citizen_sleuth
Verified family member - Orie Donald Esh thread
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NamUs #UP14185
Demographics
Sex: Male
Race/Ethnicity: White / Caucasian
Estimated Age Group: Adult - Pre 70
Estimated Age Range (Years): 40-65
Estimated Year of Death: 1975
Estimated PMI: 2 Days
Height: 5'5" to 5'8" (65 to 68 inches), Estimated
Weight: 160 to 190 lbs, Estimated
Cause of Death: Unknown, but homicide is suspected
Circumstances
Type: Unidentified Deceased
Date Body Found: October 15, 1975
NamUs Case Created: August 20, 2015
ME/C QA Reviewed: N/A
Location Found: Robles Junction, Arizona
County: Pima County
Circumstances of Recovery: The day started out like any other for a 24-year-old man working as a garbage collector at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum -- he emptied the bins on the property into the back of his truck and threw some bricks on top to prevent the wind from blowing them away while he drove to landfill near Ryan Field.
As he was dumping the bags at the landfill, located 12 miles west of Tucson on Ajo Way, on October 15, a plastic bag caught his eye. The man peered inside and saw a paper bag labeled "Food Land" containing a severed human hand.
"I knew as soon as I saw that stuff I was going to have to do some explaining to the cops, so I examined it all so I'd have it straight," he said.
The man called museum officials, who questioned him before alerting the Pima County Sheriff's Department at around 3:45 p.m. Deputies responded just 15 minutes later and accompanied the garbage collector to the dump, hoping he would be able to point out the bag containing the remains. Unfortunately, by the time the garbage collector and deputies arrived at the landfill, Jesus Valenzuela, a county sanitation employee, had already covered the trash with his bulldozer.
Deputies spent the next four hours sifting through the dirt trying to locate the remains. As the sun began to set, a truck with portable floodlights was called in, and the remains were eventually located at around 7:55 p.m. Authorities continued to search the dump for eight more hours the following day and successfully located additional human remains, including a second hand.
A team of seven detectives was also dispatched to check garbage bins in the vicinity of the museum, including some at campgrounds and picnic areas. Trash delivered to the landfill from the museum, Saguaro National Monument, and Old Tucson was also searched, although no additional remains were recovered.
Authorities stated that numerous body parts had been recovered during the two-day search, consisting of a pair of hands, a left foot, parts of a left forearm, part of a left upper arm, part of a lower right arm, part of a right thigh, part of a right knee joint, and various body tissue.
It was immediately evident that efforts had been taken to hinder identification of the victim -- in addition to the dismemberment, the skin on the man's palms and all fingertips had been trimmed away. Only two fingers still had the skin intact, according to sheriff's information officer Mark Pettit.
Medical examiner Dr. Louis Hirsch was unable to reveal much more about the man -- he stated the remains probably belonged to a middle-aged white male with a heavy build, and that the left hand showed evidence of having worn a wedding band. He determined the man had been dismembered using a saw and sharp knife, but noted that the person who dismembered the body was not likely a professional due to the jagged nature of the cuts.
Although the remains must have been dumped at the museum between late Monday (October 12) and early Wednesday (October 15) because the trash was last emptied Monday afternoon, authorities were unable to ascertain exactly when the man died. Dr. Louis Hirsch said he was likely dead for a minimum of two days but declined to give an upper estimate as the man's body may have been refrigerated or frozen prior to disposal.
The "Food Land" bag proved to be the only real clue in the case. Initially, it was speculated that the remains could belong to Teamsters leader James 'Jimmy' Hoffa, who disappeared from Detroit on July 30, 1975, as there was a "Food Land" near where Hoffa was last seen, although a fingerprint comparison later ruled him out as a match. In addition to the store in Detroit, there were also "Food Land" stores in Des Moines, Iowa and Texas.
The rest of the man's remains, including the head, have never been found. He remains unidentified.
Inventory of Remains: One or more limbs not recovered; One or both hands not recovered
Condition of Remains: Not recognizable - Decomposing/putrefaction
Physical Description
Hair Color: Unknown
Eye Color: Unknown
Distinctive Physical Features: No information entered
Clothing and Accessories
- Paper "Food Land" bag (Near the Body)
News Coverage
John Woestendiek, "Parts Of Body Unearthed At County Dump," Arizona Daily Star [Tucson, AZ], 16 October 1975, 1.
The search began after a 24-year-old Tucson man reported that he had seen human remains in a plastic trash bag in the county landfill east of Ryan Field, which is 12 miles west of Tucson on Ajo Way. Deputies would not identify the man.
Detectives arrived at the landfill at 4 p.m., 15 minutes after they had been called, but the trash had already been covered with dirt by a county Sanitation Dept. bulldozer. They continued their search into the night, calling in a truck with portable floodlights, and the remains were found about 7:55 p.m.
Jesus L. Valenzuela, 52, the county sanitation employe who had covered the trash, said he had run his bulldozer over the dirt "four or five times."
The landfill was started four months ago, Valenzuela said.
Betty Beard, "Dismembered Man Killed 2 To 7 Days Ago, Examiner Says," Arizona Daily Star [Tucson, AZ], 17 October 1975, B1.
A dismembered body, the first parts of which were discovered Wednesday night at a westside county dump, is that of a middle-aged Anglo man probably killed two to seven days ago, the county medical examiner said yesterday.
[...]
A second hand was discovered yesterday morning.
[...]
Deputies found the first parts after sifting through the dirt for four hours. They continued searching several more hours Wednesday evening and about eight hours yesterday.
Sgt. William R. Coen, head of the sheriff's homicide division, said the seven detectives yesterday also searched several bins in the vicinity of the museum, including some at picnic areas and campsites. The contents were taken to the dump.
[...]
Deputies declined to identify the man who first discovered the remains for fear that someone might try to retaliate against him.
[...]
[Dr. Louis] Hirsch said the hands had white hair and were shaped like those of a man in his 40s or 50s. He said the parts are probably from one body but said there was no way to prove it.
The parts apparently had been sawed off, he said. "We'll continue to work together today to determine what kind of injuries there were, how much a knife was used and if any other instrument was used."
Hirsch said that in his 28 years of practicing pathology in Tucson he does not remember another homicide in which a body was dismembered.
"Fragments of corpse are found," Arizona Republic [Phoenix, AZ], 17 October 1975, B9.
"They appear to be from the same body," said Mark Pettit, sheriff's information officer. "We also found particles of a human body in the area, but can't tell what part of the body they're from."
[...]
Pettit said the 24-year-old man, who has not been identified, was routinely dumping trash from containers near the museum, in the Tucson Mountains.
He called the case "The most bizarre type of killing we've had in recent history."
The hands were severed at the wrists, he said, "but there is no way of telling (yet) how they were cut."
"We're going to have to do a lot of work on it at the crime lab and the University of Arizona anthropology department," Pettit said.
He said detectives also began checking trash containers in the Tucson Mountain Park area.
"Prints cut away from body's hands," Tucson Citizen, 17 October 1975, 37.
County medical examiner Louis Hirsch said the victim died at least 24 hours before he was found but he would not estimate a maximum time lapse since the death because the body could have been refrigerated.
[...]
[Sgt. William R.] Coen said he does not believe the body parts are [Jimmy] Hoffa's; the check is being made nevertheless because the age and description would fit, and the "Food Land" shopping bag in which the body parts were found could have come from stores in Detroit as well as in Texas and in Des Moines, Iowa.
Investigators also have revealed that the body parts were dumped into a trash container at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The container was taken to the landfill by an employe who discovered the Food Land bag and its grisly contents after dumping the trash. Initially, investigators had said only that the bag was found at the landfill.
The museum trash container had last been emptied Monday, authorities said, meaning that the package had to have been thrown there between late Monday and Wednesday.
[...]
One of the hands showed evidence of having worn a wedding band.
Several bones found with the hands were sawed through and nearly stripped of flesh, Hirsch said.
John Rawlinson, "Hoffa Speculation Played Down: Skin On Fingers Was Cut Off," Arizona Daily Star [Tucson, AZ], 18 October 1975, 19.
Skin from the fingertips and palms of the victim's hands and from the left foot found at the dump had been cut away in an apparent attempt to avoid identification, Dr. Louis Hirsch, county medical examiner, said.
He said a saw and a sharp knife were probably used and that the incisions were ragged. Parts of kneecaps and arms were also found at the dump near Ryan Field, about 12 miles west of Tucson on Ajo Way.
Hirsch said the victim could have been dead for 24 hours or longer if the body was kept cold or frozen.
[...]
The body parts were discovered by an employe of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum when he took garbage from there to the county landfill. The man noticed a brown paper containing the human parts when he opened a garbage bag and ran to notify authorities. However, while he was gone a Sanitation Dept. bulldozer operator, unaware of the find, buried it and other debris in a hill of garbage and dirt.
[...]
Detective Mike Duffy, one of four men assigned to search the dump for other body parts and clues, said yesterday that searchers haven't been able to find the two bags that contained the parts.
One of the hands showed signs of having worn a ring at one time, Sgt. William Coen of the sheriff's assault detail said. Investigators believe the victim was a large white male, in his late 40s or early 50s.
Coen said he didn't believe the man was the victim of a professional killer. "If he had been we wouldn't have found the body in a garbage dump. We would have found it without the head and hands or we wouldn't have found it," he said.
[...]
The fingerprints and parts of the body that have been found will be sent to FBI laboratories in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to identify them, Hirsch and Young said.
Coen said that the museum employe said the brown paper bag the body parts were in bore a "Food Land" label.
The only Food Land store listed in the Detroit telephone book was contacted by a reporter yesterday. A man identifying himself as the store manager, Howard Hughes, said that his store is the only Food Land in Michigan.
Hughes said his store is in a low-income neighborhood very near the club where officials from General Motors, the Ford Co. and the Teamsters Union congregate. He said [Jimmy] Hoffa two years ago came in his store with four to five other men, bought $75 to $80 of liquor for a party, tipped him $20 and left him a writing pen inscribed "from Jimmey."
"Initial check indicates body parts not Hoffa's," Tucson Citizen, 18 October 1975, 12.
The two hands, a left foot and 11 other pieces of a body were discovered Wednesday in a shopping bag at the county landfill near Ryan Field, about 12 miles west of Tucson. [Sheriff's information officer Mark] Pettit said the bag had been part of a load of garbage from a trash container located in the parking lot of the nearby Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.
[...]
[County medical examiner Dr. Louis] Hirsch said he may perform a microscopic section on the remains to attempt to determine if the body parts had been frozen at one time. He said he may also conduct a chemical analysis to see if there were any residual drugs present.
Deputies continued to sift through debris at the landfill yesterday, but did not turn up any new evidence. Pettit said deputies checked refuse that was delivered to the landfill from the museum, Old Tucson, Saguaro National Monument and a nearby campground, in the hope that more pieces of the body might be found.
He said the search would be halted over the weekend and may be discontinued next week unless there are new developments.
Authorities had said initially that the shopping bag contained two hands, a foot and several bones. However, a list released yesterday included a pair of hands, a left foot, part of a lower right arm, part of a right thigh, part of a right knee joint, parts of a left forearm, part of a left upper arm and various body tissue.
Pettit discounted the possibility that the body may have been removed from a grave, and said the hands, which were pliable, did not appear to have deteriorated to any extent.
John Young and Danny White, "Routine Day Until He Opened Bag," Arizona Daily Star [Tucson, AZ], 21 October 1975, 2A.
It started as a routine day for the garbage collector at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum last Wednesday. He threw some bricks on top of the refuse in the two bins to weigh them down and placed them onto a pickup truck for his trip to the county dump.
As he was unloading, a plastic bag caught his attention and he opened it. Inside was a paper grocery bag that bore a "Food Land" label.
He soon discovered that the contents were part of the remains of a man.
[...]
"The body parts were so clean and everything, that it wasn't really that morbid... I thought," said the collector, who said he has been a hunter most of his life.
"I knew as soon as I saw that stuff I was going to have to do some explaining to the cops, so I examined it all so I'd have it straight," he said.
The man called museum officials, who questioned him before calling the Sheriff's Dept. Deputies accompanied him back to the dump, but, while he was gone, a Sanitation Dept. bulldozer operator had buried the parts.
"I couldn't believe it," the museum employe said, when they didn't find the body parts. The deputies brought in a team, which search the debris for four hours before they found the parts.
[...]
Sheriff's detective William Coen said yesterday that he has no clues.
"We've stopped searching the dump -- we believe there are no more parts there," Coen said. He said he has no hint as to why the body parts were left at the museum or who may have done it.
[...]
Yesterday, he was back at work as usual, loading his bins and tossing bricks on top to keep the wind from blowing away his load.
"I guess I've always been a trash picker," he said, "and you don't know what you'll find looking through a dump."
"All along I thought there would be a logical explanation, somewhere along the line," he said.
The collector, a recent graduate of a midwestern university, said he came to Arizona to seek his fame and fortune, but, "This is a hell of a way to make the newspapers."
"Prints Are Not James Hoffa's," Arizona Daily Star [Tucson, AZ], 23 October 1975, 16A.
Sheriff's information officer Mark Pettit said detectives received a full set of prints of Hoffa's fingers and fingertips yesterday and that the prints did not match those available from the hands. The skin on some of the finger tips and the palm areas of the hands found at the dump had been cut away but was still intact on two fingers, Pettit said.
"Remains yield no clues: Five persons unidentified," Tucson Daily Citizen, 6 November 1975, 13.
Pima County Sheriff's detectives say they have no leads on the identities of one body and the parts of four other bodies found during the past five weeks in remote county areas.
Sgt. William R. Coen, head of the assault detail, said yesterday that he has no new information on the pair of mutilated hands found at a landfill west of Tucson on Oct. 15, nor on the three skulls found in other areas since then.
[...]
The mutilated hands, a foot and other bones and body parts were found wrapped in a plastic sack by an employe of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum as he emptied a museum trash container at a dump near Ryan Field, 12 miles west of Tucson.
The palm flesh and fingerprints had been trimmed away to avoid identification of the body, Coen said. The hands are believed to be those of a large-framed white man in his 50's.
Demographics
Sex: Male
Race/Ethnicity: White / Caucasian
Estimated Age Group: Adult - Pre 70
Estimated Age Range (Years): 40-65
Estimated Year of Death: 1975
Estimated PMI: 2 Days
Height: 5'5" to 5'8" (65 to 68 inches), Estimated
Weight: 160 to 190 lbs, Estimated
Cause of Death: Unknown, but homicide is suspected
Circumstances
Type: Unidentified Deceased
Date Body Found: October 15, 1975
NamUs Case Created: August 20, 2015
ME/C QA Reviewed: N/A
Location Found: Robles Junction, Arizona
County: Pima County
Circumstances of Recovery: The day started out like any other for a 24-year-old man working as a garbage collector at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum -- he emptied the bins on the property into the back of his truck and threw some bricks on top to prevent the wind from blowing them away while he drove to landfill near Ryan Field.
As he was dumping the bags at the landfill, located 12 miles west of Tucson on Ajo Way, on October 15, a plastic bag caught his eye. The man peered inside and saw a paper bag labeled "Food Land" containing a severed human hand.
"I knew as soon as I saw that stuff I was going to have to do some explaining to the cops, so I examined it all so I'd have it straight," he said.
The man called museum officials, who questioned him before alerting the Pima County Sheriff's Department at around 3:45 p.m. Deputies responded just 15 minutes later and accompanied the garbage collector to the dump, hoping he would be able to point out the bag containing the remains. Unfortunately, by the time the garbage collector and deputies arrived at the landfill, Jesus Valenzuela, a county sanitation employee, had already covered the trash with his bulldozer.
Deputies spent the next four hours sifting through the dirt trying to locate the remains. As the sun began to set, a truck with portable floodlights was called in, and the remains were eventually located at around 7:55 p.m. Authorities continued to search the dump for eight more hours the following day and successfully located additional human remains, including a second hand.
A team of seven detectives was also dispatched to check garbage bins in the vicinity of the museum, including some at campgrounds and picnic areas. Trash delivered to the landfill from the museum, Saguaro National Monument, and Old Tucson was also searched, although no additional remains were recovered.
Authorities stated that numerous body parts had been recovered during the two-day search, consisting of a pair of hands, a left foot, parts of a left forearm, part of a left upper arm, part of a lower right arm, part of a right thigh, part of a right knee joint, and various body tissue.
It was immediately evident that efforts had been taken to hinder identification of the victim -- in addition to the dismemberment, the skin on the man's palms and all fingertips had been trimmed away. Only two fingers still had the skin intact, according to sheriff's information officer Mark Pettit.
Medical examiner Dr. Louis Hirsch was unable to reveal much more about the man -- he stated the remains probably belonged to a middle-aged white male with a heavy build, and that the left hand showed evidence of having worn a wedding band. He determined the man had been dismembered using a saw and sharp knife, but noted that the person who dismembered the body was not likely a professional due to the jagged nature of the cuts.
Although the remains must have been dumped at the museum between late Monday (October 12) and early Wednesday (October 15) because the trash was last emptied Monday afternoon, authorities were unable to ascertain exactly when the man died. Dr. Louis Hirsch said he was likely dead for a minimum of two days but declined to give an upper estimate as the man's body may have been refrigerated or frozen prior to disposal.
The "Food Land" bag proved to be the only real clue in the case. Initially, it was speculated that the remains could belong to Teamsters leader James 'Jimmy' Hoffa, who disappeared from Detroit on July 30, 1975, as there was a "Food Land" near where Hoffa was last seen, although a fingerprint comparison later ruled him out as a match. In addition to the store in Detroit, there were also "Food Land" stores in Des Moines, Iowa and Texas.
The rest of the man's remains, including the head, have never been found. He remains unidentified.
Inventory of Remains: One or more limbs not recovered; One or both hands not recovered
Condition of Remains: Not recognizable - Decomposing/putrefaction
Physical Description
Hair Color: Unknown
Eye Color: Unknown
Distinctive Physical Features: No information entered
Clothing and Accessories
- Paper "Food Land" bag (Near the Body)
News Coverage
John Woestendiek, "Parts Of Body Unearthed At County Dump," Arizona Daily Star [Tucson, AZ], 16 October 1975, 1.
The search began after a 24-year-old Tucson man reported that he had seen human remains in a plastic trash bag in the county landfill east of Ryan Field, which is 12 miles west of Tucson on Ajo Way. Deputies would not identify the man.
Detectives arrived at the landfill at 4 p.m., 15 minutes after they had been called, but the trash had already been covered with dirt by a county Sanitation Dept. bulldozer. They continued their search into the night, calling in a truck with portable floodlights, and the remains were found about 7:55 p.m.
Jesus L. Valenzuela, 52, the county sanitation employe who had covered the trash, said he had run his bulldozer over the dirt "four or five times."
The landfill was started four months ago, Valenzuela said.
Betty Beard, "Dismembered Man Killed 2 To 7 Days Ago, Examiner Says," Arizona Daily Star [Tucson, AZ], 17 October 1975, B1.
A dismembered body, the first parts of which were discovered Wednesday night at a westside county dump, is that of a middle-aged Anglo man probably killed two to seven days ago, the county medical examiner said yesterday.
[...]
A second hand was discovered yesterday morning.
[...]
Deputies found the first parts after sifting through the dirt for four hours. They continued searching several more hours Wednesday evening and about eight hours yesterday.
Sgt. William R. Coen, head of the sheriff's homicide division, said the seven detectives yesterday also searched several bins in the vicinity of the museum, including some at picnic areas and campsites. The contents were taken to the dump.
[...]
Deputies declined to identify the man who first discovered the remains for fear that someone might try to retaliate against him.
[...]
[Dr. Louis] Hirsch said the hands had white hair and were shaped like those of a man in his 40s or 50s. He said the parts are probably from one body but said there was no way to prove it.
The parts apparently had been sawed off, he said. "We'll continue to work together today to determine what kind of injuries there were, how much a knife was used and if any other instrument was used."
Hirsch said that in his 28 years of practicing pathology in Tucson he does not remember another homicide in which a body was dismembered.
"Fragments of corpse are found," Arizona Republic [Phoenix, AZ], 17 October 1975, B9.
"They appear to be from the same body," said Mark Pettit, sheriff's information officer. "We also found particles of a human body in the area, but can't tell what part of the body they're from."
[...]
Pettit said the 24-year-old man, who has not been identified, was routinely dumping trash from containers near the museum, in the Tucson Mountains.
He called the case "The most bizarre type of killing we've had in recent history."
The hands were severed at the wrists, he said, "but there is no way of telling (yet) how they were cut."
"We're going to have to do a lot of work on it at the crime lab and the University of Arizona anthropology department," Pettit said.
He said detectives also began checking trash containers in the Tucson Mountain Park area.
"Prints cut away from body's hands," Tucson Citizen, 17 October 1975, 37.
County medical examiner Louis Hirsch said the victim died at least 24 hours before he was found but he would not estimate a maximum time lapse since the death because the body could have been refrigerated.
[...]
[Sgt. William R.] Coen said he does not believe the body parts are [Jimmy] Hoffa's; the check is being made nevertheless because the age and description would fit, and the "Food Land" shopping bag in which the body parts were found could have come from stores in Detroit as well as in Texas and in Des Moines, Iowa.
Investigators also have revealed that the body parts were dumped into a trash container at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. The container was taken to the landfill by an employe who discovered the Food Land bag and its grisly contents after dumping the trash. Initially, investigators had said only that the bag was found at the landfill.
The museum trash container had last been emptied Monday, authorities said, meaning that the package had to have been thrown there between late Monday and Wednesday.
[...]
One of the hands showed evidence of having worn a wedding band.
Several bones found with the hands were sawed through and nearly stripped of flesh, Hirsch said.
John Rawlinson, "Hoffa Speculation Played Down: Skin On Fingers Was Cut Off," Arizona Daily Star [Tucson, AZ], 18 October 1975, 19.
Skin from the fingertips and palms of the victim's hands and from the left foot found at the dump had been cut away in an apparent attempt to avoid identification, Dr. Louis Hirsch, county medical examiner, said.
He said a saw and a sharp knife were probably used and that the incisions were ragged. Parts of kneecaps and arms were also found at the dump near Ryan Field, about 12 miles west of Tucson on Ajo Way.
Hirsch said the victim could have been dead for 24 hours or longer if the body was kept cold or frozen.
[...]
The body parts were discovered by an employe of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum when he took garbage from there to the county landfill. The man noticed a brown paper containing the human parts when he opened a garbage bag and ran to notify authorities. However, while he was gone a Sanitation Dept. bulldozer operator, unaware of the find, buried it and other debris in a hill of garbage and dirt.
[...]
Detective Mike Duffy, one of four men assigned to search the dump for other body parts and clues, said yesterday that searchers haven't been able to find the two bags that contained the parts.
One of the hands showed signs of having worn a ring at one time, Sgt. William Coen of the sheriff's assault detail said. Investigators believe the victim was a large white male, in his late 40s or early 50s.
Coen said he didn't believe the man was the victim of a professional killer. "If he had been we wouldn't have found the body in a garbage dump. We would have found it without the head and hands or we wouldn't have found it," he said.
[...]
The fingerprints and parts of the body that have been found will be sent to FBI laboratories in Washington, D.C., in an attempt to identify them, Hirsch and Young said.
Coen said that the museum employe said the brown paper bag the body parts were in bore a "Food Land" label.
The only Food Land store listed in the Detroit telephone book was contacted by a reporter yesterday. A man identifying himself as the store manager, Howard Hughes, said that his store is the only Food Land in Michigan.
Hughes said his store is in a low-income neighborhood very near the club where officials from General Motors, the Ford Co. and the Teamsters Union congregate. He said [Jimmy] Hoffa two years ago came in his store with four to five other men, bought $75 to $80 of liquor for a party, tipped him $20 and left him a writing pen inscribed "from Jimmey."
"Initial check indicates body parts not Hoffa's," Tucson Citizen, 18 October 1975, 12.
The two hands, a left foot and 11 other pieces of a body were discovered Wednesday in a shopping bag at the county landfill near Ryan Field, about 12 miles west of Tucson. [Sheriff's information officer Mark] Pettit said the bag had been part of a load of garbage from a trash container located in the parking lot of the nearby Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.
[...]
[County medical examiner Dr. Louis] Hirsch said he may perform a microscopic section on the remains to attempt to determine if the body parts had been frozen at one time. He said he may also conduct a chemical analysis to see if there were any residual drugs present.
Deputies continued to sift through debris at the landfill yesterday, but did not turn up any new evidence. Pettit said deputies checked refuse that was delivered to the landfill from the museum, Old Tucson, Saguaro National Monument and a nearby campground, in the hope that more pieces of the body might be found.
He said the search would be halted over the weekend and may be discontinued next week unless there are new developments.
Authorities had said initially that the shopping bag contained two hands, a foot and several bones. However, a list released yesterday included a pair of hands, a left foot, part of a lower right arm, part of a right thigh, part of a right knee joint, parts of a left forearm, part of a left upper arm and various body tissue.
Pettit discounted the possibility that the body may have been removed from a grave, and said the hands, which were pliable, did not appear to have deteriorated to any extent.
John Young and Danny White, "Routine Day Until He Opened Bag," Arizona Daily Star [Tucson, AZ], 21 October 1975, 2A.
It started as a routine day for the garbage collector at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum last Wednesday. He threw some bricks on top of the refuse in the two bins to weigh them down and placed them onto a pickup truck for his trip to the county dump.
As he was unloading, a plastic bag caught his attention and he opened it. Inside was a paper grocery bag that bore a "Food Land" label.
He soon discovered that the contents were part of the remains of a man.
[...]
"The body parts were so clean and everything, that it wasn't really that morbid... I thought," said the collector, who said he has been a hunter most of his life.
"I knew as soon as I saw that stuff I was going to have to do some explaining to the cops, so I examined it all so I'd have it straight," he said.
The man called museum officials, who questioned him before calling the Sheriff's Dept. Deputies accompanied him back to the dump, but, while he was gone, a Sanitation Dept. bulldozer operator had buried the parts.
"I couldn't believe it," the museum employe said, when they didn't find the body parts. The deputies brought in a team, which search the debris for four hours before they found the parts.
[...]
Sheriff's detective William Coen said yesterday that he has no clues.
"We've stopped searching the dump -- we believe there are no more parts there," Coen said. He said he has no hint as to why the body parts were left at the museum or who may have done it.
[...]
Yesterday, he was back at work as usual, loading his bins and tossing bricks on top to keep the wind from blowing away his load.
"I guess I've always been a trash picker," he said, "and you don't know what you'll find looking through a dump."
"All along I thought there would be a logical explanation, somewhere along the line," he said.
The collector, a recent graduate of a midwestern university, said he came to Arizona to seek his fame and fortune, but, "This is a hell of a way to make the newspapers."
"Prints Are Not James Hoffa's," Arizona Daily Star [Tucson, AZ], 23 October 1975, 16A.
Sheriff's information officer Mark Pettit said detectives received a full set of prints of Hoffa's fingers and fingertips yesterday and that the prints did not match those available from the hands. The skin on some of the finger tips and the palm areas of the hands found at the dump had been cut away but was still intact on two fingers, Pettit said.
"Remains yield no clues: Five persons unidentified," Tucson Daily Citizen, 6 November 1975, 13.
Pima County Sheriff's detectives say they have no leads on the identities of one body and the parts of four other bodies found during the past five weeks in remote county areas.
Sgt. William R. Coen, head of the assault detail, said yesterday that he has no new information on the pair of mutilated hands found at a landfill west of Tucson on Oct. 15, nor on the three skulls found in other areas since then.
[...]
The mutilated hands, a foot and other bones and body parts were found wrapped in a plastic sack by an employe of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum as he emptied a museum trash container at a dump near Ryan Field, 12 miles west of Tucson.
The palm flesh and fingerprints had been trimmed away to avoid identification of the body, Coen said. The hands are believed to be those of a large-framed white man in his 50's.
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