Identified! PA - Schuylkill Co., Unidentified Female on I-81, May'03 - Caryn Fortino

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If anyone has or can find any additional information on this case, please let me know. Other than what I found in one newspaper article, I can't find anything on this unidentified woman.

An article in the Wilkes-Barre, PA Times Leader, dated 5/28/2003, states that police were seeking the identity of an unknown female found along I-81 the previous Friday. The woman was found in a wooded area near mile marker 132 in Schuylkill County, near the border with Luzerne County.

Police (the state police located at Frackville are listed as the contact) believed the woman may have been killed as early as the previous November. She had died due to asphyxiation due to strangulation.

The victim was described as being in her 20s or 30s, 5'1" to 5'3", 90 to 115 pounds, with long dark brown to black hair. She had breast implants.

The victim had a tattoo of a green stem with thorns and leaves and a blue and white flower on the outside of her right ankle. The name "Brand" was written above the stem.
The UID was wearing a pair of size 26 Guess jeans (the article states this is equal to a womens' size 3 to 4), a pair of white and purple underwear, a white scarf and white ankle socks.

Surprisingly, her ethnicity is listed as unknown.

That is all that is stated in the article. I have been unable find anything else on this woman. I'm hoping that I'm just overlooking the follow-up articles.

As far as I know, implants carry a serial number by which the recepient can be identified. The tattooed name "Brand" seems odd to me...Its possible it may have read "Brandi" (and I have located a couple of missing girls by that name, meeting the general description of the UID).
 
I couldn't find any updates on this either. She is not listed on the Pennsylvania Missing/Unidentified Persons website I found, but I'm not sure how good they are about adding people to that as I've never checked it before.

My guess though is that she has been identified already, but I found a few numbers for the State Police, and one for the coroner also if you want to check it out further? The 800# for Fracksville SP is the one that shows up in Yellow Pages, maybe that is one to try first if you're interested?
Frackville SP
toll free # (800) 305-9685
or possibly
(570) 874-5300


Schuylkill County
Coroner's Office
Joseph Lipsett
Phone: 570-628-1399
Fax: 570-628-1395
email-jlipsett@co.schuylkill.pa.us
 
Thanks, Lorelei..I e-mailed the coroner, I'll post his reply if and when I get it.
 
Hello,
Have you received an answer from the coroner? My BF lives in St Clair (right outside Frackville). I never even heard of this untiil I read it on here.
 
I e-mailed the coroner's office twice and got no response whatsoever. There are several clues to the victim's identity (the tattoos, the implants)...I'm hoping she was ID'd, and the info just got buried somewhere. I hate to think of all the UIDs out there, forgotten for one reason or another.
I ran across the same thing in Missouri from 1998, another female UID mentioned in one little article and then nothing else. There aren't that many women listed as missing in that area, so one would hope she was ID'd fairly quickly.
Then again, we just don't know.
 
The tattooed name "Brand" seems odd to me...Its possible it may have read "Brandi" (and I have located a couple of missing girls by that name, meeting the general description of the UID).

also look for women that have a child with "Brand" in their name, or boyfriend/husband named Brandon.

I found a missing woman in GA who had a son named Brandon, but the description didn't mention her having a tattoo.
 
If I knew where the medical examiners office was in Schuylkill County I would go there personally and find out. I will try and find out. I am up there almost every weekend since it is my 2nd home. She was found along I-81, which runs North to South. From the description of where she was found it says near the Sullivan County - Schuylkill County border. Which confuses me a little since Schuylkill County doesn't touch Sullivan County, so I don't know where this border is that they speak of. However i-81 does go up to Wilkes-Barre and continues into New York.
 
She was identified in June 2003 as 37 year old Caryn Fortino of Philadelphia.
 
Pottsville Republican, The & Evening Herald (PA)
December 18, 2005
Section: Local News

Caryn Fortino
Authorities have yet to determine who killed 37-year-old Caryn Fortino and left her body on the side of Interstate 81 between the Mahanoy City and Delano exits in Delano Township on May 23, 2003.
County forensic pathologist Dr. Richard P. Bindie determined the Philadelphia area woman was strangled and labeled the death a homicide. Her identity was determined from fingerprints submitted to both the state police and FBI databases.
 

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