Post by Scumhunter on Dec 21, 2020 2:03:37 GMT -5
(Above photo credits: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's missingkids.org website)
From San Juan Capistrano Patch:
TRABUCO CANYON, CA — Almost 24 years ago, searchers found the remains of a young boy in a remote area near Trabuco Canyon.
The Orange County Sheriff's Department Coroner Division, in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), has released newly updated images in the hope of identifying this John Doe.
It was Dec. 13, 1996 when Coroner Division Investigators and OCSD Homicide Investigators arrived to investigate the human remains discovered in a wilderness area east of Trabuco Creek Road in the unincorporated area of Trabuco Canyon.
Weathering, time, and environmental factors led investigators to believe the remains about 2 years old, leading investigators to determine the boy went missing sometime in 1995 or 1996. The cause of his death was never determined, due to the state of the remains, according to an OCSD spokesperson.
Based on initial anthropological estimates from 1996, it was believed this unknown male subject was between 15 - 19 years old, approximately 5'2" to 5'8" with a medium build. His nationality was not researched at that time.
An odontologist's report, which showed that the boy's teeth were in poor condition, was submitted to a Department of Justice database. Beyond that? He remained an unidentified victim, another "John Doe" in a long list of unsolved missing persons, left to cold case files.
Over the years, investigators and armchair sleuths have worked to learn his identity.
Fast forward to 2020, when the Orange County Sheriff's Department contracted with the DNA Doe Project in an attempt to identify the young man.
"Initial genealogical DNA examinations confirmed he was Hispanic or Native American in origin and not primarily Caucasian as initially suspected," a spokesperson for the department said.
Additionally, based on further genetic testing, it is believed he is likely from a remote/rural area in Latin America due to the very low threshold of genetic matches, the department says.
The threshold of potential matches is so low that familial DNA analysis "is almost impossible to pursue due to an underrepresentation of that population demographic in genealogical databases," they said.
Back in 2018, the Coroner Division partnered with NCMEC to generate leads that might deliver an identification. They created a computed tomography (CT) scan of the skull and submitted that to NCMEC. They used the latest reconstruction techniques to develop renderings of what John Doe's likeness. Adding the new information about his likely Latin heritage, NCMEC modified its initial sketch from 2019 to produce an original likeness that reflects the suspected Latin American descent of John Doe.
"Over the years, there have been occasional leads, yet he has not gotten his name back," said Kelly Keyes, Supervising Deputy Coroner. "As with all of our unidentified cases, which date back to the 1950s and includes nearly 100 cases, we continue to review these cases with the hope that John Doe will finally get a name."
"Sometimes seeing a picture can spark a memory, and that could lead to information," Keyes said. "We're looking to match that face to a name so we can bring closure to his family."
Anyone who has any information about John Doe can contact the Orange County Coroner Division at 714-647-7000 or coroner@ocsd.org, reference case number 96-07901-MU.
patch.com/california/sanjuancapistrano/john-doe-search-continues-trabuco-canyon-cold-case-ocsd
NCMEC link: api.missingkids.org/poster/NCMU/1184202/1/screen
Unidentified Wiki link: unidentified.wikia.org/wiki/Trabuco_Canyon_John_Doe
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