https://www.houmatoday.com/article/DA/20160408/Entertainment/608084811/HC/Who are you? Only unidentified body in Lafourche remains a mysteryBy Brett Barrouquere / City Editor
Posted Apr 8, 2016 at 4:56 PM
The face stares blankly at the camera. No expression, no hint of anything personal about the person depicted.
The face stares blankly at the camera. No expression, no hint of anything personal about the person depicted.
Known, for now, only as LSU 84-10, the man thought to be between 26 and 36-years-old is the lone unidentified body on record with the federal government in Lafourche Parish. He remains as much a mystery today as he was when found on Oct. 12, 1984, in a swampy area near Thibodaux.
The body had no hands, no clothing, few teeth, no hair. Investigators estimated it had been exposed to the elements for at least a month, maybe six months, if not more. The LSU FACES lab, which does facial reconstruction, put together an idea of what he may have looked like, complete with a estimated hair length. For now, he lacks something everyone deserves _ a name.
But the accuracy of such a reconstruction is always somewhat iffy. Someone may not have wanted this John Doe to be found or identified. And, possibly, the mystery man wanted to remain just that _ a mystery.
So the question remains about LSU 84-10: Who are you?
And, a related question: How does someone just vanish or go unidentified for more than 30 years?
It’s a big country. Individuals can disappear when they work at it. Other times, the person doesn’t have close contact with family or friends. Sometimes, no one reports them missing. Or, family members don’t know where to look. And, sometimes, people take steps to ensure someone can’t be identified.
When someone dies and the body is found, a family can hold a funeral, grieve and begin to accept and adjust to life without the deceased. When someone goes missing or unidentified, there’s often no funeral, no answers, no finality to a life that remains an incomplete story.
It takes both a little and a lot to identify someone. Someone must report them missing, submit a DNA sample which then needs to be tested against a sample from the remains or even just recognize a picture to start the process.
Not everyone takes those steps or knows to take those steps.
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, a federal database that compiles the unknown and the disappeared into one place with the hope of aiding identification, lists 12,126 as missing and another 10,685 as unidentified around the country.
Louisiana accounts for 226 missing people, including A.J. Breaux, a Terrebonne Parish clothing salesman who vanished Aug. 28, 1991 from Houma, and Sallie M. Reed, a 22-year-old who vanished from Thibodaux on Feb. 19, 1976. Her car was later impounded a couple of hours away in Opelousas, as well as four others missing from Terrebonne Parish and one other missing from Lafourche Parish.
What is known about LSU 84-10 is who he isn’t. Investigators have eliminated at least three missing people in their quest to identify the body.
They know he wasn’t Lloyd Gilsdorf, who was 31-years-old when he disappeared from Pensacola, Fla., on July 29, 1984 and was reported missing almost six months later, not to be seen again.
He’s also not Gary Kergan, who was a 29-year-old businessman from Crowley last seen leaving the Night Spot Lounge on Plank Road in Baton Rouge in 1984.
Kergan still hasn’t been found, even though 67-year-old Ronald Dunnagan and 50-year-old Leila Mulla are serving prison time for his death.
LSU 84-10 also isn’t Paul Alan Vogen, a 29-year-old who friends reported had talked of committing suicide and went missing Nov. 9, 1983 from Phoenix. he also hasn’t been found.
Those eliminations were made through DNA testing and other means, giving some relief and comfort to those families, but no answers. The eliminations also left hanging the identity of Lafourche Parish’s mystery man.
“Often you find out who someone is by eliminating who they are not,” Todd Matthews, a spokesman for the NAMUS system, told me a few years back.
What is known about the mystery man in Lafourche Parish is he stood about 5-feet, 6-inches tall and was white. Beyond that and an estimated age, there is very little information to be had. However the man got into the swampy area near Thibodaux, he didn’t leave much of a story behind to be found easily.
Take a long look at the facial reconstruction. Does LSU 84-10 look familiar? Maybe like a long-lost relative or friend?
Someone has an answer to the riddle of this mystery man. Someone has a name to go with the face. Someone knows his story and how it ended.
It’s just a matter of finding who they are.
______
To see a list of missing persons and unidentified remains in Louisiana and across the country, including LSU 84-10, go to
http://namus.gov/
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