Resolved WA - Seattle, Whtmale Adult, UP68266, origin unk, tag date of 04/27/1981, Apr'81 - NamUs removed

[Melt71]

New case entered in Namus this week

NamUs #UP68266 Male, White / Caucasian
Date Body Found April 27, 1981
Location Found Seattle, Washington
Associated Case
Case Number
ME/C Case Number 08-0666
Demographics
Sex Male
Race / Ethnicity White / Caucasian
Circumstances
Type Unidentified Deceased
Date Body Found April 27, 1981
NamUs Case Created April 17, 2020
Location Found Map
Location Seattle, Washington
County King County
GPS Coordinates (Not Mapped)--
Found On Tribal Land - No
Circumstances of Recovery The origin of the remains is unknown, tag on remains indicates date of 04/27/1981.
Details of Recovery
Condition of Remains Not recognizable - Partial skeletal parts only

 

[YaYa_521]

His NamUs profile:
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

 

[sasha17]

This is so strange. They don't know how the remains were found? How could that happen?

 

[carbuff]

This is so strange. They don't know how the remains were found? How could that happen?

Presumably they found the case file and /or remains in storage--maybe filed with another case, pushed into a corner, something like that?

 

[victoriarobinson642]

I wonder if newspapers could provide a bit more detail - I'd hope they at least checked.

 

[carbuff]

Looking for things happening in Seattle on that date. I haven't found anything so far, but this article about violence against Filipino Americans fighting corrupt cannery union is interesting. They were murdered on April 27 1981.

A Seattle Murder Mystery Turned International Conspiracy

 

[iulia]

The NamUs page for these remains is down. I wonder what the outcome was...

 

[iulia]

I found a couple of old articles that I think may be related to this case. I think UP68266 might have been the Bellingham case.

UW transfers human remains from anthropology archive to Medical Examiner

The University of Washington has transferred the remains of eight individuals whose bones were in the archives of a UW forensic anthropologist working at the UW from 1968 to 1991 to the King County...

www.washington.edu

The University of Washington has transferred the remains of eight individuals whose bones were in the archives of a UW forensic anthropologist working at the UW from 1968 to 1991 to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office.

The remains of two of the eight individuals will be transferred from the King County Medical Examiner’s Office to law enforcement officials in Grays Harbor County and the city of Bellingham. The Medical Examiner and police departments plan to use DNA analysis to try and identify these individuals, some of whom may have been crime victims.

https://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Eight-sets-of-bones-few-clues-to-their-identities-1300774.php

[...]
Bellingham police are interested in the skull without the lower jaw of the young to middle-aged white man. Lt. Steve Felmley said it was connected to the discovery on April 27, 1981, of a skull that was partially covered with leaves and dirt.

The skull has a bullet hole in it, dental work done just after World War II and the victim was estimated to be 45 to 55 years old.

Even then it was a cold case, with the victim estimated to have died 10 to 30 years before the skull was found.

Taylor said it could be years before the DNA analysis in some of these cases is completed, and the odds are long even then that any of the remains can be identified.

ETA: found another article, this one doesn't mention the bullet hole and says a cause of death was not apparent

New tests planned for forensic remains

SEATTLE – Daris Swindler could read old bones in the days before DNA analysis became commonplace. Police from throughout the country would send remains to his office in the University of Washington’s anthropology department, hoping he could divine a subject’s race, age, sex or height from...

www.spokesman.com

[...]
Bellingham police Lt. Steve Felmley said his department hopes to perform DNA analysis on a skull found by someone who was walking in Whatcom Falls Park in April 1981. Police records indicate that at the time, Whatcom County’s medical examiner believed the skull belonged to a 45- to 50-year-old man, who had dental work done before World War II and had been dead for 10 to 30 years. Cause of death was not apparent, and Felmley didn’t know why the department sent the skull to the university.