Identified! TX - Texas City, WhtMale UP14589, 17-19, hit by car on Gulf Fwy, Aug'73 Joseph Spears

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I forgot to put **postmortem photo** in the initial post, could a mod change that? Thanks! :)

Charley Project says: "While Joseph was serving time at the facility, his family moved to California where his father was stationed in the Navy. He was aware of the move and planned to join them there when he was released." http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/s/spears_joseph.html

Making his way to California fits in with finding himself in Texas a few weeks after escaping, though he certainly wasn't rushing. The UID's well-groomed appearance makes me think it's less likely to be Joseph Spears, since being on the run for a few weeks wouldn't be good for appearance (unless his hair was washed before the photo to make him more close to normal appearance for ID reasons). Maybe he set himself up in that town with a job and was hoping the trail would grow cold before contacting family. Cutting his hair and shaving would of course make better sense if he wanted to avoid being detected.

Another one I'm looking at is Alan Soper because of the scar on the wrist: https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/7770/62

"Scar on wrist, uncertain if right or left, from cut on wrist occurring when Soper was 2 years old"

UID:
"scar above left wrist circular in shape"

Soper supposedly phoned his family and said he was in California though, plus his height and age are not as good a fit as Spears.
 
I would submit. Both JN Spears' and the UID's profiles make mention of circular shaped scarring above the left wrist.
 
Looks like a very close match to Spears! Good find - are you going to submit him?
 
Good find, biscuits! I definitely think you should submit him.
 
I haven't submitted the Spears idea yet, I've been overenthusiastic in the past and I think I annoyed one or two Namus admins and embarrassmed myself a bit. No DNA is available for the UID so I guess they'd have to dig his remains up to see if DNA match is possible. Searching the case number ML-73-306 finds Hayes Grace Memorial Park, it has a photo of the gravemarker if you click on "photos":

http://www.hayesgracememorialpark.com/obits/obituary.php?id=398245

Thanks for the encouragement everyone, so I guess I'll submit it if no one else has already done so.
 
biscuits222 said:
Oops, didn't notice that. Thanks.
Click to expand...

LKA dates have been off before--just recently, wit Kerry Graham and Francine Trimble, they were listed as having gone missing a year after they did! Please submit, I think you might be onto something...they look so close, and everything fits.
 
To get the ball rolling slowly I sent a message to Michael Nance about Joseph Spears, so if that turns out a negative we have the others as potentials too. Now I look more closely Alan Soper was almost certainly in California, his clothes and wallet were found there, with foul play very likely due to his meeting a bad trucker. He kept regular contact with family and it would be odd to run off to Texas without telling them.
 
BTW, the pictures used on any missing sites of Joey Spears seems to have him having really light brown hair (almost blonde), which made me doubt at first (as the UID has "dark brown hair"), but if you look at the images in Namus, there is an older photo of him with dark brown hair. Hair won't go lighter, usually, with age, so I'm sure his hair was dark brown.

That said, I'm now 110% sure it's him. There's just too many things that are the same, and it's easy to put a story around it. Also, as he escaped from a detention centre, he probably wouldn't have had ID on him. I'm sure you are right on this one, biscuits222. This is going to be the next big match. Keep us posted...
 
Michael Nance responded and said the possibility of Joseph Spears is currently being explored by Harrison County Sherriff's Office and Nueces County Medical Examiner's Office.
 
biscuits222 said:
Put in Namus a week ago:
https://identifyus.org/en/cases/14589

I searched findthemissing and I think Joseph Norman Spears is a decent potential match, especially the eyes, hair, height and weight:

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/20957/34
Click to expand...


Body exhumed in Texas may be Harrison County teen missing since 1973

http://www.sunherald.com/news/local/counties/harrison-county/article60415261.html

Harrison County cold case investigators are hoping DNA tests on an unidentified body exhumed in Texas will match that of a Harrison County teenager who has been missing for more than 40 years.

An employee of a Texas cemetery where the body has been buried since 1973 wanted to find out who the dead teenager was and started combing through old newspaper clippings about the teen's death.

Possible match

When the worker compared a picture of the dead teen in Texas with a picture of 17-year-old Joseph "Joey" Norman Spears from the National Missing and Unidentified Persons Systems database, she thought she had found a match.
Click to expand...

Now, the DNA collected from Spears' family and that of the dead teen is in the process of being tested for a comparison, and Spears' family is waiting on an answer.

"They understand nothing has been confirmed," Scarbrough said. "They are hopeful, but they are also realistic. They don't want to get involved in any press at this time."
Click to expand...
 
Cemetery worker to teen's mother: 'He has always been cared for'

http://www.sunherald.com/news/local/counties/harrison-county/article60577066.html

"It was really important to me to give this man a name and to let his mother know that though he hasn't been with you for 42 years, he has been cared for," Davidson said Monday. "His mother of all people deserves to know where her son is and to know he was cared for, that he always had flowers (on his grave), that he had a proper funeral and that he still has visitors even though he doesn't have a name."
Click to expand...

Last week, Davidson was there when officials lifted the boy's burial vault from its grave, the first step in the process of recovering his remains and collecting DNA samples to compare to DNA Johnson and Scarbrough worked with authorities in San Francisco, Calif., to obtain from Spears' brother and sister.

Now, the wait begins.

Harrison County authorities said it will take months before the DNA tests are completed.
Click to expand...
 
Contaminated DNA delays results in Harrison County missing person case

http://www.sunherald.com/news/local/article89524012.html

A contaminated DNA sample has temporarily delayed efforts to determine whether the body of an unidentified teen killed in Texas City, Texas, is that of a Harrison County teen missing for more than 40 years.

Officials had taken a DNA sample from the unidentified body exhumed in February in Texas to see if it matched that of Harrison County teenager James “Joey” Norman Spears. At age 17, Spears disappeared after he escaped from the Harrison County Youth Detention Center on July 31, 1973.

“The first sample they checked was mishandled,” Harrison County Investigator Bill Scarbrough said Wednesday. “Whoever packaged it didn’t do it correctly. Now they’ve got more samples from the body. We are now in a hurry up and wait scenario.”

Harrison County investigators are hoping to get the results of the second DNA sample as early as late August or early September to see if it’s a match.
Click to expand...
 
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