OH OH - Dayton, WhtMale Mid 60's, 385UMOH, cancer patient, alias 'James Morgan', Feb'01

• Deceased on February 20, 2001 in Montgomery County, Ohio.
• Cause of Death: Natural

• Estimated age: Mid 60's
• Approximate Height and Weight: 6'1"; 140 lbs.
• Distinguishing Characteristics: Gray receding hair. Mole on neck and left upper lip.

2 BODIES FROM VA CENTER LACK REAL IDENTITIES
Both men lived under various aliases
BYLINE: Lou Grieco
Dayton Daily News
DATE: April 4, 2001
PUBLICATION: Dayton Daily News (OH)
EDITION: MIAMI COUNTY
SECTION: LOCAL
PAGE: 4B

DAYTON - Both men used several names during their lives. For now, the Montgomery County Coroner's Office is calling both of them "John Doe."

Each used different Social Security numbers - none legitimate. One was arrested a dozen times under as many names in several states since 1976. Officials here don't know which, if any, names are correct. Neither man, who died within six days of each other in February at the Dayton Veterans Affairs Medical Center, is identified. Coroner James Davis said Tuesday he's trying to avoid burying them as John Does.

"The VA doesn't even know if these guys are veterans," Davis said.

Though the coroner's office occasionally gets unknown arrivals, most are identified within days. The coroner's office last buried an unidentified person in 1987, said office director Ken Betz.

That person was a homicide victim, a woman in her mid-20s whose body was found Aug. 10, 1987, along an Interstate 70 ramp near Hoke Road in Englewood. The crime remains unsolved, and the victim unidentified.

The cases of the two VA patients are less nefarious: Autopsies at the hospital disclosed that both men, who appeared to be in their 70s, died of natural causes, Davis said.

The first man, who is white, checked himself into the hospital as James Morgan, but also has used the last names Wasson and Wason, according to coroner's investigator Harry Brown. Morgan died Feb. 20.

He used several addresses in the Dayton and Cincinnati area, but investigators have had no luck tracking him. They found one, a hotel in Cincinnati, where he definitely stayed. But his belongings were gone by the time investigators arrived, Brown said.

Friends knew him by different names, and few people knew about his past. He cashed veteran's checks, but apparently under a name investigators haven't yet discovered, Brown said.

They also haven't found the name he stayed under when friends visited him at Cincinnati's veterans hospital. One of his Social Security numbers came back to a 16-year-old black youth in Memphis, Brown said.

That wasn't the case for the second man, who died Feb. 26. He entered the hospital as Richard Miller, but his fingerprints gave investigators 11 other names: Harold Stewart, Alvin Stewart, Carl Stewart, Richard Stewart, James Stewart, Alvin Clark, James Harris, James Robinson, Charles Carter, James Jones, and Richard Welch.

Most of his arrests were out-of-state, in places such as Birmingham, Ala., Detroit, Chicago or Nashville. He was arrested as Richard Stewart in a 1993 Miami Twp. theft.

Officials have several fictitious addresses for the man in Dayton and Cincinnati.

The man listed as his next-of-kin doesn't seem to exist either, he said.

He is a black male. One of his Social Security numbers "comes back to a female in Cincinnati," Brown said.

Coroner's are going to the public, because they don't have anywhere else to go. Photos of the dead men could be on the office Web site at www.siscom.net/~mcco/ by next week, Brown said.

Anyone with information about either man is asked to call the coroner's office at (937) 225-4156.

"This is our last shot," Betz said. "If not, they'll be buried 'John Doe, John Doe.'"

* Contact Lou Grieco at 225-2057 or e-mail him at lou_grieco@coxohio.com
Copyright, 2001, Cox Ohio Publishing. All rights reserved.

Click to expand...