Identified! WA - Coupeville - White Male, 19-26, 1996 - Possible Military Member

From The Doe Network:
Case File 358UMWA
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/358umwa.html

Reconstruction of Victim
Unidentified White Male

• Discovered on November 7, 1996 in Coupeville, Island County, Washington.
• Estimated date of death: Between 1991 and 1993.
• State of Remains: Skeletal

Vital Statistics

• Estimated age: 19 - 26 years old
• Approximate Height and Weight: 5'7" - 5'11"
• Distinguishing Characteristics: He had a jaw fracture repaired with surgical screws and a healed broken nose.
• Dentals: The dental work was consistent with that performed on military personnel.
• Clothing: Canvas and leather camouflage high-top boots, Jockey underwear, a long-sleeve sweatshirt with a bull elk on the chest, parts of a baseball cap and yellow frame prescription glasses with "51/2 Randolph ENG. USA" on the frame.
• Other: A tag on the man’s pants read "THAYTON," but no one by that name has been stationed in Oak Harbor or reported missing.

Case History
A mushroom hunter found a human skull a half-mile west of state Route 20 south of Libbey Road in Coupeville on November 7, 1996. More remains and a .25- caliber pistol were found the next day.

Items from the description strongly indicate this person had a connection to the military. Randolph Engineering has produced eyewear and special optical equipment to the US military since 1982.

Looking into this case brought me the question of whether or not military deserters are listed anywhere for the public to view. In researching that aspect, I've discovered that the Army's CID will work with local law enforcement to look for missing personnel, and list the person's info with NCIC. The Navy's NCIS maintains a missing persons' website, but only lists those cases with unusual aspects (missing from ships, personnel missing with indications of foul play)
I can't find any central data base for personnel who are AWOL or considered deserters.

I did find one missing person that bears consideration in this case:

(courtesy The Charley Project)

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/s/summers_william.html

Summers went missing from his ship at the Naval base at Bremerton, WA. Bremerton is approximately 60 miles south of Coupeville, where the UID was found.

More info is available on the NCIS website:

Sex:MaleRace:CaucasianHeight:6' 01"Weight:160 poundsEye Color:BlueHair Color:BrownRemarks:Petty Officer Summers was assigned to the U.S.S. Robison (DDG-12), which was in port at the Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, when he disappeared on January 4, 1982. William Kermig Summers is described as quiet, reserved, and a gentle loving person. He was raised Baptist and became very religious around the time of his disappearance. He became argumentative regarding his religious convictions and has been known to become physical in arguments. It is suspected that he has become involved in religious cults and might have a mental or emotional disorder. He likes tennis, fishing, and working with children and mentally handicapped people. Around the time of his disappearance, he mentioned an interest in moving to Canada. He could be going by the name of Andrew.

William Summers Namus page:

https://www.findthemissing.org/cases/1022/2/
No jaw fracture mentioned.

The UID had:

yellow frame prescription glasses with "51/2 Randolph ENG. USA" on the frame.

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Items from the description strongly indicate this person had a connection to the military. Randolph Engineering has produced eyewear and special optical equipment to the US military since 1982.

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If Randolph only started to supply them with eyewear in 1982 I doubt William Summers would have had time to acquire Randolph eyewear from his military connections since he disappeared on January 4th 1982.

I did find a couple of mentions of 1982 from the Randolph website
http://www.randolphusa.com/products-sunglass.htm

Randolph Engineering has supplied sunglasses to the US Military and Air Forces world-wide since 1982.

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In 1982, RE became the prime contractor for military-style aviation flight glasses for the U.S. Department of Defense.

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But maybe they were a small time contractor before becoming a prime contractor?

Also, if Summers went missing in 1982 @ age 22, he would have been 31-33 when he died in 1991-1993

I don't see a NamUs profile. I wonder if there is DNA on file?

This is a link to the NCIS Missing Person Page. There are only nine missing people and one unidentified person listed. http://www.ncis.navy.mil/ContactUs/Pages/MissingPersons.aspx

Maybe we should start looking outside of the military connection.

Randolph ENG sells glasses to civilians. He could have been a survivalist.

Maybe he was in the military at one point, then discharged, and that is why he had those dentals.

If he was active military, he would have been identified by now, since the military keeps dental charts, fingerprints, and blood type on file (DNA wasnt exactly accessible in the early 90s like it is today). They keep these charts because if someone is KIA, it would be an easy way of identification. When one leaves the military these items are destroyed.

Just want to mention this: The DoeNetwork got this UID's info from the Seattle PI Newspaper's database of missing or unidentified persons. Read their disclaimer below:
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(This database is for archival purposes only. It was taken from public records from police agency incident reports and/or the Washington State Patrol's database on active missing persons cases)

More than 2,000 people are reported missing in Washington state at any given time. This is a list of the more than 700 who had been missing for at least a year as of December 2002.

The list is based on reports from police departments and the Washington State Patrol, as of December 2002.

While it is the most complete list ever compiled from available records, it is by no means complete. In a yearlong investigation, the Post-Intelligencer found that many reports were incomplete, unverified and often purged by mistake.

In some cases, the subject of the report may have turned up a few days later, but law enforcement agencies failed to follow up and close the case.

Specific information about the individuals came from the police report itself. In some cases, the reporting agency deleted the name of a missing juvenile.
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source: http://o.seattlepi.com/missing/missing.asp
http://o.seattlepi.com/missing/noname.asp?county=island

I bring this up because I was recently researching a case online of someone who went missing in 1980. Then I found their obituary from 2011, died at age 89. Apparently this person was only "missing" for a couple of days on a camping trip from what I can gather. It was just never noted in the records that they were ever found. This case ended up in the Seattle PI's database.
I am not implying this UID here has been identified, just that these records should be used with caution.

OK, Thayton is, interestingly, a very rare name. There are only a handful of people in this country with the name. I found one person who lives in the same state that the UID was found, who has that same last name, and he is not even in the phone directory.

Not sure what that means. Could have been that man's pants at one time. Or could be related, if those were the UID's pants.

cj327 said:

OK, Thayton is, interestingly, a very rare name. There are only a handful of people in this country with the name. I found one person who lives in the same state that the UID was found, who has that same last name, and he is not even in the phone directory.

Not sure what that means. Could have been that man's pants at one time. Or could be related, if those were the UID's pants.

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I found the same thing yesterday. The last name Thayton is very rare and there is only one in Washington, although the only things I can find from him are reviews on purchases from Amazon. That may not even be his real name. I am really tempted to contact him though and ask him if he knows of any family members in the area with the same last name, or if he knows of anyone that is missing.

I thought that it was possible that the UID may have taken the pants from someone else, but having the military issued glasses also leads me to believe that this really could be his last name. What's even more interesting though is that the military told LE that they had no one enlisted with that last name. Could the name have read "T.Hayton" instead? Could the military have been mistaken?

I searched Intelius on the last name THAYTON and found that spelling used interchangeably with THAXTON. I wonder if they name label was hand written and could have slightly faded so the X appeared as a Y.

TexasLil said:

I searched Intelius on the last name THAYTON and found that spelling used interchangeably with THAXTON. I wonder if they name label was hand written and could have slightly faded so the X appeared as a Y.

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Interesting thought. Wish we had pics of the tag!

CherBearSTL said:

Interesting thought. Wish we had pics of the tag!

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I found many ties between the THAXTON name and the military, esp. the US Navy. There were two THAXTON brothers who both enlisted in 1988. One made it to retirement in 2009 and I find no reference to the other brother at all.

I emailed the coroner to see if they still had the label or pictures and whether the Y could merely be a faded X. Hope to hear back soon.

I agree that Thayton or Thaxton is most likely. I think T. Hayton may be less likely.

If those are indeed his own pants he was wearing, this seems very solvable. Hope we can get the family some answers soon.

q64ceo said:

Maybe we should start looking outside of the military connection.

Randolph ENG sells glasses to civilians. He could have been a survivalist.

Maybe he was in the military at one point, then discharged, and that is why he had those dentals.

If he was active military, he would have been identified by now, since the military keeps dental charts, fingerprints, and blood type on file (DNA wasnt exactly accessible in the early 90s like it is today). They keep these charts because if someone is KIA, it would be an easy way of identification. When one leaves the military these items are destroyed.

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bbm

Do you know how long after a person leaves the military they destroy dental charts, fingerprints, and blood type records? What if a person is considered AWOL? Do they have the same policy of destroying the records after a certain time period? Why wouldn't they keep them on file indefinitely???

CherBearSTL said:

I found the same thing yesterday. The last name Thayton is very rare and there is only one in Washington, although the only things I can find from him are reviews on purchases from Amazon. That may not even be his real name. I am really tempted to contact him though and ask him if he knows of any family members in the area with the same last name, or if he knows of anyone that is missing.

I thought that it was possible that the UID may have taken the pants from someone else, but having the military issued glasses also leads me to believe that this really could be his last name. What's even more interesting though is that the military told LE that they had no one enlisted with that last name. Could the name have read "T.Hayton" instead? Could the military have been mistaken?

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Other: A tag on the man’s pants read "THAYTON," but no one by that name has been stationed in Oak Harbor or reported missing

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What if he hadn't yet been transfered to Oak Harbor? They only checked OAK Harbor. Why not the entire military? They have a potential last name and they should have been able to run just his last name and his approximate age to see if they had anyone listed anywhere in the miltiary under that name. If he had been involved in criminal activity they sure would have known right away who he was and all there was to know about him!!!

I'm thinking he could have also been discharged and therefore, the military wouldn't have record of him missing. They should have checked all enlisted and previously enlisted databases as well.

Wanting2Help said:

bbm

Do you know how long after a person leaves the military they destroy dental charts, fingerprints, and blood type records? What if a person is considered AWOL? Do they have the same policy of destroying the records after a certain time period? Why wouldn't they keep them on file indefinitely???

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No idea how long it takes for them to destroy these files. They do it because of privacy laws.

TexasLil said:

I found many ties between the THAXTON name and the military, esp. the US Navy. There were two THAXTON brothers who both enlisted in 1988. One made it to retirement in 2009 and I find no reference to the other brother at all.

I emailed the coroner to see if they still had the label or pictures and whether the Y could merely be a faded X. Hope to hear back soon.

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Did you ever hear back from the coroner? I wish we had confirmation on the name. If it is Thayton, then it could be very helpful (because the name is so rare).

cj327 said:

Did you ever hear back from the coroner? I wish we had confirmation on the name. If it is Thayton, then it could be very helpful (because the name is so rare).

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Not a single peep. I even copied the assistant coroner on my email just in case. :banghead:

Here is an email I received back after checking with the coroner, Robert Bishop, a second time...

This case was resolved years ago. A friend came in and identified him.

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