Numbered but Nameless in Death : Coroner: Thousands of bodies come to the county morgue each year. Four remain there from 1989 that can still only be called John or Jane Doe.

When the body was found along a lonely stretch of Coast Highway last May, sheriff’s investigators were sure that someone would eventually identify the victim.

She had an unmistakable look: bleached-blond hair, a curved spine and a gaping hole in her mouth where four front teeth were missing.

“It just seems like someone should be able to identify her,” said Lt. Richard Olson of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

More than six months later, nobody has. The youthful victim is known only as case No. 89-02618, one of seven “Jane Does” and “John Does” who have been in the morgue at the Orange County coroner’s office for months--even years--waiting to be claimed.

About 2,500 bodies a year wind up in the coroner’s office, but most are identified within a day or two. It is rare for a body to remain in the cool, stainless-steel morgue more than a week or 10 days. But each year there are a few that arrive and never leave, identified and catalogued only by a case number attached to the victim’s toe.

In 1989, coroner’s investigators picked up four bodies that have yet to be identified.

Besides the woman found near Crystal Cove, police recovered three other bodies--in Seal Beach, east Orange and Anaheim--that have puzzled investigators. Despite circulating sketches of the victims in local newspapers, running sophisticated fingerprint checks and attempting to match the victim’s dental work, the identities of the four remain a mystery.

If an investigator thinks there is a chance of identifying a body, it can be kept in the 40-degree chamber for years, said Bruce Lyle, supervising deputy coroner.

Authorities never guessed No. 89-02618 would become such a case. The woman was too distinctive looking, her body in too good a condition not to be identified quickly.

But Olson said investigators are simply “baffled” by the case.

A surfer found the woman’s body about 6 a.m. on Mother’s Day, crumpled against a barbed wire fence along Coast Highway. The body was dressed in a white tank top, a short red skirt and white tennis shoes, but had no identification. The surfer and several other beach-goers covered the body with towels and called sheriff’s deputies. Investigators arrived on the scene and concluded that the woman--about 5-feet-2 and weighing 148 pounds--had been killed elsewhere and then dumped along the highway.

The body was sent to the coroner’s office where the autopsy revealed--from broken bones and signs of internal bleeding near her throat--that she had been strangled to death. Detectives began investigating her death as a murder.

Her fingerprints were run through “Cal ID”--a statewide computer system for identifying fingerprints--but nothing turned up, Lyle said. Her description and a drawing of her was published in local newspapers, but no one came forward and identified the woman, believed to be in her late 20s or early 30s.

Toxicology tests showed no signs of alcohol or drugs in her system. The FBI was contacted, he said, in hopes of identifying her fingerprints. But that process can take months because their fingerprint system is not computerized.

Unlike other murder cases in which investigators have some clues--a misplaced thread, a strand of hair or the victim’s identity--this one has investigators stumped.

“We have no leads at all. We’re just really baffled,” Olson, a veteran sheriff’s lieutenant, said.

Sheriff’s Lt. Robert Rivas agreed: “She could have been brought from San Diego, from L.A., from anywhere.”

The lack of clues prompted investigators in December to re-release the woman’s sketch and description to newspapers in Orange and Los Angeles counties and spread the information to Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties as well.

Olson said it’s often difficult identifying the bodies of transients or homeless people. But this woman “did not look like an unkempt person of the street,” he said.

Authorities have scanned the nationwide teletypes of missing persons daily for clues about the woman.

“If you feel your Jane Doe is even close (to the teletype description), you look into it,” Olson said.

A second unidentified body, found in 1989 a mile from Irvine Lake in east Orange in July, is also being investigated as a homicide.

(The other two unidentified bodies found last year--a man found along the San Diego Freeway and a man found on Katella Avenue in Anaheim--are not considered murder victims.)

An inmate crew from the Orange County Jail working along Santiago Canyon Road stumbled across the body of a man lying at the bottom of an embankment in east Orange. Investigators say the body had probably been there several days and was covered with brush, tree limbs and rocks. The man’s face had been smashed, possibly by a large rock lying nearby, Lyle said. The rock had a bloody handprint on it, but no fingerprints could be distinguished.

The victim, either Latino or Asian, had thick, dark hair and was under 5 feet tall, Lyle said. But the body was so decomposed that it was nearly impossible to identify.

“What it’s going to take is somebody to come forward and say I have a missing person,” Lyle said.

Decomposition is one of the most difficult aspects of identifying bodies. For example, Lyle recalled an elderly woman who was found in her mobile home nearly three weeks after she died. By the time she was discovered, her body was unidentifiable. The woman had no dental or medical records, and though she was found in her home, investigators were unable to positively identify her, making her, technically, a Jane Doe.

Olson said sheriff’s detectives never close the books on a case with an unidentified body, because sometimes they get lucky.

In 1987, authorities identified a John Doe who had been in the county morgue for more than three years. Coroner’s investigator Cherry Van Stee, who handles Doe cases, said the 19-year-old male was identified as the missing son of William H. Ivers, a former La Canada assemblyman. The son, Stephen J. Ivers, died in a stolen car that police believe he intentionally crashed into oncoming traffic as he was fleeing from officers in Newport Beach.

The youth had been reported as missing, but when he returned home police closed his file. When he disappeared a second time, his father thought the missing persons report was still open and never filed a second report.

“Cal ID kicked in that year and they put his particular prints in,” recalled Van Stee, referring to how investigators finally matched the body with a name. “It’s a big relief to the investigator. He or she can go on to other things. These (cases) are a lot of work.”

While investigators look for clues, the Does wait in a large storage room neatly stacked on the shelves at the morgue. The room, similar to a giant refrigerator, does not resemble Hollywood’s depiction of a morgue. There are no rows of drawers, where bodies are neatly tucked away.

Instead, the bodies that have been identified remain on wheeled gurneys--covered with plastic--in the middle of the room, while the unidentified bodies are placed in bags and set on shelves. Each body is identified by a small tag that has a name or a case number attached to the victim’s feet sticking out from under the sheets.

The bodies are first weighed, measured and fingerprinted--if possible--when they arrive at the morgue, Lyle said. The investigators then perform an autopsy on the body to determine the cause of death.

The investigators try to remain emotionally detached from the cases.

“‘You learn not to get personally involved,” Van Stee said. However, she added, “there are certain cases that bother us all,” especially cases in which children die as a result of senseless acts such as drunk driving or worse yet, child abuse.

“You just can’t believe someone would do that to a child,” she said.

The bodies are kept in the morgue as long as an investigator believes a body can be identified, Lyle said. The morgue can store up to 100 bodies, but once capacity is reached, investigators must decide which Does are moved out. The county then pays to have the bodies cremated at a local mortuary, where the remains are kept.

“We can put the bodies two to a gurney, or even three like they do in L.A.,” Lyle said, “but we usually don’t. We like to preserve some dignity.”

Anyone with information on these cases is asked to contact the Sheriff’s Department at (714) 647-7000.

UNIDENTIFIED BODIES FOUND IN ORANGE COUNTY IN 1989.

1. SEAL BEACH, April 21--Latino man’s body found along northbound San Diego Freeway at Seal Beach Boulevard. About 5 feet, 5 inches, 135 pounds and 35 to 40 years old. Straight black hair, thick black mustache and brown eyes. Wore yellow shirt, brown loafers and blue sweats. Five teeth missing. Body badly disfigured because it had been struck by vehicles.

2. LAGUNA BEACH, May 14--Woman’s body found along Coast Highway near Crystal Cove. Victim strangled and dumped from passing car, police say. About 5 feet, 2 inches, 148 pounds and 25 to 35 years old. Wore white tank top, short red skirt and white sneakers. Shoulder-length bleached-blond hair, four missing top front teeth and had scoliosis, curvature of the spine.

3. EAST ORANGE, July 25--Man’s body found at bottom of embankment along Santiago Canyon Road, one mile east of Irvine Lake. Had been there for several days and was covered with brush, tree limbs and rocks. Face crushed. Victim had thick, dark hair. Police say he was Latino or Asian, less than five feet tall. Body so decomposed that it was extremely difficult to identify.

4. ANAHEIM, Sept. 13--Body of white man 20 to 25 years old found in a drainage ditch along Katella Avenue, between Lewis Street and State College Boulevard. About 5 feet, 6 inches and 120 pounds, with wide nose and three upper teeth missing. Wore black pants, white and red socks, sneakers and black-web belt with letter E on buckle. Had been dead for several weeks.

Source: The Orange County Sheriff’s-Coroner’s Office.