Limbo of the Unnamed Dead

The case report describes the victim as a male Caucasian. His age is noted as 35+. Height is 73 inches. Weight is 182 pounds. Brown hair, brown eyes. A mustache. The form asks the investigator to choose among four types of death: NAT, ACC, SUI and HOMI. There’s a circle around SUI.

There was never a doubt. Witnesses first spotted him on Sept. 4 at the intersection of 3rd Street East and Lightcap Street in Lancaster. He had climbed a utility pole and was grabbing a wire, “apparently trying to electrocute himself.” People heard him declare, “The world made me do this!” Authorities managed to coax him to step on a fire truck ladder, but then the man dove head first to the pavement.

There was no identification. A check of prints turned up nothing. There have been no calls from worried relatives and friends. So more than a month later, coroner’s investigators are still trying to find the true name of John Doe No. 154.

“Somebody’s got to know this guy,” Nick Romero says, displaying the file. “Somebody’s got to miss him.”

*

It is a sentiment that echoes throughout the county morgue, where an unusual number of John and Jane Does now exist in kind of earthly limbo. In normal times, Nick Romero and partner Gilda Molano might actively work 10 cases, with dozens more from past years filed away awaiting a break. Last week, as the unsolved caseload for 1994 grew to 30, their phones seemed strangely quiet. Not all of their Does were old, rootless drifters. Several were young--in their teens, 20s and 30s. Where were their families and friends?

Somebody must know John Doe No. 154. And somebody must know Jane Doe No. 41, a homicide victim whose half-burned body was found Aug. 7 in Sun Valley near La Tuna Canyon Road. And somebody must know Jane Doe No. 35, a teen-age girl whose body was found July 12 in an inch of water on the concrete bed of the Los Angeles River, below the 6th Street bridge. Investigators don’t know whether she jumped or fell or was pushed.

Investigators show a snapshot of the girl, her eyelids slightly open as if nodding off to sleep. She’s described as Latino, 4-foot-11 and weighing 105 pounds with medium-length brown hair. The condition of her corpse is described as “good.”

On a windowsill above Molano’s desk rests a school photo of a teen-age girl, smiling prettily. “My niece is 16,” Molano says. Jane Doe No. 35 looks to be about the same age. “If she were mine, I’d be looking for her. She could be a continuous runaway, but still. . . .”

Usually, the dead are easily identified. There’s I.D. in a pocket and the next of kin is easy to find. Otherwise, coroner’s investigators rely on a network of fingerprint files at the LAPD, the Sheriff’s Department, the Department of Justice and Veterans Affairs. If the initial checks turn up nothing, the case goes to Romero and Molano, who usually manage to solve the mysteries within a few days or weeks.

We pay them to give the dead a measure of dignity and to give survivors some answers. We also pay them to assist in the cause of justice. Homicide detectives assigned to Jane Doe No. 41 won’t know where to start unless Romero and Molano can figure out the identity of this young woman. The case report describes her as 5 feet, 4 inches, 133 pounds, with brown eyes and medium-length black hair beneath a wig. She was wearing “a yellow metal chain with a charm of Jesus Christ around her neck.”

The Does are typically kept about one month before they are turned over to the county hospital for cremation. Some exceptions are made. Nearly three months after she was found in the L.A. River, Jane Doe No. 35 remains stored in Crypt 40, because the investigators figure somebody will step forward.

Frustration over the Does prompted Scott Carrier, the coroner’s public information officer, to issue a press release seeking the public’s assistance. The phone has been ringing ever since.

“We get calls here: ‘I haven’t seen my mother in seven years,’ ” Romero says. “I mean, it’s been seven years and now you’re checking?”

*

The press release paid off. Romero was able to tell one woman that her brother had died in 1992. Molano was able to help a man whose mother had been missing for a few days.

It sounded like the young man might be asking about Jane Doe No. 60, a 68-year-old woman who had been killed in a traffic accident on Sept. 27. Sometimes, Molano says, people have a hard time accepting the sad truth.

This man dropped by the coroner’s office twice. The first day, he looked at a snapshot and wasn’t sure. The second day, Molano was able to show him the personal effects found with Jane Doe No. 60. The clothes were certainly familiar. And there was no mistaking her key ring, with its little frame holding the photo of a grandchild.