WA - Unidentified Male: "Lyle Stevik", Grays Harbor, 17 Sept 2001 - #5

[Sutton]

Yes. Me.

Oh. Unfortunately I've never lost a significant amount of weight.
Well, then that does support the weight loss theory.

 

[carbuff]

Sorry to quote myself, but I had another point I wanted to make.

I just wanted to add that I see a possible connection to Bret Stone (proximity in time; no identification; tidy, casual, yet nice attire; excellent dental work; signs of rapid weight loss; no signs of transportation to ultimate site; possible Canadian connection, etc.). I also see the visual similarities between LS and Dukic.

I find each of these "connections" plausible, however to have all 3 connected seems a longer shot to me. I have trouble thinking of what the connection between Bret Stone and Dukic would be. Is there a reason why you think BS is connected to Dukic, brett1968?

Those aren't really connections though. They're characteristics that are shared with probably a hundred thousand other men in the US and Canada. Even the missing ID -- it's common for hikers to leave their ID in their vehicle or even at home because the chances of losing it when they fall in a river are much greater than the chances of dying and not being identified. The clothing was stylish.

 

[Sutton]

...To virtually prove (imo)that it's Ilija Dukic, please check this computer generated 3d facial comparison of Ilija Dukic and photos of Lyle Stevik on youtube put up by a colleague of tear-drop

[video=youtube;5ablAliqnk0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ablAliqnk0[/video]

Please, particularly note at the point when the mouths on both photographs are overlaid, at 1.05 and it's impossible to tell the difference between them.

RSBM. When I first looked at this possible match, I didn't really see the similarities. But the video you posted is convincing.

This is the match we are all waiting to hear back on, correct?

 

[Snoopster]

Those aren't really connections though. They're characteristics that are shared with probably a hundred thousand other men in the US and Canada. Even the missing ID -- it's common for hikers to leave their ID in their vehicle or even at home because the chances of losing it when they fall in a river are much greater than the chances of dying and not being identified. The clothing was stylish.

You're absolutely right. I shouldn't have used the word "connections" as there aren't any. And, I agree about the shared characteristics...as they aren't unusual. What I do find unusual though is that combination of similarities and the fact that they were both found in the same month and all of these years later not even a sniff of a tip as to who they are. Are there many other UID's here on WS that have similar characteristics? It's very possible there are, but I just haven't had a reason or the opportunity to notice them.

I am also well aware that I may be falling into the "if I have a hammer, everything is a nail" trap! I think of this often when I am mulling about the potential link between Lyle and Israel Keyes. I see IK's victims everywhere!

 

[Sutton]

Dukic has a very noticeable Adam's apple. Lyle does not. At least at the angle of this picture.....

Good point. Where is that picture from? Is the neck "airbrushed" at all? I ask bc in some of the pics on EugeneBYMCMB's Imgur, there is bruising around the upper part of the neck. Or maybe it's lividity and maybe that fades?

WARNING, GRAPHIC PICS
http://m.imgur.com/a/2XEV9/all

 

[Sutton]

I haven't seen anyone mention Lyle's nose. It looks like it was previously broken. I wonder if there were other broken bones? They (police, reporters, coroner, whoever releases the info that can be used to ID) usually mention that, and I see they did mention his teeth, so maybe it wasn't broken?

 

[emeraldine]

One of the biggest problems here is that we can't see Dukic's hairline, and it seems impossible to figure out if Lyle's eyebrows would have been lower when he was still alive.

 

[Snoopster]

Dukic has a very noticeable Adam's apple. Lyle does not. At least at the angle of this picture.....

Is it possible that it is a combination of angle of the picture, combined with neck swelling from hanging?

Patients may also exhibit dysphonia, aphonia, dyspnea, stridor, hemoptysis, neck tenderness over the larynx, or loss of landmarks of the anterior neck secondary to swelling or overlying hematoma.

http://www.epmonthly.com/features/current-features/clinical-focus-strangulation-and-hanging-injuries/

 

[Sutton]

Amazing work brett!!

Holy crap! I never noticed that one eye was more droopy that the other, the difference that I focused on between LS and Dukic was that Dukic's eyebrows seemed lower....but that could simply be due to the fact that LS's photo is postmortem.

I was in Croatia (and Bosnia) a few weeks ago and spoke with a number of people who had fought in the war...most of whom didn't really want to but circumstances simply required it. I likely wouldn't have been of any use researching Dukic, but now I'm kicking myself for not even thinking about it.

Regarding your first paragraph: CCM explained Lyle's eyes and forehead were a little adjusted due to the autopsy in the frontal shot. So that could explain why there is more space in between his brow and his eyelid. But...that also means it shouldn't line up perfectly with Dukic.

CCM post A

CCM post B

Regarding your second paragraph: We need more info on Ilijah Dukic and the circumstances surrounding his disappearance. Can you go back? ;-)

Even though the video posted above makes it seem like they are a perfect match, I don't believe they are the same person.

 

[outofthedark]

One of the biggest problems here is that we can't see Dukic's hairline, and it seems impossible to figure out if Lyle's eyebrows would have been lower when he was still alive.

In the crime scene photos, they were lower.

 

[outofthedark]

If he did lose 30-40 pounds at his height, his ribs should have been noticeable. But I'm not seeing that in this photo:

http://i.imgur.com/NmbGDLb.jpg (WARNING: Autopsy photo)

 

[SeriouslySearching]

Has anyone here ever gotten stretch marks from LOSING weight?

No, but they are more visible after you lose weight.

 

[DanInOz]

Thanks Brett for that, they do look amazingly identical!

If it really is Ilija I suppose we'll have to wait a very long time to have this confirmed which I understand can sometimes take years!

 

[SeriouslySearching]

A non starter, granted.

These are the similarities that I have noted between Bret Stone and Lyle Stevik

1. Both men were dressed in the fashion of hikers. Including well worn boots (quite obvious on Lyle's crime scene photos).

2. They both had a psychologically expressed (in Lyle's case an address given as a previous residence which was actually a hotel address) or a physical link to a hotel of some type as also found amongst Bret Stone's possessions ie a paper tag from a discount hotel chain in Costa Rica.

3. They were around the same age range.

4. I believe that Bret Stone who had overdosed on caffeine pills, (a sure way to purge weight, gain endurance and to walk at night, as illegal immigrants are most likely to do to gain safe passage, traveling at night especially to cross borders at unguarded points in National Parks for example, as illegal immigrants might be forced to do by circumstance), such as I believe these two were.

5. The rapid weight loss evident in Lyle makes sense if he was the friend of a someone who used caffeine pills regularly when changing time zones and he also took them himself.

6.There is a feasible distance to travel in the period between Lyle's arrival at Amamda Park WA and a departure from Laurentian Hills Deep River On

7. Also, if one looks at the odd circumstances in the 'concealment' of Bret Stone's body in an out house out in the forest at a time of year when there's no snow around, which the outhouse had obviously been built to cater for, making the fact anyone who was one their own, might choose to use one seems remarkably odd.
Given what I do in the forest when nature calls, when alone, is quite different to when others are around.

If there were someone with me I might choose to use the out house out of 'propriety's' sake, which may also have been the case if Lyle and Bret were together.

This leads me to suspect that Bret Stone didn't die alone, but had his body hidden by Lyle Stevik, as Lyle didn't want people to notice them being together in recent memory (had Lyle and Stone passed anyone on the forest track, which they most likely had).
Lyle didn't want any police looking for him because of a dead body he was associated with lying out in the open, as he was an an illegal immigrant.

8. The fact that there was no ID at all on Stone indicates someone may have at least taken his wallet, also indicating evidence of a possible companion.


I base my assumptions on the fact that Lyle Stevik was Ilija Dukic and he took off, deserted the army during the Summer of 1991 when the song, 'Smells like Teen Spirit' came out and, as anyone who was there at that time might understand, what 19-20 year old young soldier who found himself in the middle of an an unwanted and very gory and brutal war, might not think to himself,

'I'm going to swim across that river and get outta here',

(which, as a previous poster from Croatia pointed out, is the very river that someone would want to cross in order to make an escape from that nation, to ostensibly 'Go party.'

Maybe Bret Stone had aided his escape and funded it to some extent, if Ilija didn't have some form of ongoing secret support financially from overseas in his home country.

Perhaps he walked across Alaska?
Possibly that's how he got to America eventually.
Stranger things have been done and war is a very powerful catalyst for the movement of people as evidenced by the movements of nations and races throughout human history.

To virtually prove (imo)that it's Ilija Dukic, please check this computer generated 3d facial comparison of Ilija Dukic and photos of Lyle Stevik on youtube put up by a colleague of tear-drop

[video=youtube;5ablAliqnk0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ablAliqnk0[/video]

Please, particularly note at the point when the mouths on both photographs are overlaid, at 1.05 and it's impossible to tell the difference between them.

I don't believe they are the same person. There are considerable differences in their noses and the cleft in the chin. The eyebrows are not the same as Lyle's are thicker and it has nothing to do with placement.

I appreciate you weaving together such a theory as it is fascinating, but there is nothing at all connecting them. Similarities are only that. Lyle probably has similar characteristics of thousands of men, but they are not connected either.

 

[DayLea]

I haven't seen anyone mention Lyle's nose. It looks like it was previously broken. I wonder if there were other broken bones? They (police, reporters, coroner, whoever releases the info that can be used to ID) usually mention that, and I see they did mention his teeth, so maybe it wasn't broken?

BBM. This this this. YES. I have absolutely thought Lyle's nose looks like it had at some point been broken, and perhaps badly. I watch a fair amount of hockey and noses like his pop up all the time. (Not implying a hockey connection, but NHL players often sport broken noses and they really do look similar in some cases)

 

[brett1968]

Interestingly, the 'break' in Lyle's nose is quite visible on the black and white photo of Ilija Dukic, when examined in detail.

The youtube video really requires a number of viewings in my opinion so that the viewer can become intimately familiar with the features of the subjects, because to me, it is in this aspect of these two men that they become one and the same.

It's like 2 satellite map photographs of a forest with the photos taken twenty years apart.
The lay of the land in them, when studied eventually becomes identical.

The Adam's apple on a man can become more or less pronounced on a man during his life whilst in various stages of growth and weight loss or gain.

In the black and white picture of Ilija Dukic, I'd say he's about 17 years old and living in a 'communist' style country with a lot of the paramilitary aspects of the Soviet Union still at play socially. This would explain the military uniform he's pictured wearing. I'd say he's some kind of 'cadet'.

There then would be a considerable difference between these two faces, one in the throes of youth, unaffected by the horrors life has in store and the 25 year older (approximated by the coroner), Lyle Stevik's post-war, post-life-on-the-run, face as we have it here, in death.
They aren't going to look exactly the same.

'Stevik/Dukic', 'Stevik/Dukic'... how obvious is the sound of these two names?

'Lyle/Ili', 'Lyle/Ili', also two very similar sounding names, perhaps as easy to remember as your original name if it was abbreviated to 'Eli' in your native tongue? I would imagine it would be prudent to choose a false name similar to your own when taking on an assumed identity.

On the youtube video note the positioning of things like ears, length from tip of nose to upper lip and those sorts of things (like the mole(s), which can become more noticeable and prominent as one ages).
The bone which causes a cleft chin also tends to enlarge with age, as bone density reaches its peak.

The mono-brow is something which we men are lucky enough to experience as we age, particularly those of Eastern European and Mediterranean backgrounds, which Ilija Dukic was.

It's interesting that he wrote the word 'SUICIDE' on a square of paper and used all upper case letters, as if at some point he had learned English by doing, as many people attempting to learn a foreign language do use this method commonly, the sticking up of little note tags on various objects around one's house, as a visual aid to learning. Perhaps in a pitiful gesture, he checked the spelling of this word he knew so long as to one day become an act inevitable?
If this is the true then it might point to Lyle being from another country originally.

Did he want there to be no question as to what this was?

I think using the name Lyle Stevik as his check in name indicates that he planned to commit suicide in this hotel.

I think Lyle Stevik and Bret Stone were friends and both were illegal aliens and the death of Stone and possible loss of both his best friend and possibly income on the part of Lyle and the recently mooted changes to identity scrutinies become more stringent which were being proposed at that time by the US government were all factors which lead Lyle to the decision to end his life.

He wanted someone to know what had become of him also, which is why we're all here now. He was completely aware there would be a memory and a mystery connected to his death, after all,
'You Must Remember This'.

I know nothing more about Ilija Dukic than his picture was brought up on a previous page and as soon as I saw him I knew it was him.

The Croatian authorities are as well aware of the existence of Lyle Stevik as the investigators of Grays Harbor WA are of the disappearance of Ilija Dukic.

As far as getting a response to the rule out or match of these identities I'd imagine we don't particularly rate very highly on the need to know basis, especially given the semantics of this case and the need to find and inform family members first, as it should be.
So, I'm not holding my breath.

My only reason for holding out Bret Stone is that perhaps the identities of one another of these two might lead to a positive identification of some kind.

One interesting side note, there was a horrible incident in the Bosnian Herzegovina war when over 8000 men and boys were murdered. Horrible, and a war crime.

Today, the General whom the authorities are seeking to try for this crime, 'The Srebrenica Massacre' has the surname, 'Dukic'.

There was some speculation that he would not face authorities because he is, in actuality, hiding the true identity of the actual person responsible for the crime.

 

[EffyElsewhere]

Has anyone mentioned before that there is a small town called Lyle in the state of Washington? According to Googlemaps, it's approximately 4 1/2 hours away from Amanda Park.

 

[Sutton]

Has anyone mentioned before that there is a small town called Lyle in the state of Washington? According to Googlemaps, it's approximately 4 1/2 hours away from Amanda Park.

Interesting. Doubt it's connected, but someone with online subscription could look through the yearbooks.

 

[prd2bokie]

Can someone make Lyle's hair look like Ilija's in the photo?

 

[Olek_L]

'Stevik/Dukic', 'Stevik/Dukic'... how obvious is the sound of these two names?

'Lyle/Ili', 'Lyle/Ili', also two very similar sounding names, perhaps as easy to remember as your original name if it was abbreviated to 'Eli' in your native tongue? I would imagine it would be prudent to choose a false name similar to your own when taking on an assumed identity.

I'm not a native speaker of Croatian, but I have some limited knowledge of the pronounciation and I am not sure about the similarities of "Stevik/Dukic". I mean, if you take South Slavic diactrics into account (the guy's name is spelled ĐUKI&#262, it is pronounced more like "Djukich" or maybe "Djyukich". For me, both names suggest Slavic background and not much more. I have similar problem with Lyle/Ilija. "Ilija" is Croatian variant of "Elijah/Elias", but it is pronounced more like "Iliyah". I see a similiarity of sorts, but it still looks like a stretch to me.