The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
Sex: Male
Race/Ethnicity: Uncertain
Estimated Age Group: Adult
Estimated Age Range (Years): 40-99
Estimated Year of Death: 2011
Estimated PMI: 1 Months
Height: 5' 10"(70 inches), Estimated
Weight: Cannot Estimate
Date Found: October 8, 2011
Clothing: Remnants of blue jeans, White Swiss Athletic shoe, red sock.
Found on Richard's Island, Wilkes-Barre
Head, torso, one or more hands, and one or more limbs not found.
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From a cursory check of NamUs, one potential match stood out to me, Joseph James Kostak (The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)). We have very little information on the John Doe, but Kostak's height matches, gender matches, age matches (40-99 for John Doe, 40 y/o for Kostak at time of disappearance), circumstances match (Kostak went missing in the same year as John Doe (April vs. October 2011), John Doe was a complete skeleton at the time of discovery, although PMI is 1 month estimated. JMO, it's possible that the Doe could have been there longer). There's not many missing persons cases that match the John Doe's case that occurred within the year of 2011 and are still local. The islands in the Susquehanna near Wilkes-Barre (can't speak for other Susquehanna islands as I am farther away from them and have less experience with them) are largely transient/fluctuating as they are quite flat and therefore susceptible to small-large changes in the Susquehanna's height over time. I imagine the rest of the John Doe's remains, including the skull, were carried an unknown distance upstream. Dentals aren't available but DNA is according to Pennsylvania Missing (Pennsylvania Missing Persons and Unidentified Victims).
Sex: Male
Race/Ethnicity: Uncertain
Estimated Age Group: Adult
Estimated Age Range (Years): 40-99
Estimated Year of Death: 2011
Estimated PMI: 1 Months
Height: 5' 10"(70 inches), Estimated
Weight: Cannot Estimate
Date Found: October 8, 2011
Clothing: Remnants of blue jeans, White Swiss Athletic shoe, red sock.
Found on Richard's Island, Wilkes-Barre
Head, torso, one or more hands, and one or more limbs not found.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From a cursory check of NamUs, one potential match stood out to me, Joseph James Kostak (The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)). We have very little information on the John Doe, but Kostak's height matches, gender matches, age matches (40-99 for John Doe, 40 y/o for Kostak at time of disappearance), circumstances match (Kostak went missing in the same year as John Doe (April vs. October 2011), John Doe was a complete skeleton at the time of discovery, although PMI is 1 month estimated. JMO, it's possible that the Doe could have been there longer). There's not many missing persons cases that match the John Doe's case that occurred within the year of 2011 and are still local. The islands in the Susquehanna near Wilkes-Barre (can't speak for other Susquehanna islands as I am farther away from them and have less experience with them) are largely transient/fluctuating as they are quite flat and therefore susceptible to small-large changes in the Susquehanna's height over time. I imagine the rest of the John Doe's remains, including the skull, were carried an unknown distance upstream. Dentals aren't available but DNA is according to Pennsylvania Missing (Pennsylvania Missing Persons and Unidentified Victims).
Yeah, PMI of one month doesn't seem realistic. I don't know who from the coroner's office entered the case into NamUs in Feb 2012 but I wonder if they meant to put "years" instead of "months" in PMI.
