Author Topic: OLD SAYBROOK JOHN DOE: M, 30-35, found in the Connecticut River in Old Saybrook, CT - 31 March 1998  (Read 214 times)

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Police have widely distributed the man's image, even featuring his case on America's Most Wanted's website. His dental records were submitted to the American Dental Association and the Department of Defense's dental unit, according to Mercer.

Police do not know the victim's cause of death, so they don't know if there was foul play, Mercer said. They also do not have his DNA, Mercer confirmed.

"We could not submit DNA as there were some restrictions at the time, and we really did not have a cause of death," Mercer said.

Exhuming the body, such as for DNA testing, isn't likely until police can locate someone linked to him, according to Mercer.

Police distributed descriptions of the man's clothing, and because of the lighter he had, even contacted the National Lighter Museum in Oklahoma, hoping for leads and clues to his identity. The lighter model was widely distributed, police said.

"It is all to no avail," Mercer said. "I had always hoped to identify him before I retire. A lot of time was expended, but with no results, I'm afraid."

Milford police are still investigating two unidentified remains cases that date back to the early 1990s.

On Aug. 21, 1992, people walking in the woods off Oronoque Road in Milford found the body of an Asian man in his early to mid 20s. The victim had been shot multiple times and rolled up in a rug. His case is listed on the NamUs database. The site indicates DNA testing was not done, but investigators do have his dental X-rays. He is also on the Doe Network.

Also in Milford, on March 24, 1994, a city public works crew found a male headless torso in a bag, also near Oronoque Road by the Housatonic River. The torso case hadn't been entered into NamUs as of Friday.

Officer Jeffrey Nielsen, spokesman for the Milford police, said both cases are active investigations. Investigators received an inquiry on the torso case as recently as December from Canada, but the remains didn't match, according to Nielsen, who said the torso case likely hasn't been put on NamUs because of the lack of identifying information.

"We are hopeful any open investigation can be solved," Nielsen said. "One of the obstacles for the torso case is that there are no dental records or fingerprints to go off of, no limbs with tattoos, which are all helpful in identifying. When these cases happened, DNA databases weren't available."

"You need to have identifying information on the people -- you need things for comparison," Nielsen said.

Lee said he was involved in investigating the Milford dismembering case.

"That victim was more than likely not from Connecticut," Lee said. "No missing person matched that individual. Either the person was from another place and came to Connecticut and was killed here, or was murdered someplace else and dumped in Milford."

According to Lee, while technology has improved for identifying remains, investigators still face obstacles such as time and staffing. "Technology has changed tremendously -- we now have databases," Lee said. "Police departments are pretty busy and have new cases. Sometimes, when nobody in a family is pushing and police have new cases, and the laboratory people have a big backlog, a lot of cases fall through the cracks, with nobody really pursuing them. It is possible, if they were focused on, they would be solved. Reviewing the cases takes a lot of time and manpower."

Lee noted that the National Cold Case Center at the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science at the University of New Haven has had success at solving old cases, but investigators have to ask for their assistance.

State police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance said he doesn't know exactly how many unidentified remains cases there are in the state.

Vance said he doesn't think staffing at the laboratory is an issue.

When asked why it is so difficult to identify these people, Vance said, "Sometimes there are no identifiers, or there is nothing on file to compare them to, even if the information is entered into a database."

Kenna Quinet, associate professor of criminal justice, law & public safety at Indiana University-Purdue University, said some long unsolved cases may fall under the category of the "missing missing," or unidentified people who were never reported missing.

These individuals often are prostitutes, homeless, drug addicts, children who have been kicked out of their homes, undocumented immigrants, or people who lost contact with family and friends, according to Quinet.

"There's really two levels, one group of people who are never missed by anyone, and others who are eventually missed but there is a significant delay in the missing report -- days, weeks, months, even years," Quinet said. "That obviously makes for a difficult investigation for police."

"I think we are underestimating the number of homicides and the number of serial murders in the U.S. because we are not counting the 'missing missing,' and some people are not only never reported as missing, but we never find the body," Quinet said.

Visit the Missing in Connecticut Facebook page at Facebook.com/MissingInCT.

Call Michelle Tuccitto Sullo at 203-789-5707. Follow her on Twitter @nhrinvestigate.