PA PA - Lower Turkeyfoot, WhtMale 25-50, 170UMPA, expensive clothing, gold box chain w/crucifix, Nov'95

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Unidentified White Male
  • Located on November 3, 1995 in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
  • Cause of death was gunshot wounds to the head.
  • Estimated Date of Death: October of 1994.
Vital Statistics

  • Estimated age: 30 - 50 years old
  • Approximate Height and Weight: 5'6"-5'10"; 150-170 lbs.
  • Distinguishing Characteristics: Black or brown hair. His shoulder was dislocated at one time, and he may have felt discomfort there.
  • Dentals: He had a cast Vitallium horseshoe palate partial plate in his mouth, replacing nine upper teeth which were missing from his mouth. The partial plate appeared to have been made for the victim about 1 year prior to his death. This partial plate was a very high quality type of dental work. It is estimated that the man's teeth had been lost earlier in life as a result of blunt force trauma.
  • Clothing: He was wearing tan Genuine Country Road Pants, a light colored Claiborne button-down, short-sleeve shirt, a brown Italian calfskin belt and a light colored Claiborne pullover sweater. He also wore socks, striped Jockey briefs and a gold box chain with a cross. No shoes were found. All clothing sizes were medium and all clothing was expensive. The pants would have cost about $200 and have been sold at one of the exclusive Country Road Australia shops that catered to wealthy clientele. In the mid-1980s, Country Road Australia was the archetypal yuppie clothing brand. Two stores in the Pittsburgh area - at Fifth Avenue Place, Downtown, and The Galleria in Mt. Lebanon - closed in mid-1994. A detective previously working on the case had no luck finding employees who could recognize a computer drawing of the victim.
  • Other: He may have been from the Pittsburgh area.
Case History
A hunter discovered the skeleton in November 1995, lying face-up, in a remote wooded area of Lower Turkeyfoot. It was 180 feet from a township road that is not maintained during the winter, on property logged by Kern Brothers Lumber Co. The location is a half-hour south of the turnpike and 20 minutes north of the Maryland border.
Police don't know if he was killed there or dumped there. The skeleton was on top of leaves that had fallen in fall 1994, according to a forensic anthropologist. That places the time of death between October 1994 and June 1995, but not during the dead of winter.
He was shot twice in the head, but no gun, bullets or cartridges were found.

Investigators
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Pennsylvania State Police Somerset
814-445-4105
NCIC Number: U-892595124
Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with information regarding this case. Source Information: Pennsylvania State Police

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/170umpa.html

http://www.psp.state.pa.us/psp/cwp/view.asp?a=3&Q=38286
 
This is an interesting case. There seems to be quite a bit of unique informatin about the man, but still no identification of him.
 
Here are two possibles, although I don't feel strongly about either:

He is younger than the age estimate, but he is from Pittsburgh. He looks like the clean cut type who might have worn these clothes. Height and hair color are right. Weight is off, but weight could have fluctuated in the time since last seen. That's a lot of "ifs" but I'm including him anyway:

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/567dmpa.html

Scott is on the opposite side of the equation: His hair and height are right, but his weight is significantly higher than the estimate. He was last seen leaving his job at Easton mall in Maryland. Easton is a fairly well off area and it's possible they would have had these stores at the mall he worked at? Easton is also three hours away though. His truck was found in SC, but two years later, so that doesn't tell us much about where it was in between.

https://www.findthemissing.org/cases/2231/14/
 
I revised my above post...for some reason I didn't link the first missing man. He's there now.
 
None of the above mentioned possibles indicate a partial plate. Although it's always possible that they neglected to mention that the MP had dentures, it's a little hard to get excited about any of them.

I don't know why they believed that the UID was from the Pittsburgh area, but they must have had some reason to mention it. Andrew is the only one of the three who is from Pittsburgh, but there are too many stretches (i.e., age, weight, and no mention of dentures) to make the case for Andrew being this John Doe.

ETA: To answer my own question above, it's probably that the clothing that was sold in Pittsburgh that led them to believe that he was from Pittsburgh.
 
Robert Allison fits all of the vital stats and timeframe parameters, and has a connection to Pittsburgh, but he doesn't resemble the recon, and there is no mention of a partial denture plate on him either.

allison_robert.jpg

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/a/allison_robert.html
 
Seems to me perhaps he might have been involved in some kind of illegal activity. Having his teeth knocked out, but then replaced with a "high quality" partial, the expensive clothes, etc. Sounds almost like mob/drug/something. Getting teeth knocked out and then years later getting shot in the head sounds like you're associating with the wrong type of people. As much as I hate to speak ill of the dead and unidentified, I wonder if that's why he's remained an UID. Fear of making a missing persons report?
 
Carl, that's what I was thinking too about the clothes, and why they thought he might be from Pittsburgh. In winter, this is a pretty popular area for skiing, and it might mean he came from anywhere, but they think he wasn't left there in winter because of the road.

I wish we had that computer drawing of the victim that the detectives showed the clerks at the store.
 
I also wonder why if his age is estimated at 30-50, why the reconstruction looks 65, and why they put blonde hair on him if his hair is "brown or black".
 
Irish_Eyes said:
Carl, that's what I was thinking too about the clothes, and why they thought he might be from Pittsburgh. In winter, this is a pretty popular area for skiing, and it might mean he came from anywhere, but they think he wasn't left there in winter because of the road.

I wish we had that computer drawing of the victim that the detectives showed the clerks at the store.
Click to expand...

I was thinking about the skiing aspect also. I live one county over from Somerset County where the UID was found..(Turkeyfoot Towship is like in the middle of nowhere) Seven Springs and Hidden Valley are the two Ski Resorts in the heart of Somerset County. People come from all over the place to go skiing at those two resorts.

It says he had expensive clothing on... I have to wonder if that brand of clothing was sold at other stores other than Pittsburgh.
 
I think maybe it was, chaddylex, just not in PA.

I know we used to go to Seven Springs from here to ski with my cousins from DC/NOVA. So maybe it was someone in the area for a little R & R.

Angie, I'm glad you said that. Last time I looked at the page the reconstructions wouldn't load for some reason, so I never saw them. It does help to have some idea.
 
I actually met a guy at Seven Springs and dated him briefly about 10 years ago who was from Arlington VA. He would come up and go skiing a few times every year. It's only a 4 hour drive from Northern VA to Seven Springs.

Also Somerset County is right along the turnpike and in the UID description stated how close it is to the MD boarder... he could have been dumped there and been from anywhere.


I thought the reconstruction made the guy look older too.. kind of elderly.... not as young as 30... geez
 
Hmmmm.....

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/3627dmny.html

Pros: Brown hair, age and weight fit, height 1" over the estimate, in right time frame.
Pro: Retired boxer...certainly would explain the shoulder and previous blunt force trauma to the mouth.
Pro: Was involved in criminal activity...makes sense with the circumstances.

Cons: He doesn't resemble the sketch as much as I would like.
Cons: He was last seen in Rochester getting into a car with two other men to pick up his share of the money from a bank job. But Rochester is over 3 hours away from Somerset.

Thoughts?
 
Irish_Eyes said:
Hmmmm.....

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/3627dmny.html

Pros: Brown hair, age and weight fit, height 1" over the estimate, in right time frame.
Pro: Retired boxer...certainly would explain the shoulder and previous blunt force trauma to the mouth.
Pro: Was involved in criminal activity...makes sense with the circumstances.

Cons: He doesn't resemble the sketch as much as I would like.
Cons: He was last seen in Rochester getting into a car with two other men to pick up his share of the money from a bank job. But Rochester is over 3 hours away from Somerset.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

ahhhh....I was just checking him out about two hours ago on NamUS, then i searched him on Doe Network. His profile isn't on Charley Project. I was looking to see if he had dentals listed and he doesn't.

The UID's nose is kind of large and I was looking to compare to Joseph Gibbons and I didn't see the resemblence. (but they could have botched the dang reconstruction)


Carl..... what do you think.... I could see the teeth being knocked out too from boxing and a shoulder injury also.... whoever dumped him could have traveled the turnpike got off the Somerset exit dumped his body and headed back to NY....
 
for whatever it is worth, the man's face looks Hungarian to me. no great science behind my hunch but that's the first nationality to comes to mind when I see the face.

I was not able to find any website for missing Hungarians. on the other hand, there was no indication that his dentistry was from another country.
 
I originally wondered New York, too, since I was thinking from the criminal angle. I eventually dropped it since Pittsburgh is on the wrong side of the state for someone to pop over there to shop, but that doesn't mean it's not possible.

Other than the nose, I think it's a decent likeness, and you're right, the timeline is pretty close.
 
chaddylex said:
ahhhh....I was just checking him out about two hours ago on NamUS, then i searched him on Doe Network. His profile isn't on Charley Project. I was looking to see if he had dentals listed and he doesn't.

The UID's nose is kind of large and I was looking to compare to Joseph Gibbons and I didn't see the resemblence. (but they could have botched the dang reconstruction)


Carl..... what do you think.... I could see the teeth being knocked out too from boxing and a shoulder injury also.... whoever dumped him could have traveled the turnpike got off the Somerset exit dumped his body and headed back to NY....
Click to expand...

He looks like a pretty good possible. He's slightly too tall, and his DLC is a little too late, but still, I'd say it's worth a look. The resemblance isn't that far off.

BTW, I see how they arrived at the earlier limit on the date of death timeframe based on the Fall '94 leaves being under the body. But I wonder how they arrived at the later limit of Jun'95.
 
Irish_Eyes said:
Hmmmm.....

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/3627dmny.html

Pros: Brown hair, age and weight fit, height 1" over the estimate, in right time frame.
Pro: Retired boxer...certainly would explain the shoulder and previous blunt force trauma to the mouth.
Pro: Was involved in criminal activity...makes sense with the circumstances.

Cons: He doesn't resemble the sketch as much as I would like.
Cons: He was last seen in Rochester getting into a car with two other men to pick up his share of the money from a bank job. But Rochester is over 3 hours away from Somerset.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
CCJD said:
Bad copy, got it from newspaperarchive.com
170umpav.jpg
Click to expand...

Hairline isn't quite right, but aside from that, it looks like Joseph Gibbons to me.

170umpav.jpg
JGibbons1.jpg
 
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