Identified! CA - Long Beach - WhtMale 15-19 - 1392UMCA - 'Paid' stamp on hand- Jun'78 - Kenneth Nevada Williams

I keep going back in my mind to thinking that this perhaps wasn't a club stamp. A stamp saying 'paid' seems like something you would have at a store at that time. My father certainly used one still when I was a teen (1990s) to stamp records of customers having paid for the item in full. I would believe that this would not be something used by a professional club but perhaps by a person having a private party but perhaps having an entrance fee to pay for beer or something like that and the stamp was really for a business. I would really like to see a picture of the stamp mark to see what type of stamp it was...
 
I keep going back in my mind to thinking that this perhaps wasn't a club stamp. A stamp saying 'paid' seems like something you would have at a store at that time. My father certainly used one still when I was a teen (1990s) to stamp records of customers having paid for the item in full. I would believe that this would not be something used by a professional club but perhaps by a person having a private party but perhaps having an entrance fee to pay for beer or something like that and the stamp was really for a business. I would really like to see a picture of the stamp mark to see what type of stamp it was...

That's a good point. Clubs would be much more likely to use something with the date on it, so you couldn't use last night's stamp to get into tonight's show.

Wonder if that's something Kraft would have done to be funny -- pick up a guy turning tricks for money and then stamp him "paid" after the murder.
 
1 year and 1 inch outside the age range. Other looks are similar, as is weight.

Circumstances are not inconsistent - three months between disappearance and location of the body, and involving someone who took off 6 hours in one direction to look for a job... if that didn't work out, he could easily have ended up 6 hours in another direction, especially if his choices were go home or head to where the apparent prosperity is.

Good find!

I agree.

Here's a map that shows Flagstaff AZ, Cline's Corner NM, and the spot where the body was found in Long Beach. Cline's Corner is a gas station/trading post/etc. founded by Roy Cline back when I-10 was Route 6 and then Route 66, and moved several times to stay near the highway. It's a major intersection out in the middle of nowhere, with a lot of tourist business and truck traffic all year round (http://www.theroadwanderer.net/66NMex/clines.htm). It's a very likely place to have gone looking for work.

I think there was also a considerable amount of highway and dam construction going on in the New Mexico/Arizona area at that time.

https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=...9mT1-ClHvUHWNzDdgDEAzjslrafHAQ&t=h&mra=ls&z=6
 
I heard back from Daniel Machain from the LA County Coroner. I guess the possibility of this UID being Jean Vincent is an idea that's been around for awhile --

We received an inquiry in July 2012 on this possible match. Ottawa authorities were contacted at that time and they were going to follow-up on this case and they would contact us when they have completed their investigation.

I wonder how long investigations like this usually take?
 
Recently, I was looking through some of the yearbooks at Classmates and couldn't help be struck by the resemblance between this UID and Craig Victor Jonaitis, a known victim of Randy Kraft who was found deceased near the Golden Sails hotel (about a 2 mile drive from the UID). http://www.classmates.com/yearbooks/Woodrow-Wilson-High-School/71087?page=184 There were other similarities as well (both victims were strangled and not mutilated).

I wonder if the LA Coroner was ever able to compare the UID to Jean Vincent? NamUs still doesn't list any rule-outs.
 
"PAID" stamp = amusement park? That was the first thing that came to my mind. When I go to Playland (Amusement park in British Columbia), they stamp your hand before you enter.

Your post reminded me that I saw amusement rides in LB recently, which led me to search. There was a well-known amusement park in LB, close to the marina, that closed in 1979.

Here is a link with photos http://www.millikanalumni.com/Pike/Pike.html.

Wiki link The Pike - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
 
Could he be:
12. LB MARINA--Name unconnected to any unsolved murder.
Off of the Randy Kraft "scorecard?" Link found here: http://articles.latimes.com/1988-10-02/local/me-4891_1_kraft-case-randy

Could it mean Long Beach Marina? Could our UP been picked up from, or connected to a marina around the area?

Recently, I noticed something about the Long Beach Marina notation on Randy Kraft's list -- it actually looks like it reads "L.B. Marina - 1st ST"
kraftlisttoyota_zpsd9e14947.jpg


Not far from where this young man was found, on Alamitos Bay beginning near Bayshore and 1st St. and extending down to Ocean Blvd. and 55th Place there are two marinas (one is called the Leeward Sailing Center, where I learned how to sail a very small sailboat when I was a kid, I'm not sure what the other one is called or if either of them were there in 1978). The Long Beach shoreline has changed a lot over the years and there could have been a marina near First Street back in 1978 that is no longer there.
 
This is a guy who has been in NamUs since 2011, but his casefile has remain unpublished until recently.

The Date LKA is 01-Dec-79, and there is mention that he might have been tentatively ID'd as a guy killed in a car accident in 1985, but there was never any confirmation.

Edward Champagne

3742c47f-e053-4b07-945f-18df2f46106b.jpg


But he sure looks alot like the Belmont Shore John Doe.

3742c47f-e053-4b07-945f-18df2f46106b.jpg
e215ef4d-e4e4-46e5-9136-3318c8d11061.jpg


I wonder how sure they are of Champagne's Date LKA.
 
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This is a guy who has been in NamUs since 2011, but his casefile has remain unpublished until recently.

The Date LKA is 01-Dec-79, and there is mention that he might have been tentatively ID'd as a guy killed in a car accident in 1985, but there was never any confirmation.

Edward Champagne

3742c47f-e053-4b07-945f-18df2f46106b.jpg


But he sure looks alot like the Belmont Shore John Doe.

3742c47f-e053-4b07-945f-18df2f46106b.jpg
e215ef4d-e4e4-46e5-9136-3318c8d11061.jpg


I wonder how sure they are of Champagne's Date LKA.

It's interesting that you mention Edward Champagne's LKA date, because I'd like to know that, too. I thought that Mr. Champagne looked a lot like William Bonin's victims and had wondered about him possibly being the unidentified victim found in Kern County in November 1979. I mentioned this to Carrie Sutherland at NamUs, asking her about his date LKA. She never got back to me about it. It looks like he was reported missing recently on November 4, 2013.
 
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Jean Vincent has been ruled out. He is the only exclusion listed in NamUs --

**POST MORTEM AT LINK** The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

I didn't notice this before, but it looks like Los Angeles County has DNA for this UID (somehow I was under the impression that they didn't have DNA for any of their UIDs from the 1970s, so I am glad that I was wrong about this).
 
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I read somewhere that they got a grant from somewhere that let them do testing on a bunch of their older UIDs. I don't remember if they were able to exhume anybody, or if it was just for the ones for which they still had teeth etc.
 
Why is there a recreation in the case file? Is that an age enhancement or is the photo not accurate? Just wondering the motive behind that.

The UID looks a lot like this one too:

David Arthur Stack
Missing since June 1, 1976 from Broomfield, Broomfield County, Colorado
Classification: Endangered Missing
In June 1976, David Stack left his residence in the 200 block of Laurel Street in Broomfield, Colorado, with the stated intention of hitchhiking to California.
<modsnip: broken link>

I'm wondering if one of these two cases (the UID and David Stack) could have the wrong year. A hand written 6 can look a lot like an 8 and if that were the case the month of June is accurate.
I think you're onto something here. I took the time to email the investigator into the Unidentified, telling them to look into David Stack. The "8" is a "6" theory is very likely. Weird that its so close, and both being in June. I hope they look into this soon & exclude or confirm the UI being David Stack.
 
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I read somewhere that they got a grant from somewhere that let them do testing on a bunch of their older UIDs. I don't remember if they were able to exhume anybody, or if it was just for the ones for which they still had teeth etc.

:eek:fftopic: [yet since you mention exhumations], Riverside County was planning to exhume The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) to compare his DNA with Donald Ewalt once they had the budget to do so. Hopefully, this means that they will finally be able to. Sorry for posting here, but it is sort of related because of the funding issue and I don't think "Indescribably delicious" John Doe has his own thread.
 
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I was looking through old copies of the Long Beach Press Telegram/Independent (which can be usually be accessed here http://presstelegram.laserfiche.com/WebLink8/Browse.aspx?startid=2088&dbid=0, it was down for a long time, now finally it is back up and running).

I found a very brief article about this UID that ran on June 6, 1978. ptjune6_1978.jpg

In the process, I learned that on June 2, 1978 (the day prior to this UID being found), a teenage runaway from Cherry Hill, NJ, named Leila Faye Barkley Blessing was found murdered in a Long Beach apartment. Ms. Blessing was believed to have run away from the Mill Creek School (a school for emotionally disturbed young people in West Philadelphia) on April 17, 1978 with a boy who was also a student at the school. The missing boy is not named in the Long Beach Independent article from June 8, 1978. june8_1978p1.jpgjune8_1978p2.jpg

I wonder if the missing boy every surfaced again? I wonder if LE ever checked if this UID was the boy missing from the Mill Creek School? I would like to ask yet am not really sure how to even go about it because I don't even have a name of the boy who went missing at the same time as Ms. Blessing.

The news articles in question can also be seen here -- <modsnip: broken links>
 
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:bump: Bumping for image revision.

e215ef4d-e4e4-46e5-9136-3318c8d11061.jpg
 
I heard back from Art Friedman at the Mill Creek School. He advised me that the director at that time is deceased and no one on the current staff has any familiarity with the student in question.

I guess too much time has just passed between 1978 and today for it to be looked into.
 

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