PA PA - Lower Turkeyfoot, WhtMale 25-50, 170UMPA, expensive clothing, gold box chain w/crucifix, Nov'95

DNA Solves
DNA Solves
DNA Solves

New Posts

Yup! The nose, the mouth and the prominent brow line all look good.
 
CCJD, thanks for the sketch!!

I'm assuming the hairline is a guess, because the reconstructions have different hair lines.

I'm going to go ahead and submit Joseph today. He's not a sure thing, but I think there is enough there physically and circumstantially to at least have a look. Joseph does not have DNA in Namus, and for all I know, his family could still be in the UK, so this may not be an easy match to make, but I'll let you know what they say.
 
I contacted the PA state police. The detective seemed interested in the possibility of this being Joe. It took a little more effort to get to the right person at Greece NY PD but I finally got in touch with a Lt. Anderson. Lets keep our fingers crossed!
 
Irish_Eyes said:
I contacted the PA state police. The detective seemed interested in the possibility of this being Joe. It took a little more effort to get to the right person at Greece NY PD but I finally got in touch with a Lt. Anderson. Lets keep our fingers crossed!
Click to expand...

I am glad you were able to get in touch with people that show they actually care about identifying this UID!!!
 
Another article about the case. Looks like there was a period of little activity on the Gibbons case and then renewed interest in the last few years. Apparently, they have a suspect in his murder. Police went to a social function this person attended and got his DNA from beer bottles he had been drinking out of...just in case Gibbons' body was ever found and there was any evidence to tie the two together.

http://www.voy.com/14622/3175.html
 
I had not heard anything on this yet - not that I expected to-do but it was nagging at me. I was nervous when I called this in and I knew that because of the circumstances of the Gibbons case I ran the risk of sounding like a lunatic. So I called back to the PA state police today and they put me through to an investigator Goins. I asked him if I could just shoot him an email with the two photos and the sketch and the other info that seems to jive with his UID. I sent it off and I think that was a better way. If I get a response I will let you know.
 
I called to follow up on the e-mail I sent to Investigator Goins. He never recieved the e-mail :( It didn't bounce back to me, so it's somewhere in that special heaven known only to random e-mails, dryer socks, and other lost things. I re-sent it and he let me know that he's out of the office until Monday, but that he will check back with me then. Super nice guy. I know when he does get my message, he'll be on top of identifying our Doe.
 
A UID found on the shoreline of Lake Ontario has been positively ID'd as Ronnie Gibbons (AKA Joseph). However, it wasn't this UID. It was DoeNet UID Case 988UMNY.

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20111211/NEWS01/112110301/Ronnie-Gibbons-Brinks-robbery

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/988umny.html

It's quite a coincidence that he was ID'd right after you brought him to the attention of LE with regard to this UID. I wonder if they started looking around at other UID's after getting your tip.
 
Wow!!!!!!

Ever since I called this in, I've been thinking about his poor mother, who said that she just wanted to be able to bring him home in her lifetime. I was hoping someone would start looking into this today, but I never imagined he'd be FOUND now. Amazing! I'm so happy that she now has this small comfort.

I will have to have another conversation with the PA staties today and tell them not to bother. I really was pretty confident in the odds of this being Joseph, but now I'm double determined to find out who this really is.
 
Okay, I just sent an e-mail to Investigator Goins telling him of the latest developments. I also asked him if there was any other information that he might be able to share with us regarding this cold case.

By the way, there are several pieces on the Gibbons discovery at the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle's website, and they are excellent. One of them actually shows the exhumation, so fair warning, but it is a good piece.

Welcome home, Ronnie Gibbons.

Now who IS Somerset JD?
 
Interesting looking at the DoeNet file that the remains were found in 1999 and 2000, but that the estimated DOD was 1998. That's 3 years off of when Ronnie Gibbons went missing. The remains seem suprisingly well preserved given that amount of time....something to keep in mind, perhaps when thinking about remains found in the Great Lakes. I would have never tied these remains to Gibbons....
 
Wondering about this man as a possible:

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/branton_david.html
branton_david.jpg
 
Hi, all new member here because I have become very interested in this case. It stands out from a lot of other "Doe" cases because of the circumstances.

This was mentioned over on Reddit but does anyone think it could be Bradford Bishop?

As the UID has a resemblance to him in many ways.
Bradford Bishop - Wikipedia

Pros-
Physical resemblance
Somerset County PA is less than 3 hours from the DC area where Bishop lived before becoming a fugitive.
Possible involvement in criminal activity by both Bishop and the UID?

Cons
Bishop was spotted by a former neighbor from Bethesda in Switzerland around the period that the UID died
It mentions that the UID had extensive dental work-if Bishop had this done why would he return to the US for the work? As it's likely much cheaper to have it done overseas+by having the procedure done in the US, he would have risked detection/arrest. Then again as another poster noted the flyer doesn't mention what country the dental work was preformed in.
 
Last edited:
Just wondering if anyone heard any updates on this UID? Thanks
 
Here are some news articles about this case over at Porchlight International

PAM951103

Also, this article really stuck out to me.

http://www.sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca/arts/nig ... /APR99.HTM

U.S. police ask sculptor to reconstruct face on bullet-riddled skull

SOMERSET, Pa. (AP) - A well-dressed man with expensive dental work was shot several times in the head and dumped in a remote area of western Pennsylvania, near the Maryland state line. The man's bones and bullet-riddled skull were discovered in late 1995, but Pennsylvania state police have been unable to identify him. Reconstructions by an Erie anthropologist and police artists in Toronto produced no clues.

So state police have turned to a Philadelphia sculptor who eschews fancy computer imaging technology, preferring instead to carefully examine the topography of old bones.

"I do it the old-fashioned way - close observation of the skull itself," said Frank Bender, who said he's been reconstructing faces from skulls since 1976.

Bender said his reconstructions result in positive identifications about 85 per cent of the time, and said his best successes have come in work for the state police. He's also reconstructed faces for U.S. marshals, Interpol and America?s Most Wanted, the television show about unsolved crimes. Investigators hope Bender scores again. They have few other clues to pursue.

"He supposedly has a very successful rate of solving these crimes. He measures the skull and sculpts what he feels is a recreation of what the person looked like," Trooper Jeffrey Brock said.

Brock unveiled Bender's bust on Friday, putting another face on the bones discovered by loggers in an isolated area of Lower Turkeyfoot Township, near the Somerset County town of Scullton about 15 kilometres north of the Maryland state line.

Dennis Dirkmaat, a forensic anthropologist at Mercyhurst College in Erie, speculated the man's remains were in the woods a year or more before they were discovered in November 1995. Dirkmaat, who helped police survey the site where the bones were found, further speculated that the man may have been killed in a gangland-style shooting. Police said they can't be sure where the man was killed.

The bones were dressed in tan Genuine Country Road slacks made in Australia; a short-sleeved, light-coloured Clairborne button-down shirt; a Clairborne sweater; an Italian calfskin belt; and a gold chain with crucifix. The skull had several bullet holes and an elaborate cast Vitallium horseshoe palate partial plate. The plate was made about a year before the man's death, replacing nine missing teeth, which police believe were knocked out by a severe blow some length of time before the dental work.

The facial reconstruction suggests the man was 30 to 50 years old, 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighing between 155 and 170 pounds. A problem in identifying the remains is the broad span of possible ages, Trooper Brock said. But he figured one more image of what the man might have looked like can't hurt, even though he's gotten no leads since composite reconstructions by Dirkmaat and artists with Toronto police were released three years ago.
"We're at a stalemate," Brock said. "Without identification, we're sitting still."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

DNASolves

Who is DeKalb County John Doe (2022)?

Members online

... and 153 more.
Total: 2,118 (members: 154, guests: 1,964)

Online statistics

Members online
154
Guests online
1,964
Total visitors
2,118
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
603,018
Messages
18,150,485
Members
231,619
Latest member
grandma great
Back
Top