Discovered in Connecticut long after they died, these three nameless bodies are among about 40,000 that linger in morgues and unmarked plots throughout the country:
•Asian male — 90 percent skeletonized; found in 1992 in woods in Milford; wearing a shirt with the logo "Forever" on the left chest pocket; shot four times in the head.
•Black female — skeleton; found in the garage of a long-vacant Waterbury home in 2003; wearing a white, zipper-front sweater and white jeans with MUDD label; cigarettes and a lighter in bra.
•White male — heavily decomposed; found floating in the Connecticut River in Old Saybrook in 1998; nose broken; wearing black pants and FILA brand sneakers, size 9½.
The profiles are listed on a U.S. Department of Justice website designed to link missing people from throughout the country to John and Jane Does. Launched this year, the National Unidentified and Missing Persons System — NamUs.gov — has helped resolve several cases, including the identification of a decomposed body found in Enfield in June as a missing man from New York state.
>> NamUs.gov
Waterbury police Lt. Christopher Corbett said advances in DNA profiling and other investigatory tools, paired with the NamUs national database, should prove helpful to police tracking baffling cases such as the remains of the African American woman found in his city six years ago.
"Unidentified bodies is a major problem in law enforcement," Corbett said.
Approximately 4,400 nameless bodies surface annually, and about 1,000 of those remain unidentified at the end of each year. At the same time, law enforcement officials throughout the nation are faced with about 100,000 missing-persons cases.
In 2005, the federal government brought together police, medical examiners, forensic scientists, policy makers, victims' advocates and families of missing loved ones to build a national database to cross-check the cases. NamUs.gov was the result.
The system automatically seeks matches for race, age, height and other factors between missing persons and unidentified remains, NamUs coordinator Billy Young said. Potential matches are forwarded to case investigators, who can then compare dental records of a missing person with the teeth in an unidentified body.
The site scores each nameless body for identification potential. The more identifying characteristics present, the higher the potential for a match. For example, a skeleton minus its skull is likely to have a low identification potential, while a body found soon after death, with available fingerprints, teeth, clothing, scars and other identifiers, is potentially much easier to link with a missing person.
NamUs.gov allows loved ones of missing persons and even amateur detectives to register on the site and enter information. Registered users can enter dental records, information on tattoos and detailed descriptions of a vehicle the missing person was last seen driving. To prevent hoaxes, information must be cleared through a NamUs system administrator or a law enforcement official, Young said.
Soon after Jody King disappeared in Enfield in April, his aunt in Texas entered a detailed profile of King, including dental records, on NamUs.gov, Casey King, Jody's wife, said Tuesday.
"That's the good thing," King, of Ticonderoga, N.Y., said of the website. "You don't have to wait for law enforcement. You can get the ball rolling yourself."
When police found a decomposed body two months later near the site on I-91 where Jody King was last seen, investigators checked the dental records on NamUs.gov to confirm it was King's body. Casey King said the quick identification helped ease the pain and frustration of waiting for news on her missing husband.
"It's hard enough to have somebody missing and then have an unidentified body and not know for sure," she said. "The faster they can answer those questions for you, the better for the families."
For families still waiting for word on missing relatives, the system has provided a sense of constant vigilance, Young said.
"It made them feel as if someone was always looking at their loved one's case; that they weren't being forgotten," he said.
Not everyone registered on the site, however, is a family member, cop or coroner. Cyber sleuths also have been scanning the NamUs files for matches. An Indiana woman, for example, linked an unidentified body found outside Albuquerque, N.M., in 2004 to Sonia Lente, 44, who was last seen in the city about two years before. Dental records verified the match, Young said.
The system, however, is still a work in progress. As of Tuesday afternoon, the unidentified body cases in Connecticut still listed Edward McDonough as an e-mail contact at the state medical examiner's office in Farmington. McDonough no longer works there. Young said the contact information will be updated.
Also, unlike some of their counterparts across the country, Connecticut state police have not asked the FBI's National Crime Information Center to share the state's missing-persons files with NamUs, according to Young. State police spokesman Sgt. Chris Johnson said police are working with NamUs officials to load Connecticut's files onto the site.
NamUs.gov now lists 21 unsolved-missing persons cases in which the subject was last seen in Connecticut. In some cases, loved ones of the missing persons have entered the data, Young said.
Nationwide, the site lists about 2,000 missing persons and 5,757 unidentified bodies.
•Asian male — 90 percent skeletonized; found in 1992 in woods in Milford; wearing a shirt with the logo "Forever" on the left chest pocket; shot four times in the head.
•Black female — skeleton; found in the garage of a long-vacant Waterbury home in 2003; wearing a white, zipper-front sweater and white jeans with MUDD label; cigarettes and a lighter in bra.
•White male — heavily decomposed; found floating in the Connecticut River in Old Saybrook in 1998; nose broken; wearing black pants and FILA brand sneakers, size 9½.
The profiles are listed on a U.S. Department of Justice website designed to link missing people from throughout the country to John and Jane Does. Launched this year, the National Unidentified and Missing Persons System — NamUs.gov — has helped resolve several cases, including the identification of a decomposed body found in Enfield in June as a missing man from New York state.
>> NamUs.gov
Waterbury police Lt. Christopher Corbett said advances in DNA profiling and other investigatory tools, paired with the NamUs national database, should prove helpful to police tracking baffling cases such as the remains of the African American woman found in his city six years ago.
"Unidentified bodies is a major problem in law enforcement," Corbett said.
Approximately 4,400 nameless bodies surface annually, and about 1,000 of those remain unidentified at the end of each year. At the same time, law enforcement officials throughout the nation are faced with about 100,000 missing-persons cases.
In 2005, the federal government brought together police, medical examiners, forensic scientists, policy makers, victims' advocates and families of missing loved ones to build a national database to cross-check the cases. NamUs.gov was the result.
The system automatically seeks matches for race, age, height and other factors between missing persons and unidentified remains, NamUs coordinator Billy Young said. Potential matches are forwarded to case investigators, who can then compare dental records of a missing person with the teeth in an unidentified body.
The site scores each nameless body for identification potential. The more identifying characteristics present, the higher the potential for a match. For example, a skeleton minus its skull is likely to have a low identification potential, while a body found soon after death, with available fingerprints, teeth, clothing, scars and other identifiers, is potentially much easier to link with a missing person.
NamUs.gov allows loved ones of missing persons and even amateur detectives to register on the site and enter information. Registered users can enter dental records, information on tattoos and detailed descriptions of a vehicle the missing person was last seen driving. To prevent hoaxes, information must be cleared through a NamUs system administrator or a law enforcement official, Young said.
Soon after Jody King disappeared in Enfield in April, his aunt in Texas entered a detailed profile of King, including dental records, on NamUs.gov, Casey King, Jody's wife, said Tuesday.
"That's the good thing," King, of Ticonderoga, N.Y., said of the website. "You don't have to wait for law enforcement. You can get the ball rolling yourself."
When police found a decomposed body two months later near the site on I-91 where Jody King was last seen, investigators checked the dental records on NamUs.gov to confirm it was King's body. Casey King said the quick identification helped ease the pain and frustration of waiting for news on her missing husband.
"It's hard enough to have somebody missing and then have an unidentified body and not know for sure," she said. "The faster they can answer those questions for you, the better for the families."
For families still waiting for word on missing relatives, the system has provided a sense of constant vigilance, Young said.
"It made them feel as if someone was always looking at their loved one's case; that they weren't being forgotten," he said.
Not everyone registered on the site, however, is a family member, cop or coroner. Cyber sleuths also have been scanning the NamUs files for matches. An Indiana woman, for example, linked an unidentified body found outside Albuquerque, N.M., in 2004 to Sonia Lente, 44, who was last seen in the city about two years before. Dental records verified the match, Young said.
The system, however, is still a work in progress. As of Tuesday afternoon, the unidentified body cases in Connecticut still listed Edward McDonough as an e-mail contact at the state medical examiner's office in Farmington. McDonough no longer works there. Young said the contact information will be updated.
Also, unlike some of their counterparts across the country, Connecticut state police have not asked the FBI's National Crime Information Center to share the state's missing-persons files with NamUs, according to Young. State police spokesman Sgt. Chris Johnson said police are working with NamUs officials to load Connecticut's files onto the site.
NamUs.gov now lists 21 unsolved-missing persons cases in which the subject was last seen in Connecticut. In some cases, loved ones of the missing persons have entered the data, Young said.
Nationwide, the site lists about 2,000 missing persons and 5,757 unidentified bodies.
Correction
The NamUs entry for William (Billy) Smolinski missing 5 years from Waterbury CT
is NamUs MP # 43 I am able to make entries after Law Enforcement has verified the information entered. Families have access to work with the data and when someone you love has vanished. This is important for families to become part of the search and helps law enforcement with their investigation.
Jan07 (10/14/2009, 3:57 PM )