LA LA - Belle Chasse, WhtMale 16-17, UP88342, hanged, suicide note, Feb'75

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DayLea said:
http://www.joellensmithlivingcenter.com/PageDisplay.asp?p1=7950
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This is the nursing care facility. The psych pavilion opened earlier. A friend of mine was a patient there in 1983 around the time my son was born, so prior to then. Jo Ellen Smith was murdered in 1973. The hospital was under construction at the time, but I'm not sure just how soon afterward it opened, and I can't locate the date right now. Probably 1974-75.

At any rate, I still find it hard to believe a connection would not have been made if an adolescent patient had escaped the hospital and turned up dead, especially since the search for relatives was widely reported. Certainly not beyond the realm of possibility, though. I'll run down that date tomorrow.
 
Just finished reading the thread. Wow. Thanks for the great work, bessie.

So what happens if someone DOES find a good match? :( With all his information having been lost before ever making it online, it seems like it's going to be very difficult to get to a place where a potential match can even be tested. This is so frustrating; I can't imagine they're going to want to exhume this body to take DNA for such a low-profile case :\
 
No, probably not, j123. That's if anyone still knows the exact location of his grave. :( Details could be put together, though, and dots connected if only someone would come forward and say, "Hey, that might've been my son/brother/cousin." It's never too late.
 
Well, I know it would be awfully expensive for a state that does not have a lot of extra money. But they often get ground penetrating sonar equipment to find unmarked graves in many Jane and John Doe cases
 
SadieMae said:
(It is best if I cease to live, quietly, than risk that later I will break and shatter by violence or linger years under care. I implore you to see a psychiatrist in order that you might understand my death and my life. Ask thoroughly about what I was and you will see that it is not tragic that I am gone, but more natural than if I continued.")

I was sitting here thinking about the above quote and thought the same thing. Maybe he was afraid he'd do the act again..."I will break and shatter by violence". Could "linger years under care", mean maybe a prison term or being committed in a psychiatric facility? It certainly seems he came from a well to do family from his writings. Maybe his family didn't want the shame of acknowleging him and the investigation of his deeds to mar the family name/reputation?
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molested a young relative? was struggling w feelings of homsexuality? coming out of the closet is always hard but in 75, it would be worse than now.
 
bessie said:
This is the nursing care facility. The psych pavilion opened earlier. A friend of mine was a patient there in 1983 around the time my son was born, so prior to then. Jo Ellen Smith was murdered in 1973. The hospital was under construction at the time, but I'm not sure just how soon afterward it opened, and I can't locate the date right now. Probably 1974-75.

At any rate, I still find it hard to believe a connection would not have been made if an adolescent patient had escaped the hospital and turned up dead, especially since the search for relatives was widely reported. Certainly not beyond the realm of possibility, though. I'll run down that date tomorrow.
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I've been thinking about this, and remembering that there were several scandals during the seventies with the deaths or disappearances of young (and sometimes adult) prisoners and patients from juvenile facilities and mental institutions, where records were falsified to cover up neglect and sometimes direct violence. There was one in Florida, and in New York, and I'm thinking maybe the Baltimore area? Too long ago and I'm not sure how to go about researching it.
 
I really want to see him identified, but I'm thousands of miles away from USA and don't know how to help from here. Probably the next step would be try to find his grave and see if his case file still exists. So I'm documenting every unidentified grave in Louisiana at findagrave.com. I don't know if this waste of time or not, but when I'm finished I will post the doc here.

My theory is that he left home as a runaway. He seems very apologetic towards his parents in the letter, so this makes me think he could have started arguments with his them to justify leaving home and not making contact for all these years. He tried to make it clear that he wanted to cut ties with his parents and also hid his depression to not worry them.
 
Marilynilpa said:
I found this article about this boy that I don't think I've posted here before:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...a8wAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1PoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3499,5595134

ETA: sorry, this was posted a while back by someone else, but I'll leave it here for those who missed it.
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In this article he said he had wanted to do this (suicide) for over a year so I'm wondering that he picked valentines day could be another clue.

Is there any link to the whole suicide note?
 
I think in one of my earliest posts, I quoted the majority of the suicide note. I'm not certain if the entire note was ever published in the paper..

I have come to believe this young man was homosexual and did not want to be a burden to his family, nor did he want to face therapy in an effort to "fix" him. I think he may have come from a family where he faced a lot of expectations as to what he would do with his life, and he knew he would never live up to those expectations. Remember, this was in the 70's and things were a lot different then. JMO


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I had seen this case long ago but I think someone told me he had been id'd but then people used to tell so many kind of bs that maybe he wasn't lol. Have to look into this. I think this boy suffered from depersonalization disorder. I've already read this kind of testimony somewhere, of people who were just born with this disorder, it can get very frustrating to spend one's life that way.
 
i think he def had some issues. back in that time period, who knows? being gay was such a stigma then. or it could have been deeper.
 
I don't think he was gay, he mentions the fact that it would be best for him not to have kids, I don't think he would be concerned about having kids if he was gay.
I've been reading the thread it's pretty consterning how LE in charge of his case laugh at the face of people who ask about him. What a shame... I'm concerned though, as he mentions no sibling in his letter, and he had no close friends apparently and his parents are at least in their 80's if alive, he could very well stay uid forever.
See his letter I would think he was yes of well to do family and they probably reported him missing if they were allowed to, but his case might be one of those so many that were purged.
 
It's been 40 years this month since he died. I hope this is the year we find his name! Or at the very least, his grave.
 
EmmaliLucia said:
It's been 40 years this month since he died. I hope this is the year we find his name! Or at the very least, his grave.
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Unfortunately, I was told by LE that he was cremated and buried in a grave with other John Does.

As always, I feel that this young man's writing style is the key to finding out his identity. Not many guys his age would be so philosophical. The suicide note was printed, at least partially, in newspapers nationwide and yet no one came forward saying they recognized his writing.

I have thought about him often since I first posted this thread, and have tried several ways to get help identifying him. I hope that some day there will be answers.


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Meyahna said:
I don't think he was gay, he mentions the fact that it would be best for him not to have kids, I don't think he would be concerned about having kids if he was gay.
I've been reading the thread it's pretty consterning how LE in charge of his case laugh at the face of people who ask about him. What a shame... I'm concerned though, as he mentions no sibling in his letter, and he had no close friends apparently and his parents are at least in their 80's if alive, he could very well stay uid forever.
See his letter I would think he was yes of well to do family and they probably reported him missing if they were allowed to, but his case might be one of those so many that were purged.
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His police file was destroyed many years ago.

Regarding having kids, even if he were gay, he.might still have thought about marriage and a family in order to "fit in." JMO


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If anyone is following the Grateful Doe case, Jason Callahan's mom didn't report him missing for 20 years (couldn't/didn't/not sure). Point is, this kid might not be listed as missing anywhere. Maybe his parents tried to report him missing and looked for him, but police classified it as a runaway and nothing official ever got taken down. He was supposedly 16-17, but I'm guessing he could have been 18, and maybe he just walked away and everyone just assumed he "lost touch" with them.
 
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