UT UT - St George, Wht/NtvMale 15-17, 692UMUT, in cave, DOD 1914-1925, 13th rib, smoker, Dec'98

[Alleykins]

I sent another inquiry off, this time to NamUs about the comparing this set of remains to Noel Davis.
I never heard back from DN after my second inquiry.

 

[4SAM]

I know some were saying that there was no food items, etc. And since they speculate that he rode a horse, do you think his items were on the horse and the horse rode off with it?

 

[Alleykins]

I just got a reply back from DN stating they passed the info along to the Reno PD and they were going to reach out to Utah.
This was back in May of 2016 and the RPD said they'd get back with them with updates. And, there doesn't appear to have any updates, so I'm not sure where it stands or if Noel Davis was ruled out.

 

[rats]

This case is so interesting. I wish we could crack it!

 

[aThousandYearsWide]

Noel does resemble the reconstruction! His age and time period fits as well. If this is Noel the biggest question would be why did he end up in Utah if he was heading to California from Nevada? According to NamUs he was en route to his sister's home in the San Francisco bay area from Reno, Nevada. Utah would be in the opposite direction.

 

[theshadow45]

Webb Hill John Doe has been unidentified for 21 years today.

 

[Alleykins]

They were able to get DNA from him, according to Doe Network, but I think it's held locally and not in CODIS. What are the chances of getting him into DDP?

 

[theshadow45]

As of yesterday, Webb Hill John Doe has been unidentified for 22 years.

 

[PropaneYeeter]

Bumping for Webb Hill John Doe. Hang in there, buddy. You'll be named one day.

 

[PropaneYeeter]

You know, the more I think about this, the more the theory he just wandered into the cave and died naturally doesn't make sense to me. I might be tinfoiling, but hear me out.

He had no belongings on him, aside from the clothes on his back and three blankets. You'd think if he willingly sealed himself up in that cave, he'd at least bring something to drink unless he was planning a slow suicide. On the topic of him sealing himself in, I struggle to see why he would've done that and how he could've had the strength to do that with both a recently fractured hand and a severe pulmonary infection, on top of the pre-existing lung damage from heavy smoking. Maybe he used his "well-developed" right arm, sure, but I still find it hard to envision. This was a sick 13-17 year old kid of about 5'5. If he wanted to wait things out until he got better, why choose a random cave at the top of Webb Hill? How could he hike all the way to the top of Webb Hill (which is over 3,000 feet high at its peak) with his afflictions? It doesn't add up, IMO.

This is pure speculation, but I'm leaning more towards him being placed there. The COD is undetermined, so who's to say he wasn't murdered? Alternatively, maybe he was put there by his family/coworkers/whoever he lived with in an attempt to prevent his infection (Spanish flu, perhaps?) from spreading further? Or as some sort of punishment for infecting them? I don't know. In any case, I'm not buying the prevailing theory.

JMO, again. I may be completely wrong.

 

[theshadow45]

The 23rd anniversary of Webb Hill John Doe’s discovery passed recently.

 

[John/Jane Doe]

This man was added in 2014 to The Doe Network, there is no photo available for this guy but looking at the stats like age, height, year he went missing makes me wonder if he could be a match.

4782DMMA - Joseph Alfred Meunier

 

[The Manitou]

I have reached out to authorities for nearly three months. All I get is a cut-and-paste response. I think I know who "Lil' Webb is".

692UMUT - Unidentified Male​

Is Everett Reuss St. George, Utah's Mysterious Lil' Webb?

This blog is about travel, religion, discussions, books and history; just whatever topic I chose to discuss.

asideshowjourney.blogspot.com

 

[The Manitou]

The other website (linked on Doe Network page) doesn't work anymore
If I remember correctly, they had good pictures of the skull there. I wonder what happened? Someone not pay the fee anymore for the site?

Is Everett Reuss St. George, Utah's Mysterious Lil' Webb?

This blog is about travel, religion, discussions, books and history; just whatever topic I chose to discuss.

asideshowjourney.blogspot.com

 

[The Manitou]

I'm confused about the cave where the boy was found. Was the entrance to the cave covered? Did the boys remove rocks from the entrance to get to the boy? If there were rocks covering the entrance, that appear to be too large for him to do himself from the inside, then he might have been placed there. I find it odd that he had three blankets with him. It sounds as though he went there to die. He likely starved to death. I didn't read about them recovering any sort of drinking cup, or anything that might have held food, such as a lunch box or knap sack.

It was more of a shallow outcropping than an actual cave. Boys were adolescents so these were not terribly heavy rocks. I lived out there at the time, hiking distance from the hill. #Windy'sLastRide

 

[The Manitou]

Interesting remarks. Initially I also had the impression that this individual had been entombed, but the scene is more suggestive of a camp site than a crypt. I posit that it's possible that the individual had died of natural causes in the cave, was later discovered by someone who then piled rocks at the entrance so that the stranger's final resting place would not be disturbed. In the then sparsely populated southwest it wasn't that unusual to find dead bodies in the desert and more often than not the only action taken in such an occurrence was to bury the body, maybe leave a makeshift cross to mark the grave, and move on.

Another, more cruel theory, is that the individual was suffering from a contagious disease (the lung infection, which may have been a consequence of the Spanish Flu) and was placed in this remote cave by townsfolk fearing contamination. Once sealed the existence of the cave faded from memory.

The townspeople at that time had a doctor and a sheriff. I wrote a book about Lil' Webb: Windy's Last Ride.

 

[The Manitou]

I highly doubt that this kids has been working too much on the oil rigs in the area. He's just way too small for that, and oil rigs would require the use of both arms, not just one. IMHO, this young man had been working at jobs (maybe without family to care for him) in order to maybe make it to someplace else, such as California. The use of only one arm would be more in line with use of somthing like a hammer, lasso, or tilling with mules or oxen (can be done with only one arm). He could have worked in the railroad building too, but that also required two strong arms.

I checked a map of Utah in 1890's (I am a historian also working on a degree in anthropology). There were no rail lines in the area (although I am sure that changed quickly afterward as one was planned at the time). However, the Spanish trail runs through or very close to St. George, and then out to Nevada and then California. If he was on horseback, he could have rode there in a week or ten days. He could have ridden from the east or north on a stage or rail, then gotten a horse and headed southwest.

My gut tells me that this was a kid north or east of Utah (pretty big range I know) that either new he was sick or had a doctor tell him he was sick. My guess would be from either the Midwest or central Plains -- places where farming or herding was common. If so, the common wisdom of the time was to go to the Southwest (and still is in some cases) to get out of the high humidity. He may have ordered his boots before hand, or kept them for "good" occasions. The same could be said of the other items found as well, if he didn't pick them up along the way.

It would also seem that this was a wintertime death (three blankets and a jacket wouldn't be needed otherwise). Perhaps he knew a snowstorm was coming or he got caught in it, and he huddled up in the cave with his horse nearby to let the storm pass. However, he died in the time between, and his horse could have gotten loose. I believe that there WAS food and such there at one time, or else his flesh would have been gone much faster -- and more bones would have been missing from animal scavaging (sorry to be gross). He appears to have been undisturbed, and at least some of his body had to be uncovered at some point because of the condition of the bones.

This is just my :twocents: , but I honestly don't think that he was working there at the time, he maybe didn't even know a town was close by. Perhaps he left his family to get well, but never made it to his destination. They may have assumed such and then never bothered to find him -- if they weren't sick as well.

I'm the author of Windy's Last Ride. I like your theories and research. There still are no rail lines in the immediate vicinity, but there are some, north of St. George (which is in Washington County). Those rails are in Iron County - Milford to be exact.
Also, I used to live in St. George. Actual snowstorms are rare. It is even more rare for the white stuff to stick, but it isn't unheard of. It does get cold and windy in the winter, not like I experience in Michigan where I now live, but you can get hypothermia.

 

[The Manitou]

Bumping this for a couple of questions (from anyone that might know, but I suspect Anthrobones would be the most likely):

1. How certain is the assumed years of death range? Could an assumed date of 1925 actually be something like 1934?

2. When determining age, who "sure" are they about this? Could someone be five or so years older -- especially since most of the info in the anthropolgy report states he was not fully developed?

3. What size shoes do you think the boots are? They look between a 8 and 11 to me, but I'm not a great judge of shoe size.

The reason I'm asking is because I found a very interesting case, one that might actually match. I was browsing around Charley Project when I found the case of Everett Ruess, a nature artist that was last known to be in the general area in 1934. My reasons for thinking this JD may be him are:
1. Pictures of Ruess and composites of JD look similar (especially nose, chin, and eye structure)
2. He was last known to be in the area and had some sort of illness that was bothering him (according to letters).
3. He was trying to get to Arizona for warmer weather and was apparently on foot when he left his camp and animals with provisions and art supplies. If it was him, he would have almost have made it -- just a few more miles out of the hill country. He had already made some money for his paintings, so he could have afforded to get the boots found on the victim.
4. Even though there were highways going through the area at the time of Ruess' disappearance, he would most likely have stayed of those trails in order to find things to paint and stay in nature.


The only two things that make this unlikely are the estimated dates of death and the age listed in the anthropology report. Does it seem possible? Maybe I'm placing too much on the circumstantial, but it was surprising to me to find it in the first place and to have so much of it match up.

I thought I'd come up with this idea. I see you beat me by fifteen years. I'm actually relieved that you posted this. I was beginning to think I was delusional.

 

[wary]

@othram How about it?

 

[Alleykins]

@Manitou
Welcome!
I'm going from memory, so please forgive me.
Last I knew, the citizen group who was researching the ID of this man, the folks I think who used to own all those defunct links, had paid for DNA testing of these historic remains. I don't know who holds the DNA now, if it is in CODIS or held locally, because I don't believe this set of remains is in NamUs.
In 2016, I contacted DoeNetwork to see if Noel Davis was a potential match, and they referred the potential match to both Utah and Reno, Nevada authorities. Reno said they would contact Utah. And that was the last I heard about it.