unidentified remains from years ago have been added to NamUs in recent months, the NamUs list isn't complete. State Victim Advocate Michelle Cruz said plans are under way for statewide training for law enforcement on how to use NamUs.

East Haven's Jane Doe, for example, isn't on there yet, though police say they are considering including her.

A truck driver found her body Aug. 16, 1975, in a drainage ditch behind a department store on Frontage Road. The white woman was found wrapped in a canvas tarp with black wire around her neck, waist and knees. Her cause of death was asphyxiation by suffocation, according to police.

Police have circulated an artist's rendering of the brunette, who is believed to have been 18 to 28 years old. They have featured her case on The Doe Network. This has led to occasional leads, but none have led to Doe's identity.

Scobie said police are discussing exhuming her body from a Hamden cemetery to try to get DNA from her remains.

Police have Jane Doe's dental records, but she was found in an era that pre-dates the widespread use of DNA testing, Scobie said.

Scobie said having her DNA may not lead to any matches, because there may not be DNA available from women who went missing back then for comparison.

"Exhuming her body is something that has been discussed," Scobie said. "If the laboratory said there would be viable DNA, we would probably do it."

Also, while an artist did a rendering of Doe years ago, Scobie said computer technology has advanced so much that using her skull today could result in a more accurate image of what she looked like.