Identified! OK - Jones, WhtFem 255UFOK, 18-25, by river, dime embedded in body, Apr'80 Tamara Tigard

[buruczka]

Interesting fact: Tamara's mother was born in Yonkers, Oklahoma.

 

[PezCandy]

Body of ‘Lime Lady’ found in 1980 is identified as soldier

 

[CaseyLPC]

View attachment 228828

Fantastic job with the reconstruction. Now seeing Tamara's face next to it really shows the quality of your work.

 

[JovanSrna]

I'm so glad she has been identified, but did they found out who stole her identity, is that person also a missing person?

And how did she end up murdered in Oklahoma after going for a walk in Nevada, and who killed her and why?

These "recently" (for me from Lyle Stevik onwards) identified cases especially by DDP are really messing with my mind.
If so many unidentifieds are not in any mp database, then where are the people who are?
Are there more unfound bodies than unidentified, are ALL the unidentifieds people never reported or whose reports were lost??
Then we have the people who were on their own rule-out lists, listed as wrong gender, age, tod...
Is there any point even trying to help matching?
Where are all the missing since it's becoming obvious they aren't the UIDs?

??

I was browsing the missing persons section on NamUs last night after creating a thread on one California decedent found in 1980 and GOOD GOD, it sure was unnerving to look at dozens of missing teenagers and young men from the 1970s.

A very visceral reaction, an existential horror inducing experience. And that is just by looking at their names, photos and ages really. The circumstances of disappearance listed are usually just a date and place. Sometimes you have enough information to reasonably hypothesize that someone drowned, committed suicide, succumbed to the elements or something like that but the nightmare fuel kicks in high gear when you find those cases where someone seemingly vanished into thin air on a short commute to a high school or grocery store, stuff like that. Very, very unnerving stuff.

Your questions ''If so many unidentifieds are not in any mp database, then where are the people who are? Are there more unfound bodies than unidentified, are ALL the unidentifieds people never reported or whose reports were lost??'' are terrific. IMO, the missing persons cases are probably more personal in nature because you already have information like a name, a photograph, someone who is looking for them, humanizing stuff really. You look at something like a teenager's photo, a vivacious smiling person missing since something like 1972, probably written off by the police as a runaway at the time, parents are probably dead by now, siblings might be alive or not and the kids was most likely strangled by a serial killer and dumped in the woods. With the the unidentified decedents, the emphasis tends to be on ''what remains'', very analytical and sciency until you identify them and then it ''becomes real'' so to say.

 

[carbuff]

I've seen estimates that as many as 100,000 unidentified remains nationwide have been found but never entered in any database or even public list outside of maybe a stack of bone-filled file boxes in the county coroner's office. This is in large part because before DNA came into common use, there wasn't much that could be done to identify remains, especially older remains, without a specific person to compare them to, and the coroners weren't trained in any kind of forensics so there's often no information that can be entered now.

 

[Awsi Dooger]

Is there any point even trying to help matching?

Interesting question. It wouldn't be worth it to me because it's not a full deck of possibles. So many variables can intervene to keep that missing person off the list.

For example, Tamara was obviously the correct age range and she had gone missing one month prior to discovery. There's no doubt somebody here would have found her as a possible if she had been on the list. Then if the Army photo could have been located, the similarities would have jumped out.

It doesn't happen because of that lady in Ohio. In other cases it doesn't happen because of this and that...too many obstacles to list.

Consequently I really admire anyone who makes the attempt. Just one click more than makes up for all the misses, and justifies all the devoted time. But every time I see someone raving about similarities and offering high likelihood I can't help thinking it's not going to be a match, and the person who is the match has never been contemplated because something is keeping them off the missing person's list.

 

[Roselvr]

When I was active my mission was to get DNA in NamUs for the MPs but they don't tell you who has it and who doesn't. A lot do so you know they're not the Does.

DDP is the only hope of our current Does IMO unless you can find MPs that need to be entered.

 

[Earth]

When I try to match up photos with reconstructions, I end up thinking one question.

Am I the only one in the entire world who still cares for this person, a person who vanished perhaps before I was even born?

There are so many that have been identified in these past few years and it's great to see technological advances lead to this. But when you see that they were never entered into a database (or if their report was mishandled, which is not entirely any department's fault depending on the circumstances) you begin to wonder.

Of all of the missing people out there (I believe Namus has 17,000 listed and goodness knows how many on the Charley Project and Doe Network) and all of the unidentified, you look at all of the names and then it hits you.

If an unidentified or recently identified body is not on a public database, then where are all these people?

 

[MadMcGoo]

With all these recent identifications, it has really helped validate my theory that these decades old cases are unsolved for a reason. And the reasons are becoming more and more unusual with each one. A person never being reported missing used to be the predominant explanation for those who’d gone unidentified for so long and I see it used almost as an excuse to “just wait for DNA testing”. It is disheartening when we find out that every place searched to date was never likely to yield a match.

But take Tamara for instance, it was possible that someone could have come across something that would’ve led to her identity theft and then her missing person report. I haven’t checked and could be wrong, but there may very well exist a newspaper article or message board mentioning her disappearance.

It only takes one sleuth finding something similar and following the trail of clues leading to what could be the answer to everything. The Marlyse/Marie/Sarah post on Ancestry is the perfect example! What if that one sleuth hadn’t have found that message board and followed up with it? Yes, additional steps had to be taken in order to make identifications but if not for that discovery, who knows where the case would stand now. It just takes all the pieces coming together.

I’m beyond amazed by and grateful for organizations like DDP and Parabon and every advancement in technology, but the reality is, there’s just no way they’re able to take on and solve every case. Not yet, anyway. So we’ve got to keep on keep in’ on for the cause. And the many, many, many missing and unidentified people still waiting for that one person to find that one thing that will bring them home.

JMOO FWTW

ETA: I don’t want to take this thread too far off topic, but I don’t want people getting discouraged...(RSBM)

After 30 years, a flipped card gives name to a victim

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — For three decades, the key to identifying a pedestrian struck and killed near an interstate exit ramp [in 1984] sat at investigators' fingertips. They just didn't realize it.

The prints yielded no matches. John Doe's body remained unidentified thirty years later, when the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System asked state police to review cold cases.

Forensic analyst Keith Dollinger went through John Doe's file and noticed something odd about the ridges and patterns of the fingerprints.

"It looked to me like right hand prints were on the left hand card because of the way the ridges went through," he said.

He was right: Investigators had transposed the prints. The right hand was on a card labeled "left" and vice versa.

"Once he figured that out, it kind of snowballed from there," Kentucky State Police Lt. Brian Sumner said.

Now, the man has a name: Roy Andrew Langley, who sometimes went by the alias "Red Anderson." He spent his life in and out of police custody and was 34 when he died by the side of the road in Elizabethtown.

After discovering the error, Dollinger, who has 20 years of experience, resubmitted the prints through the state and national identification systems and turned up Langley's name.

"It was kind of a quiet satisfaction," Dollinger said. "It was a good thing because we know who the fellow is. The family can get some closure."

 

[Fuuro]

I also personally think that most UIDs aren't currently listed in public databases as MPs. I think the reason why there has been such a surge in cases where people are identified after several decades as of late is because we are fortunate enough to have programs like the DDP now that are able to track down people who were either never reported missing or whose MP reports were never made easily accessible to the public. I also think the bodies of a lot of MPs (even those who have been missing for decades) have not been found yet.

There can also be errors in regards to time frames and demographics. A missing person could be wrongly listed as having disappeared after they actually did, and some unidentified remains cases may list incorrect recovery dates. Estimated postmortem intervals are sometimes wildly inaccurate (Joseph Henry Loveless and Roger Kelso, for example). In cases where remains are not in the best condition, a decedent may be listed as being male when they are really female and vice-versa, or they could be listed as being a member of the incorrect race or ethnicity. There are a lot of potential issues that can cause issues in the match-making process even if someone is reported missing. There are also cases that are publicly accessible but are not present on widely-known databases like NamUS.

This all being said, I agree that it often takes a little bit of extra searching to discover additional (or any) details about missing people and unidentified decedents and to make possible matches.

I actually really like it when I am able to uncover an obscure newspaper article or a comment on some blog about a case with little or no information available on more well-known databases like NamUS or Charley Project. I also think it's interesting to discover a missing person or UID listed on a local website that isn't listed anywhere else.

 

[MadMcGoo]

This! ^^^^

 

[JovanSrna]

Also worth noting is that sometimes only partial skeletal remains are recovered.
DDP just uploaded a DNA profile for a Doe from Michigan whose only remains was a maxilla.
In addition, sometimes cadavers are dumped in very remote areas where animal activity does short work of the remains.
Particularly insidious are the cases where someone's remains are buried on a private property.

 

[carbuff]

Another factor with many older cases is that records have been lost, misfiled, ruined by time, or destroyed by fire, flood, or other disasters. I remember in 1990s there was massive flooding in the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys, and the news showed an entire courthouse/police station being washed into the river. If there were missing people or unidentified remains in that town, the information is permanently lost. And that was just one of hundreds.

I sometimes get discouraged looking at the massive amount of work that needs to be done, but then I remind myself it's one at a time, one at a time, and I'm not alone thanks to all you guys and all the sleuths on Facebook and reddit and the genealogy sites and and and..and we all care. If nobody else cares, we still do.

 

[MadMcGoo]

Amen to that @carbuff !!

 

[Butterfly_Rises]

Tamara's mother died in 2001, her father in 2006 and her sister in 2010. How sad they didn't get to see this day.

 

[vermontaigne]

I don't think that it was unusual for someone's identity to be stolen, but for her identity to be stolen so quickly after her having gone missing is concerning.

 

[Richard]

This undated military photo and artist rendering by the DNA Doe Project provided by the Oklahoma County, Okla., Sheriff's Office shows Tamara Lee Tigard. Oklahoma County Sheriff's Capt. Bob Green said Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020, that DNA testing and dental records were used to determined a body discovered in 1980 in Jones, Okla., is that of Tigard, who was last known to have lived in Las Vegas. (Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office via AP)

Body of ‘Lime Lady’ found in 1980 is identified as soldier
Ken Miller, The Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY — The body of a woman found in central Oklahoma nearly 40 years ago and known only as “Lime Lady” has been identified as a missing Las Vegas woman, authorities said Thursday.

DNA testing with the help of the DNA Doe Project identified Tamara Lee Tigard as the woman whose body was found April 18, 1980, on the banks of the North Canadian River in Jones on the outskirts of Oklahoma City.

Tigard, who was shot to death, was found on what would have been her 21st birthday, Oklahoma County Sheriff's Capt. Bob Green said. Tigard was known for decades only as "Lime Lady" because her body had been covered in lime in a possible attempt to destroy it, but instead the lime helped preserve her remains.

It is not known how long she was in Oklahoma, according to Sheriff P.D. Taylor. Investigators have also determined she was in the U.S. military, serving in the Army, and military dental records also helped confirm her identity, Green said.

"I always just wanted to bring dignity to the victim in this case," said Green, who became involved in the case in 2008. "All of these years she has been gone without a trace, with none of her family or acquaintances knowing what happened to her."

Tigard has no immediate family members living, Green said.

Green said although Tigard had been reported missing the month prior to the discovery of her body, another woman was found to be using her identity in Ohio around that time.

"That's how (Tigard) was cleared from that missing persons case," Green said.

He declined to label the woman in Ohio a suspect, saying he does not know who she is.

No suspects are in custody and investigators are releasing no other information because the investigation is ongoing, said sheriff's spokesman Mark Myers.

“Now the work starts to try to determine if there are any suspects or who might be the actual murderer,” Myers said....

LINK:
Body of ‘Lime Lady’ found in 1980 is identified as soldier

 

[Richard]

If Tamara actually disappeared from Nevada and her body ended up in Oklahoma, then it would appear that perhaps her killer wanted her to NOT be found and identified - certainly not in Nevada where authorities might connect the two cases of a Jane Doe and a Missing Tamara. The fact that lime was put on her body would also tend to support this theory.

The stolen identity is likely connected directly to Tamara's murder - especially if it involves the use of her Social Security Number. Two theories come to mind:

First Tamara was murdered specifically by this woman or someone else for the express purpose of stealing her identity.

Second, would be that her identity was stolen so that it would appear that Tamara was still alive and well and simply moved to another state on her own.

Possibly a combination of the two.

 

[carbuff]

If Tamara actually disappeared from Nevada and her body ended up in Oklahoma, then it would appear that perhaps her killer wanted her to NOT be found and identified - certainly not in Nevada where authorities might connect the two cases of a Jane Doe and a Missing Tamara. The fact that lime was put on her body would also tend to support this theory.

The stolen identity is likely connected directly to Tamara's murder - especially if it involves the use of her Social Security Number. Two theories come to mind:

First Tamara was murdered specifically by this woman or someone else for the express purpose of stealing her identity.

Second, would be that her identity was stolen so that it would appear that Tamara was still alive and well and simply moved to another state on her own.

Possibly a combination of the two.

Three, she was murdered and the killer advantageously sold her ID to someone.

 

[Richard]

Three, she was murdered and the killer advantageously sold her ID to someone.

True, that is another possibility which could also tie in with the other two I mentioned.

Some questions come to mind regarding how Tamara got to Oklahoma:

- Was she murdered in Nevada and her body transported to Oklahoma?
- Did she travel to Oklahoma on her own to meet someone, and then was murdered?
- Did she travel to Oklahoma with someone who then murdered her?

This has now become a murder case with a known victim and it will be up to investigators to consider all acquaintances and connections as they proceed. Finding the woman who used Tamara's identity would be very important.

Since Tamara was only 21 on the day her body was found, it would seem that she was still on active duty with the Army when she went missing. A normal enlisted tour of duty was three or four years, and even if she enlisted at the minimum age of 17, she would still have obligated service time to serve by age 21. Army records will probably be of help to investigators, and in fact, there may have been an Army CID investigation into her disappearance if she was still on active duty. If on active duty when she went missing, she would have been declared a deserter by the Army and placed on a list.