They have come to be known as the “bones in the attic,” and after more than 50 years, they have still gone unidentified. But now, because of new technology, the bones may stand the best chance they ever had of finding their way home.
“These cases revolve around DNA,” said Casey Rucker, the Flagstaff police detective who is the latest investigator to look into this case.
He said there are some systems with computers that did not exist several years ago where the DNA of unidentified persons can be submitted into a data bank postmortem.
The story of the bones is so old that know one knows for sure how they came to be stashed on the shelf of a Flagstaff mortuary for many years, before they were taken down and sent to the proper authorities in 2000.
Dr. Laura Fulginiti, a forensic anthropologist at the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office who examined the bones in 2001, determined they belonged to a Caucasian male between the ages of 15 and 18 at the time of his death.
“This was a teenager,” she said. “We were never able to determine the cause of death. There was no evidence of blunt force trauma, or a gunshot or stabbing injury. It is possible he died of exposure.”
She said he was already a skeleton when he was put into the box and the bones were already old, bordering on historic, which are bones aged over 50 years prior to recovery.
Fulginiti said their odor helped her determine their age.
“It was like old newspapers, old books, old dust, which suggests the bones in the box were already old when they went into the box; that and the fact they were known to be in the box in the rafters for 20-plus years,” she said.
After the initial investigation, the bones were buried. Rucker said he got involved with the bones in 2010 when he was assigned the case during a routine audit of the NCIS system where it is routine to review local cases in the systems and bring them up to date.
“Any time law enforcement agencies enter information into NCIS – it can be a stolen car or gun or whatever – we audit those after a duration of time because perhaps the crime had been solved, property gets returned and no one knew about it, so the information is corrected or removed from the system. I was assigned one of those, and the unidentified person peaked my interest. I started looking at the report about the remains in the attic. They had been examined and there was no obvious cause or manner of death,” Rucker said.
He went back through the report and decided to look again. A request to the superior court authorized the exhumation of the remains. They were transported to the office of Dr. Larry Czarnecki, the Coconino County medical examiner.
“The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children rolled out the red carpet for us and offered forensic testing that would open up the family tree and additional investigators to help follow up leads,” Rucker said.
They were able to have a forensic dentist do an examination and share what he learned. A facial reconstruction was done to add features that could aid in identifying the young man.
“In cases like this, a lot of organizations participate,” he said.
All the updated information has been added to CODUS, NCIS and the missing persons databases. “It’s all up to date and we are in a waiting mode,” Rucker said. “At the end of the day, we are cautiously optimistic.”
One of the databases is NamUs, which is devoted to unidentified missing persons.
It allows the family of a missing person to monitor the case any time and learn about new leads or additions to the case.
“NamUs stands for National Missing and Unidentified Persons System,” Dr. Czarnecki said. “It is a central reporting [database tool] to help investigate and solve cases of missing and unidentified individuals. NamUs is web-based therefore it allows the family of a missing person to monitor their cases as they choose from the side of the criminal justice system, medical examiners and law enforcement. On the other side of the system, families of missing persons and the general public can enter verified information that can be searched for a possible match.”
DNA is the best method for positive identification. He said once a missing person’s profile has been created, a family member can submit his/her own DNA to NamUs free of charge so it can be compared to those already in the database or if a profile is submitted later.
Richard Lozano, owner of Lozano’s Flagstaff Mortuary, said the bones had been on the shelf of a funeral home at 302 Oak Ave. since he was doing an internship there in 1989, but others told him they had been there since the late 1960s or early 1970s.
In 2000, he came back to work at the mortuary and the bones were still there. A new manger took down the bones and turned them over to the county, he said.
The mystery is so old, there are many guesses attached. In one of them, a young couple left Los Angeles to elope to Las Vegas. This story goes that Michael Griffin and Pinky Redmond were kidnapped and killed. Her body was found buried in Williams and never identified. His body was found 100 miles the other way. But DNA has proven the bones do not belong to Griffin, Czarnecki said.
Lozano says he believes the unidentified bones were transported to the mortuary and were overlooked when the county did not have a morgue and used the mortuary as a place to do autopsies.
“The bones were found somewhere at some time and brought to the mortuary, which was the county morgue at the time. Then sometime during the transition from a county morgue at a mortuary to a regular county morgue, they were forgotten about,” he said.
To the best of his recollection, the city police got involved but since they did not know where they came from, it was difficult to conduct an investigation.
The bones were buried until 2010 when Rucker got involved. Lozano says if the bones are identified, he would be glad to give them a proper burial with a headstone. FBN
By Patti McCormac