AK AK - Tok, WhtMale 25-35, UP12375, one-eyed hitchhiker picked up in ID, Aug'79

CarlK90245

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I was asked by Janet Franson and Detective Lantz Dahlke of the Alaska State Police to create a facial reconstruction of a based on a skull without a mandible.

A composite drawing had been created at the time of the discovery, but ASP wanted a new reconstruction that was consistent with the dimensions of skull that they had.

Since I had no way of knowing what his chin and jawline looked like, I presented the John Doe in a "Kilroy was here" pose (i.e., as if he was peeking over a wall).

The UP case along with my reconstruction has just been added to NamUs.

Detective Dahlke provided me with the details regarding the circumstances of this case, and I added those details below under "Circumstances".

NamUs UP # 12375 https://identifyus.org/en/cases/12375

Unidentified White Male


42125f09-7b9a-465c-a394-16b38f18b566.jpg
89937a2b-3af0-4199-875a-674246c86407.jpg


Found August 20, 1979 near Tok (Fairbanks North Star County), Alaska


Physical Description
Estimated age Adult - Pre 40
Weight (pounds) 185, Estimated
Height 72 inches (6 feet, 0 inches), Estimated
Hair Long, Brown
Eye description: Left eye missing, UP wore a leather patch over his eye
Eyewear Leather eye patch
Clothing with body headband

Body conditions
Not recognizable - Near complete or complete skeleton
Probable year of death 1978

Identifiers
Fingerprints Fingerprint information is currently not available
Dental Dental information / charting is available and entered
DNA Not Available

Circumstances

On August 20th 1979, skeletal remains were found off a remote section of the Alaskan Highway near the town of Tok Alaska. There was significant evidence found by the investigators that conducted the scene investigation. Subsequently an individual in custody in Nevada admitted to murdering a hitchhiker that he had picked up in September of 1978 while driving in Alaska. The suspect was Jesse Burt Bishop DOB:03/26/44.

Bishop confessed to the murder and provided the following information about the victim.

He picked up the victim/hitchhiker near Boise Idaho while driving to Alaska. The victim stated that he was headed for Pendleton Oregon originally. As they drove Bishop told the victim he was headed for Alaska and the victim asked if he could go along. While driving through Canada, the victim got on his nerves because of the way he acted and Bishop decided to kill him.

After entering Alaska they stopped alongside the roadway in a remote area. After getting out of the vehicle, Bishop stabbed and strangled the victim to death leaving his body in the woods along the roadway.

Bishop stated that the victim had an Oregon driver’s license. He described him as a white male adult, 32 years of age, approximately 71” and about 165 pounds and he was a smoker. The victim had long dark hair and wore a headband. He could not remember the victim’s name but thought that it might be Jack or John. Additionally the victim wore an eye patch over his left eye which was completely missing.

Bishop thought that the victim could have been hurt during a logging accident from a choker cable in Oregon. Bishop stated that he thought the victim had worked for a Lincoln car dealership in Colorado or Utah where he washed cars. The victim told Bishop that he had been married but Bishop stated that the victim lied to him quite a bit. Bishop described the victims clothing also. he victim could be from anywhere in the northwest area of the united states.

The victim had been ravaged by animals. The clothing information provided by Bishop matched the clothing remnants at the scene. The skull and various bones were scattered throughout the area. Amongst the remains was a piece of scalp with long brown curly hair, with a dark leather eye patch tangled within the hair. A large white marble with orange coloration was found in the victims pants, it was suspected to be used by the victim as a glass eye.

Examination of the remains by an anthropologist provided that the victim was a white male, 25-35 yoa with brown medium length curly hair approximately 72” tall. A composite drawing and dental chart were completed of the victim.

Bishop died while still in custody in August of 2003. The victim has yet to be identified.
 
Billy Joe sounds like a good match!
 
Looks pretty good. He is probably too old. The killer saw the UID's Oregon driver's license and remembers that he was 32 years old. But I'll pass it on to Janet Franson anyway.
 
Why did they knock off the UID's teeth/chin on the recons on NamUs if they knew dentals?

I, along with many others that would view the NamUs entry, aren't dentists, orthodontists, etc that could really make anything out of them. I just thought that was a little strange.

Couldn't they have just imagined the "missing" jaw when doing the recon? I thought somebody that does that kind of work could do that. I can't see how that would be so much different than the rest of his face/body, especially if it were decomposed. How did they get THAT much but not the jaw?
 
Looks pretty good. He is probably too old. The killer saw the UID's Oregon driver's license and remembers that he was 32 years old. But I'll pass it on to Janet Franson anyway.

Thanks for working on this case. Did your law enforcement contacts say why the case circumstances aren't given in such detail in the NamUs entry? Just curious.

Think the age clue is a "rule in but not rule out" tip. Possible matches who are about age 32 get higher priority, but keep the other possibles under about age 45-50 too. Too many easy reasons why the age might be wrong.
 
Why did they knock off the UID's teeth/chin on the recons on NamUs if they knew dentals?

All they had was a cranium without a mandible, and the cranium was missing the four upper front teeth (7,8,9, and 10). To present a chin and jawline without any basis for knowing what it looks like would serve no purpose, and probably be counterproductive.


Couldn't they have just imagined the "missing" jaw when doing the recon? I thought somebody that does that kind of work could do that. I can't see how that would be so much different than the rest of his face/body, especially if it were decomposed. How did they get THAT much but not the jaw?

A forensic artist has to "imagine" certain things, but he/she should imagine as very little as possible. The only thing that would accomplish would be to give the false impression that you know what the jawline and chin looks like. And persons comparing possible matches would be improperly assessing the possible match based on things which have no basis in fact.
 
A forensic artist has to "imagine" certain things, but he/she should imagine as very little as possible. The only thing that would accomplish would be to give the false impression that you know what the jawline and chin looks like. And persons comparing possible matches would be improperly assessing the possible match based on things which have no basis in fact.

But it says they had dentals...

I could see they couldn't do it if they had a truly "missing" jaw. But if they HAVE dentals (which it says they do) then I don't see how. Should we just assume they DON'T have dentals?
 
But it says they had dentals...

I could see they couldn't do it if they had a truly "missing" jaw. But if they HAVE dentals (which it says they do) then I don't see how. Should we just assume they DON'T have dentals?

As with every UID with dentals, teeth missing postmortem are simply marked "P". They can still compare the remaining 12 teeth (including those that are missing antemortem) to a missing person's dental chart and get a tentative match or rule-out. If the MP has dental x-rays available, they can probably get a positive match on those 12 teeth.
 
Darn it, my computer clunked out and I lost my post.

I'll re-type it, but in the mean time, look at this fella.

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/2067/0
img_27268.jpeg



I know his file doesn't mention a glass eye, but this is how I found him:
1) I googled ""glass eye" namus.gov". As we all know, there is not data-input consistency on namus. The glass eye information could be documented in a few different places on the case report. This is the quickest way I know to search for specific strings on their database.

2) That search led me to this thread: http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?33981-FL-St-Petersburg-Wht-HispMale-715UMFL-30-40-Glass-Eye-Mar-81 I believe that this UP has been identified, btw, as he is now gone from namus.

3) That thread had a list of 17 rule outs copied from the now defunct namus page. I started checking them out. I quickly noticed that the case reports didn't mention glass eyes, but I figured that someone looked at them for some reason. Perhaps family knew that the missing men had glass eyes but that fact didn't make it into the case report.

4) That list has Franklin Harder's name on it.



Pros:
* About the right height
* Right hair
* Missing from Idaho, where the murderer picked up the UP
* Favours Carl's recreation


Cons:
* Would have been 25/26 rather than 32
* Not the right name
* Heavier than UP



Edited to add: Here is another picture of him. I don't see a glass eye, but I usually can't tell unless the eye was really poorly made. I think this resembles Carl's drawings quite a bit. Picture from: http://isp.idaho.gov/BCI/missing/findMissingPerson.html?category=d


View attachment 63001
 
Darn it, my computer clunked out and I lost my post.

I'll re-type it, but in the mean time, look at this fella.

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/2067/0
View attachment 62998



I know his file doesn't mention a glass eye, but this is how I found him:
1) I googled ""glass eye" namus.gov". As we all know, there is not data-input consistency on namus. The glass eye information could be documented in a few different places on the case report. This is the quickest way I know to search for specific strings on their database.

2) That search led me to this thread: http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...g-Wht-HispMale-715UMFL-30-40-Glass-Eye-Mar-81 I believe that this UP has been identified, btw, as he is now gone from namus.

3) That thread had a list of 17 rule outs copied from the now defunct namus page. I started checking them out. I quickly noticed that the case reports didn't mention glass eyes, but I figured that someone looked at them for some reason. Perhaps family knew that the missing men had glass eyes but that fact didn't make it into the case report.

4) That list has Franklin Harder's name on it.



Pros:
* About the right height
* Right hair
* Missing from Idaho, where the murderer picked up the UP
* Favours Carl's recreation


Cons:
* Would have been 25/26 rather than 32
* Not the right name
* Heavier than UP



Edited to add: Here is another picture of him. I don't see a glass eye, but I usually can't tell unless the eye was really poorly made. I think this resembles Carl's drawings quite a bit. Picture from: http://isp.idaho.gov/BCI/missing/findMissingPerson.html?category=d


View attachment 63001
NAMUS lists Franklin as having a scar over his right eyebrow and eye area. Our UID is missing his left eye. Could be a simple transposition, or it may rule this fellow out.
 
Intresting case! I had a distant relative who was missing an eye. For many years he had a glass eye and I had no idea until my mom pointed it out to me that he had a glass eye. I noticed that his one eye acted weird but I thought he was slightly cross-eyed. Anyway, a number of years later he suffered a small stroke which he recovered from quite fast other than the fact that he no longer could keep the eyelid of the eye with the glass eye open. He then moved on to wearing an eye patch like this guy and he also had a prosthetic eyeball but no "eye" so the eye patch eye would not look sunken in. I think this is what this guy did with the marble. I definitely think that we do not need to look just at people who are listed with a glass eye. If he did not live close to his family and he was reported by someone he was not extremely close to they may never have noticed he had a glass eye but a family member should have known of course. After he went missing he might have had problems with his original glass eye and switched to a marble and a patch.
 
OT: I went to school with a guy who had lost an eye. He used to take his glass eye out and use it as an aggie when we played marbles.
 
I'm not sure that a scar over the right eye and a missing left eye are mutually exclusive, but I would feel more confident if Mr. Harder had a description which included a missing left eye. I also notice that his pictures don't seem to indicate pale skin around the left eye like you would expect from someone who regularly wore a patch.

I can't find any other information or news reports about Franklin David Harder, and I don't know how to leverage genealogy sites. I will call and/or write to the Idaho contact on the flyer on Monday. That clearing house is labeled as reporting on physically/mentally disadvantaged people who are missing. There is no note of what qualified this MP for inclusion.

I don't know why the second picture I posted showed up as a link, so I'll try again.


showPhotograph.jpg
 
Depending on how much time elapsed between when a missing person disappeared and when the UID was murdered, he could have lost the eye after he was reported missing. I don't know whether April for Harder, to September when Bishop says he picked the victim up in Idaho, is long enough for that, however.
 
I heard back from a Detective in Idaho today. I gave him the information I had re: this MP and Mr. Harder. Though I got confused and gave him a different description of how I came to find Mr. Harder's name :/ I don't know if that really matters, though. He said that he will discuss this with the case worker in Idaho.
 

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