The Fight Against Crime: Notes From The Front : Officials Cast a Wide Net to Identify Bodies

You read things. You wonder.

Like a news story about a dead body some maintenance worker found under a freeway overpass. No identification. How do the authorities determine who that was so the next of kin can be contacted and a proper burial arranged?

Gilda Tolbert, the lone investigator for the County Coroner’s Identification Unit, and Rick Swanston, a veteran homicide detective in the LAPD’s West Valley Division, understand your concern. It is Tolbert’s responsibility to match John and Jane Does with their real names, a task in which she succeeds more than 90% of the time in a given year.

“I tell myself, they have a name. They probably have a family. I’ve just got to find the link out there that will lead me to it,” said Tolbert, 45.

Fingerprints, of course, are the quickest and most reliable method if the person had theirs on file, which most do. “Most . . . homicide victims are very commonly involved in criminal activities themselves,” Swanston said. “This is not a blanket statement that all murder victims are involved in crime, but more often than not you will find that the person who was shot has their fingerprints on file.”

Even fingerprints are not foolproof, however. If someone gave police a phony name, the fingerprints turn up only the false identity--no help in finding relatives.

Dental records can also help, but only when officials already have a candidate in mind. “Maybe there was a traffic accident and the face is burned beyond recognition. Someone tells you, ‘I think that was my cousin Joe Smith.’ You go to Joe Smith’s family and find out who their dentist is so you can get the X-rays and confirm the identity,” Swanston said.

OK, but what about the truly tough cases, where neither fingerprints nor teeth provide easy answers? That is when the real detective work begins, starting with the bodies themselves. The coroner’s office catalogs distinguishing marks like scars, tattoos and unusual piercings. After developing a detailed description, Tolbert checks the missing persons reports of local police agencies.

Sometimes, investigators show a photograph of the body to people in the area where it was found. Acquaintances, even if they did not know the individual’s name, may hold useful clues such as a history of military service or a hometown.

Swanston said murderers frequently strip victims of driver’s licenses and credit cards to thwart investigation, but leave other useful clues--especially pagers. “We solve quite a few murders that way,” Swanston said. “The pagers retain the last three or four numbers called and quite often the suspect paged the decedent before they killed him.”

Still, sometimes all efforts fail. Last year, 30 of the 254 Jane and John Does remained unidentified.

But Tolbert said she is shocked by the number of Does who nobody seems to be looking for, even months after death. One case that haunts her still is that of a pretty Latina teenager whose body was discovered under the 6th Street Bridge in 1994.

Authorities never determined whether she jumped or was pushed from the bridge, in part because they never learned who she was. “She was a very clean-looking little girl who didn’t look like she was living on the streets,” Tolbert said. “Somebody must be looking for her, but I’ve had no one call asking for somebody who matches her description.”

After about six months, unclaimed corpses are cremated but the ashes are preserved for three years, in case a family member ever surfaces. After that, the ashes go into a common grave during an annual service presided over by a county hospital chaplain.

“When you think that any of us could be there or might have a relative that could be included that we might not be aware of, it makes you think,” said Maxine Ellis, director of decedent affairs.