ND ND - Grand Forks, HispMale 20-50, UP921, in landfill, skin graft Lft arm, bus ticket, note, Dec'03

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creepedout

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I'm not finding a thread on this case. Namus UP 921/Doe Network 2071UMND is a John Doe who was found in the landfill in Grand Forks in December 2003.

POST MORTEM IMAGE AT FIRST LINK
https://identifyus.org/en/cases/921
http://doenetwork.org/cases/2071umnd.html

It's known that he arrived on a bus from Omaha, and it's believed he may have crawled into a dumpster to spend the night and froze to death. All he had on him was the bus ticket, basic hygiene products, and a note in Spanish. The Grand Forks Herald published an updated article on this case last year:

http://www.grandforksherald.com/con...er-decade-ago-only-case-its-kind-north-dakota

The only shown ruled out case is Dean Bechtold, Namus MP #4655.
 
Ugh. I wish there was a recon for this poor guy... He really deserves some new attention. Perhaps someone should reach out?
 
I wish they'd release the note. Probably of little value but who knows!?!
 
Found a week before Christmas in a landfill as garbage trucks offloaded in 2003. The first unidentified person in North Dakota, at least on record. It feels like LE did their best to identify this poor guy at the time. Mexican and other consulates notified, fingerprints taken, tracing the addresses on the note. The last time the Namus file was reviewed was in 2011, though.

From the article (reposting) written in 2014.
Unidentified body found over a decade ago only case of its kind in North Dakota | Grand Forks Herald

After that first frigid December day, investigators embarked on a several-month inquiry that involved dozens of local, state, federal and even international workers. As investigators pieced together these details, they contacted media outlets, the International Criminal Police Organization, the Omaha Police Department, the Mexican consulate and several other agencies to identify the man. Sens said they’d also reached out to forensic dentists, administered X-rays and entered the man’s DNA into a database. This could indicate whether he’d ever been arrested for a case or had security clearance when DNA was required, she said. They also ruled out any other missing or unidentified people. “We tried everything,” said Simon.
Callers offered leads for investigators to pursue, but the case eventually fell to the wayside as other cases came in, they said. The last time Simon updated the case was September 2004, he said.

What stands out to me is the note/letter he carried with him. The former Mexican restaurant denied they knew him. Further more there was an address on the note at Counsil Bluffs in Iowa. They also denied knowledge of the person. There was a busticket in his pocket. The bus driver confirmed he arrived on a late bus from Omaha. What is consistent with the Counsil Bluffs angle.

You ask yourself wasn't there anything the restaurant or the Counsil Bluffs address could have done to get some info across....anonymously for that matter. Maybe they truly didn't know anything and the info was just passed over to him by an acquaintance asking for a place to work.

His loved ones sure were waiting for at least a call, maybe some money or even a visit from him, that upcoming Christmas. And then it went silent.

I wish they had taken the PM picture of his face upright.....

With only one rule out (is there still one?) The only potential candidate so far, based on a combination of looks, story, stats, I could think of is Sebastian Gonzalez Lopez (after loosing some weight).

Sebastian Gonzalez Lopez – The Charley Project

UID found on December 19, 2003 MP missing from Charlotte, North Carolina in 2001, possibly traveling to Michigan.
UID 5'5 - MP 5'5
UID 150 lbs - MP 170 lbs
UID estimated between 20 - 50 - MP 30 yrs when missing
A but: UID is listed as White/Hispanic MP is listed as Hispanic.

lopez_sebastian.jpg


Could somebody check the rule out list? Very many thanks....

PS. There are only two John Does listed in Namus for North Dakota...there must be more.....
 
I wonder if they ever made inquiries among the Latin American community in Duluth or Winnipeg. If you were headed to one of those cities from from the US Midwest by bus in 2004 you'd have to stop over in Grand Forks.
 
Bit of hope said:
Wondered myself what could have caused that...Could it be psoriasis....hmmm I think a coroner would recognize that and put that in the report...what do you think. @MadMcGoo Could you take a look if there are any ruleouts?
Click to expand...
There was just one...I didn’t post it in my usual format, but it’s one comment above yours ;) You had a “Mad” moment there. lol. And I locked myself out of NamUs so I have to wait 24 hrs to change my password! Another Mad Moment :D

And I don’t know much about psoriasis...but I was thinking skin condition or he performed a job that required repetitive abrasive contact with something? Like a typist developing carpel tunnel type of thing...
 
MadMcGoo said:
There was just one...I didn’t post it in my usual format, but it’s one comment above yours ;) You had a “Mad” moment there. lol. And I locked myself out of NamUs so I have to wait 24 hrs to change my password! Another Mad Moment :D

And I don’t know much about psoriasis...but I was thinking skin condition or he performed a job that required repetitive abrasive contact with something? Like a typist developing carpel tunnel type of thing...
Click to expand...

Hahaha I totally read over that.....yes....mad moment. Thanks. An unusual rule out....wouldn't have come up with him in a million years.
 
Judging from the PM, it is definitely clear that he is Latino rather than white as Namus and doe newtwork suggest. They should change that.

Also, I'm thinking that maybe as @Blurgle said about asking the Latino community in Winnipeg or Duluth, this guy probably was going to cross over into Canada. Maybe he has family that lives there?? Also, the restaurant and the address in Counsil Bluffs that denied ever knowing the man, I'm believing that if they did, they were the ones that helped him cross the border.
 
ghostINshell said:
Judging from the PM, it is definitely clear that he is Latino rather than white as Namus and doe newtwork suggest. They should change that.

Also, I'm thinking that maybe as @Blurgle said about asking the Latino community in Winnipeg or Duluth, this guy probably was going to cross over into Canada. Maybe he has family that lives there?? Also, the restaurant and the address in Counsil Bluffs that denied ever knowing the man, I'm believing that if they did, they were the ones that helped him cross the border.
Click to expand...

I checked the Namus file, John Doe is now listed as Multiple (White/Caucasian/Latino/Hispanic) instead of only White/Caucasian.
 
Unidentified body found over a decade ago only case of its kind in North Dakota
One week before Christmas in 2003, Grand Forks sanitation department workers, on a break to retrieve some baling wire, noticed a man's jacket in the garbage offload area. "They pulled on the jacket, and an arm came with it," said Brian Kroese, cu...
Written By: Jennifer Johnson | 7:30 am, Jul. 6, 2014

  • www.namus.gov





    Signs mark graves in the Grand Forks County Cemetery, a small plot to the side of Memorial Park Cemetery in Grand Forks. Photo by Kile Brewer/Grand Forks Herald
 
One week before Christmas in 2003, Grand Forks sanitation department workers, on a break to retrieve some baling wire, noticed a man’s jacket in the garbage offload area.

“They pulled on the jacket, and an arm came with it,” said Brian Kroese, current sanitation supervisor. “That’s when they found the body.” He was dead.

Over the next few months, investigators found few telling details. He was Hispanic, with a neatly-trimmed black mustache and some facial stubble. He was likely in his mid-40s. But he carried no wallet, no identification and no personal belongings other than a bus ticket from Omaha, a slip of paper scrawled in Spanish and some basic toiletries - a comb, toothpaste and deodorant.



Today, more than a decade later, the man remains unidentified. His is the only open case in North Dakota and the first unidentified person local investigators had come across in decades, said Grand Forks Police Sgt. Duane Simon, a former investigator assigned to the case.

It’s also the only one of its kind in the region. In Minnesota, 68 of 74 total unidentified cases are still open, none of which are in the northwest part of the state, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, a searchable database of hundreds of unidentifiable human remains found across the nation.



“This is a case I won’t easily forget,” said Simon.

The investigation

After that first frigid December day, investigators embarked on a several-month inquiry that involved dozens of local, state, federal and even international workers.

During the initial assessment, they noticed he wore multiple jackets - likely in preparation for the bitter cold - and he didn’t appear to be living on the streets, said Dr. Mary Ann Sens, Grand Forks County coroner. An autopsy showed some evidence of heart disease but no signs of drug use and no broken bones, she said.

The only confirmation of his activity before he died came from a bus driver. The driver offered to drop the man off at the Northlands Rescue Mission shelter that evening, but the man turned it down, they said.

Investigators suspect he was an illegal immigrant who’d come in search of work, an idea fostered by the note he’d been carrying, which had the name of a former Mexican restaurant here. He likely made his way to the restaurant but as the night wore on, crawled into a Dumpster to protect himself from the cold, they said.

“He was probably a clean-living individual, from probably Mexico, maybe Guatemala, who wanted to send some money back to his family,” Sens said.

Circumstances surrounding his death are unclear. Sanitation workers couldn’t pinpoint where the man had come from because he was found during the offloading process at the baling facility, said Kroese. Drivers can maneuver halfway through town before they gather enough for their first load, and once they dump the garbage at the baling facility, it gets mixed with the other trash, he said.

“It was cold (that day) and if you’re in a front-load Dumpster, you can’t holler loud enough for the driver to hear you,” he said.

He’d been deceased “maybe a couple of hours” before being discovered, which was consistent with his arrival the night before and being found at 9 a.m. the next morning, Sens said.

International, national help

As investigators pieced together these details, they contacted media outlets, the International Criminal Police Organization, the Omaha Police Department, the Mexican consulate and several other agencies to identify the man.

Sens said they’d also reached out to forensic dentists, administered X-rays and entered the man’s DNA into a database. This could indicate whether he’d ever been arrested for a case or had security clearance when DNA was required, she said. They also ruled out any other missing or unidentified people.

“We tried everything,” said Simon.

Callers offered leads for investigators to pursue, but the case eventually fell to the wayside as other cases came in, they said. The last time Simon updated the case was September 2004, he said.

After waiting a few months for the body to be identified, and for better conditions for the burial, Sens and a few others held a nondenominational ceremony for him that spring at the county cemetery, adjacent to Memorial Park Cemetery. Coroner protocol requires bodies such as this to be buried in the event an exhumation is necessary, said investigators.

But without a family to pay for a gravestone, the county buried his remains in an unmarked plot, said Robin Purcell, administrator of the Grand Forks Cemetery Association. His is one of countless unmarked plots in the cemetery, offered free to families who cannot afford burial services.

“I don’t think anyone could even research to find out exactly how many John Does were buried in the cemetery,” he said.

Investigators say they still want the man to be identified for the sake of his family. Simon, who drives by the cemetery daily as part of his patrol route, said the case still affects him.

“I think about him every day,” he said. “It happens every day. It’s probably the only case where I do that.”
 
Bit of hope said:
Found a week before Christmas in a landfill as garbage trucks offloaded in 2003. The first unidentified person in North Dakota, at least on record. It feels like LE did their best to identify this poor guy at the time. Mexican and other consulates notified, fingerprints taken, tracing the addresses on the note. The last time the Namus file was reviewed was in 2011, though.

From the article (reposting) written in 2014.
Unidentified body found over a decade ago only case of its kind in North Dakota | Grand Forks Herald

After that first frigid December day, investigators embarked on a several-month inquiry that involved dozens of local, state, federal and even international workers. As investigators pieced together these details, they contacted media outlets, the International Criminal Police Organization, the Omaha Police Department, the Mexican consulate and several other agencies to identify the man. Sens said they’d also reached out to forensic dentists, administered X-rays and entered the man’s DNA into a database. This could indicate whether he’d ever been arrested for a case or had security clearance when DNA was required, she said. They also ruled out any other missing or unidentified people. “We tried everything,” said Simon.
Callers offered leads for investigators to pursue, but the case eventually fell to the wayside as other cases came in, they said. The last time Simon updated the case was September 2004, he said.

What stands out to me is the note/letter he carried with him. The former Mexican restaurant denied they knew him. Further more there was an address on the note at Counsil Bluffs in Iowa. They also denied knowledge of the person. There was a busticket in his pocket. The bus driver confirmed he arrived on a late bus from Omaha. What is consistent with the Counsil Bluffs angle.

You ask yourself wasn't there anything the restaurant or the Counsil Bluffs address could have done to get some info across....anonymously for that matter. Maybe they truly didn't know anything and the info was just passed over to him by an acquaintance asking for a place to work.

His loved ones sure were waiting for at least a call, maybe some money or even a visit from him, that upcoming Christmas. And then it went silent.

I wish they had taken the PM picture of his face upright.....

With only one rule out (is there still one?) The only potential candidate so far, based on a combination of looks, story, stats, I could think of is Sebastian Gonzalez Lopez (after loosing some weight).

Sebastian Gonzalez Lopez – The Charley Project

UID found on December 19, 2003 MP missing from Charlotte, North Carolina in 2001, possibly traveling to Michigan.
UID 5'5 - MP 5'5
UID 150 lbs - MP 170 lbs
UID estimated between 20 - 50 - MP 30 yrs when missing
A but: UID is listed as White/Hispanic MP is listed as Hispanic.

lopez_sebastian.jpg


Could somebody check the rule out list? Very many thanks....

PS. There are only two John Does listed in Namus for North Dakota...there must be more.....
Click to expand...
Did anyone ever send this one in?
 
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