OH OH - Oregon, Lake Erie shore, UncMale 40-65, UP12757, likely wore dentures, Est PMI months, Jul'14

Maumee Bay, Lucas Cnty, OH.

'Skeletal remains found Thursday on rocks behind Toledo Edison’s Bayshore power plant have been taken to the Lucas County Coroner’s Office for further investigation.

Police chief Mike Navarre said investigators will check missing-person reports from communities in Michigan and Canada. He believes it is likely the remains washed up from Lake Erie'

http://www.toledoblade.com/Police-F...ely-Mich-missing-man.html#hxAkViuHODoQT6Cl.99

They note that it's "nearly impossible" to be Brian Martin, 52, who went missing from Toledo on the 22nd of June.

Also, the remains are likely to be at least 6 months old.

Six months or so would mean last winter, when the body would likely have sunk deep in the cold water.

Matthew Lyzen went missing in Rochester MI, which is north of Detroit. https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/23405/4/

This may be an entirely dumb question, but I don't understand how a full skeleton would wash up to shore. Was it complete? Wouldn't it separate from the action of the waves? I wonder if it was partially skeletonized??

traacker13 said:

This may be an entirely dumb question, but I don't understand how a full skeleton would wash up to shore. Was it complete? Wouldn't it separate from the action of the waves? I wonder if it was partially skeletonized??

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It could be that the entire body washed up, then became skeletonized over time. The location description in the article sounds somewhat isolated (rocks behind power plant)

traacker13 said:

This may be an entirely dumb question, but I don't understand how a full skeleton would wash up to shore. Was it complete? Wouldn't it separate from the action of the waves? I wonder if it was partially skeletonized??

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Decomposition happens slower in water than it does on land. The general rule is ''1 week on land = 2 weeks in water''. And, as we all know, decomposition is faster in hot weather and slower in cold weather.

Bodies usually resurface within a few days or weeks depending on the time of year, because putrefaction happens and the gases that build up push the body towards the surface. This paper is referring to the Thames river and the Great Lakes and notes that, during the months of January and February, it's possible the body may never resurface. The postmortem interval for this skeleton was 6 months, which would place the time of death at around that time. So it's a minor miracle the body even came up.

(Btw I recommend reading that paper. It's lecture notes for some forensic medicine class in the UK, but it has some important info on drowning, how forensic pathologists determine drowning as a cause of death, and the effects of immersion on a dead body. Morbid but interesting stuff.)

I think what happened is that the person died in the lake in winter, the body sunk down to the bottom and it was kept fairly preserved by the icy cold water. Then the weather warmed and the body rose to the surface - still intact - and floated for a while before ending up on the shore. But it wasn't discovered immediately, and it eventually decomposed down to the bone.

Interesting and great article! Thanks for the info.

http://www.norwalkreflector.com/article/4767681

The analysis determined that the remains, found July 17, belong to a man whose age is estimated between 40 and 65, said Lucas County Deputy Coroner Dr. Diane Scala-Barnett. “The age range is wide because many of the indicators that are used on a skeleton for age evaluation are either missing or there’s postmortem scavenging from animals, rodents, or fish,” Dr. Scala-Barnett said.

Anthropologists believe the man was white, but he could also have been of mixed ancestry. He had no original teeth and closed tooth sockets, which indicate that he’d had dentures for an extended period.

He was about 5 feet, 7 inches to 5 feet, 10 inches tall. The man is believed to have been dead fewer than six months. The remains were not found with any clothing. Nothing indicates a cause of death.

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His Namus page: https://identifyus.org/en/cases/12757. We must have known that since the case number is in the title, but I didn't see it earlier.

No ruleouts are listed. DNA is under way.

carbuff said:

His Namus page: Unidentified Person Case. We must have known that since the case number is in the title, but I didn't see it earlier.

No ruleouts are listed. DNA is under way.

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Updated link: Unidentified Person Case

One ruleout listed: Richard Bailey, missing from the Toronto area (he's listed as Bailey Richard, but I'm pretty sure that's backwards. Here's an article about him: Family pleads for missing man Richard Bailey to call home)

carbuff said:

Updated link: Unidentified Person Case

One ruleout listed: Richard Bailey, missing from the Toronto area (he's listed as Bailey Richard, but I'm pretty sure that's backwards. Here's an article about him: Family pleads for missing man Richard Bailey to call home)

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No additional exclusions or new information.