ND ND - Portal, AsianMale UnkAge, UP16228, skull found in bldg on farm, ~Jan'80

[Gardener1850]

Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP16228
Male, Asian
Date Found: January 1, 1980
Location Found: Portal, North Dakota

Type Unidentified Deceased
Date Found January 1, 1980
NamUs Case Created January 18, 2017

Location Found Map
General Location -- Portal, North Dakota
Burke County

Circumstances of Recovery
Date found is approximate. Skull located in an out building of a family farm, possibly in 1980. The skull was turned over to Sheridan County Sheriff's Office in 2016.
Details of Recovery

Condition of Remains
Not recognizable - Partial skeletal parts only

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

 

[lucidtx]

Sounds like this could have been taken home from war.

 

[windrower]

Yes, the details are a bit sketchy, but almost sounds like family lore: like, great-grandpa found the skull, and just never talked about it.

Now that authorities have the remains, I hope the person can be identified and returned to his family.

Wyoming had an WWII Japanese internment camp at Heart Mountain, but that is 600 +\- miles away from Portal. Hard to imagine an escapee making it that far. Or someone trying not to be relocated.

I am hoping for a not nefarious reason the remains were where they were, I'm praying it isn't a "trophy" skeleton of some sort.

 

[Gardener1850]

There are only a couple Asian males listed as missing in the US before 1980:
Clayton N Onosaki missing from California since 1978: The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
Charles E. Wellner missing from Alaska since 1974: The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

I'm wondering if perhaps the skull was actually Native American (or another race) and perhaps they have guessed the race incorrectly? Genealogical DNA would be really helpful in this case. JMO.

 

[Melt71]

Not sure what is being done on this case (if anything). No ruleouts visible in Namus and no updates to the case for several years.

In 1975, more than 150,000 Vietnamese arrived in the US post-war and tens of thousands of resistence who fled Laos. During the Lon Nol and Pol Pot years in Cambodia, a trickle of Khmers migrated and then ramped up from 1975 post-Khmer Rouge. Lao Hmong migrants, in particular, settled in large numbers in Minnesota just next door to ND. So in addition to the suggestion above that this could be a war trophy, perhaps this skull is also of someone from the waves of migration in the 1970s.