WEST PADUCAH — About a dozen people gathered in West Paducah for a graveside service on Wednesday to pay their respects to a man they had never met, and whose name they do not know.
“I think being unidentified and not having any family and friends here today is one of the saddest things I can think of,” the Rev. Tim Turner said to the public servants who gathered in the stead of loved ones. “So for a short time, I want us to become a friend and I want us to give a little bit of dignity to his death today.”
Eight months have passed since law enforcement officers pulled the man’s body from the Ohio River in Kentucky, near the Illinois line at Brookport. Since then, McCracken County Coroner Amanda Melton said she’s fielded numerous calls to her office from people inquiring about whether the man matches the identity of their missing loved ones.
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McCracken County Sheriff Matt Carter said he vividly remembers the day — Sept. 18 — his office received a call from a motorist on the Brookport Bridge, traveling between Illinois and Kentucky, reporting what the caller thought looked like a body.
He was among the law enforcement officers who responded to the scene that afternoon. From the top of the bridge, they looked down through holes in the structure to the river below and spotted the man washed up on a log and bed of debris, he recalled.
Rescue crews retrieved the body. But without the ability to identify him, the death investigation reached a standstill, Carter said. “You’ve got nine questions to every one answer,” he said.
On Wednesday, Carter stood solemnly beside his colleagues, many of them in uniform, tilting his wide-brimmed hat in respect as the reverend prayed for answers.
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Identifying details about the unidentified man and the case (
UP53834) have been filed at “NamUS”, the U.S. Department of Justice’s database of missing, unidentified, and unclaimed person cases.
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He was about 60 years of age, 6 feet, 2 inches tall, 132 pounds, with a cleanly shaven head and no facial hair. He had no identifying marks, scars or tattoos on his body. His race/ethnicity is listed as uncertain.
Cause of death has been classified as undetermined by Dr. Jeffrey Springer from the Kentucky Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Carter, the sheriff, recalls so clearly the day he found the man's body for two reasons. One, because of the experience itself. And two, his own father died that same evening.
With all the support from family, friends and the community that he received in the days that followed his personal loss, it hit him hard Wednesday that only strangers were able to attend the send off for the unknown man. He said that paying his respects was the least he could do.
“I think this kind of defines and puts empathy in motion. We’re all human beings and we all experience a lot of the same things in life,” he said. “We all have ups and downs. And there’s going to come a point in time for each and every one of us to be where this gentleman is today."
Read more:
Unidentified man found in Ohio River was buried Wednesday. He's among small number of similar cases in region.
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NAMUS:
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
