VA VA - Rockbridge Co, WhtMal 20-40, 149UMVA, hitchhiker 'Chris', clothes, VA glasses, crucifix, May'87

[Richard]

I don't think they got the date wrong... I believe the family member used the birth of a child to come up with the date she had last seen him.

I feel relieved not thinking it is him. But know he could still be missing someday and I would never know. I hope the bonds we formed will someday bring him back home for a visit.

Trying to remember dates of many years back is very difficult for some people. I know that sometimes I get confused about what events took place in what order, and sometimes interpose one event with another if I haven't thought about them in a long time.

If this relative didn't actually see the man and remember clearly because of a photo taken, or other solid thing, then I would place little confidence in the report. She could be remembering something someone said at the time and may have thought that they were speaking about that day rather than some years before.

 

[Richard]

The 20 Year Anniversary of this young man's death is approaching. Keep an eye out for any articles or coverage. He is still unidentified.

 

[Babyslims]

I had a question.. about the glasses... a what if question..... say his dad was in the military...... what kind of glasses would the son be issued? would they be the same type or something totally different? really wish they had more information ugh!

 

[Richard]

I had a question.. about the glasses... a what if question..... say his dad was in the military...... what kind of glasses would the son be issued? would they be the same type or something totally different? really wish they had more information ugh!

Military dependants qualify for military medical benefits, but usually this does not include eyeglasses. Eye exams can be given to the spouses, sons and daughters, etc of active duty military personnel - depending on availablilty, work load, etc. Most often, however, the exams would be done by private providers paid for through the Tricare insurance program or its predecessor.

Even if the military provided the eye exam, the eyeglasses themselves would have to be ordered through commercial channels. So basically, a military dependant would wear any kind of frames available.

Today, the military personnel are allowed to order "Frames of Choice" along with the standard issue brown plastic frames or Aviator style frames. This means that they can now get anything commercially available. But back at the time of this Cold Case, the only frames that could be issued to military personnel were the plastic types or (if an aviator) the gold or stainless steel color Aviator frames.

 

[Ms Suzanne]

Hi
quote
The "prior military" comes from the trucker and may not be true. The trucker/killer had a friend who had died that week, and he said Chris reminded him a lot of his military friend in actions and mannerism.


May I please ask some questions?What was his friends (the trucker's)name that died?Where was his friend from?Maybe this Unidentified man was from the same area or state or related to his friend in some way if his actions and mannerisms were the same.were the clothes and glasses this unidentified young man wearing his friends?How did his friend die?Maybe he was wearing the clothing to look tough.Do they know what was written on the notes?I was thinking maybe this young man got out of the military or went AWOL or he wanted to hike the appalachian trail so he was wearing those clothing for that purpose.where would he have started hiking the trail?In Georgia?was that where he was heading?The metal crucifix with chain will probably identify who this young man is.They should show a picture of this necklace.

suzanne

 

[Babyslims]

Military dependants qualify for military medical benefits, but usually this does not include eyeglasses. Eye exams can be given to the spouses, sons and daughters, etc of active duty military personnel - depending on availablilty, work load, etc. Most often, however, the exams would be done by private providers paid for through the Tricare insurance program or its predecessor.

Even if the military provided the eye exam, the eyeglasses themselves would have to be ordered through commercial channels. So basically, a military dependant would wear any kind of frames available.

Today, the military personnel are allowed to order "Frames of Choice" along with the standard issue brown plastic frames or Aviator style frames. This means that they can now get anything commercially available. But back at the time of this Cold Case, the only frames that could be issued to military personnel were the plastic types or (if an aviator) the gold or stainless steel color Aviator frames.

Thank you very much!!! I wasn't sure how things went in the military!

Cant wait to hear some answers to Suzannes post! lol! I always have a million questions that would seem like there should be easy answers to.. I just wish if there were other little things that would help identify people that whoever would release the information!!!!

 

[assaf1981]

Here is another possible clue to his identity. The tape cassette.

Someone should tell the investigating officer about that.

 

[anthrobones]

He has a thread on Cold Cases. Here is the link, in case you want to read what has been said so far. I agree that the reconstruction looks strange.

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32735

 

[KarlK]

[...]the more telling clue would be the prescription, Army issue eyeglasses. Those frames were not "in style" as far as civilian wear was concerned. They are often referred to a "BC" glasses - a military acrynym meaning Birth Control Glasses, since wearing them tends to guarantee that you won't get any dates.

In CA we called such glasses "Hollys" (after Buddy Holly) and in the early 80's they were also known as "Devos" and although it's unclear whether or not the band Devo had anything to do with it towards the mid-1980's such glasses became fashionable among youths who identified with "nerd rock" and this coincided with the Vuarnet shades craze, which had a similar retro styling.

 

[assaf1981]

I was wondering, can anyone think of a close match to any missing person or fugitive reports closest to this guy?

 

[webrocket]

here is the Namus link to this UID, with no rule-outs listed at all:

https://identifyus.org/cases/6248

The UID is listed as being about 5'4", which is very short for a white male in this country and he was apparently formerly in the service. you would think that the military could find a list of white men, 5'4" plus or minus, who had glasses ordered through the VA with a specific prescription, unless of course old records like that are either gone or were never digitized.

in Namus I found no missing white men with brown hair between 1/1/80 - 5/31/1987 in the 5'1"-5'7" range.

 

[buffetoflies]

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1320dmks.html
This guy maybe? His h/w isn't listed. I checked namus but he's not on there. I tried looking other places but no luck. He'd be the right age, and he has brown hair.. and well I think he could have picked up that shirt and glasses anywhere.

 

[tifflee]

Couple fyis on this case. The sketch of him could be completely off. It was done by an artist based on what the killer told the artist the guy looked like. His skull was fractured so badly there was no possibility of putting it together to do a reconstruction.

The "prior military" comes from the trucker and may not be true. The trucker/killer had a friend who had died that week, and he said Chris reminded him a lot of his military friend in actions and mannerism.

I did not see any reference in the Doenetwork file to those statements by the trucker. I only drew my conclusions from the two military items found with the victim, those being the Spec 4 patch on a military shirt, and a pair of military issue prescription glasses.

I cannot find where John Swartz made the comments regarding a military friend, but I did find his obituary where it states he served in the military himself. He was killed in prison on December 11, 1999 in an altercation with another inmate. The article linked requires membership to view the entire text, but the blurb available is:

CONVICTED MURDERER KILLED IN PRISON Published on December 14, 1999. Article 1 of 1 found.

Page: B3
An inmate was killed over the weekend during an altercation with another prisoner at the Sussex 1 State Prison, corrections officials said Monday. John Stephen Swartz, who was serving a life sentence for a 1987 murder along Interstate 81 in Rockbridge County, became involved in an incident with another inmate at about 10 p.m. Saturday at the maximum-security prison in Southside Virginia.Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Department of Corrections, could not say how Swartz, 48, was

His obituary in the Houston Chronicle:

JOHN STEPHEN SWARTZ
Sunday 01/02/2000 Houston Chronicle, Section Unknown, Page , Edition

JOHN STEPHEN SWARTZ, age 48, of Pasadena, passed away December 11, 1999 in Waverly, Virginia. Mr. Swartz was a veteran of the U.S. Army serving two years in Vietnam. Preceded in death by his mother, Joyce Swartz in 1995. He is survived by his father, John M. Swartz of Pasadena; as well as two sisters, Brenda Ermel and Becky Swartz; three brothers, Donald Swartz, Daniel Swartz & Michael Swartz; and a grandmother, Mrs. Garnet Swartz. Memorial Services are Monday, January 3 at 7:00 p.m. Carter Funeral Home.

It would seem that if Chris Doe did have military mannerisms, Swartz would have picked up on them himself.

 

[tifflee]

One thing that is not mentioned in the information about this man is his shoes. So much information can be gained sometimes by knowing what type of shoes a person wears. How a person walks (or runs), type of wear patterns, stylish versus practical, etc can be learned by studying the shoes. Shoe size itself might be a crucial bit of identifying information.

I find that this is a common omission in many of the Doenetwork files and those on other websites.

Forrest Gump hit the nail on the head at the very beginning of the movie when he starts his narrative with remarks about those "Comfortable Shoes..."

According to the UID's NamUs file and also reflected in the Doe Network profile now, he was wearing "Brown slipover shoes."

The updated Doe Network profile says (new parts bolded):

Clothing: Spec. 4 military shirt and a brown winter coat with wool/fur interior. Blue jeans with brown belt and Longhorn Steer, square belt buckle. White sweatsocks with green/yellow ankle stripes. Brown slipover shoes. He had a metal Crucifix with chain, switch blade knife, cigarette lighter, cassette tape, eye glasses, pocket size memo pad and $10.12 in cash.

 

[tifflee]

A few things to add.

UID's Eyewear
According to NamUs,

Glasses were similar to the type issued by the Veterans Administration to Vets. The glasses is for a near sighted person, the prescription is as follows:

Right O.D. -2.25 Spherical 5ph Cylindrical
Left OS -2.25 Spherical 5ph Cylindrical

Distance pd = 61mm
BC 4.25 OV
Single vision clear glass

I know this thread had a lot of discussion on military issue eyeglasses. Was there a difference back then between what eyewear active duty and veterans received? It seems like NamUs differentiates the UID's pair as being one from the Veterans Administration - so can we infer that if he was in the military, this pair was received after he got out?

The reconstruction & military records
According to this article (available in full) from The Free Lance-Star on August 5, 1988:

The victim's fingerprints could not be matched with FBI collections of military personnel and arrested people, he matches no missing person's reports and the man who admitted killing him will say little about his victim. After exhausting these possibilities, police had a sculpture formed by an artist who studied the dead man's skull.

Would there be any reason for the UID's fingerprints to not be in military records? I know records were likely not digitized then, so would it be beneficial to run fingerprint searches again?

Also, per the Doe Network profile and what was mentioned previously in this thread, I thought the reconstruction was done based off of Swartz's comments, but it seems like they did do it off of the victim's skull.

Interesting tidbit on UID's hiking plans
Also from the Free Lance-Star article:

The best they could tell was the man appeared to be an inexperienced hiker who may have been going to the Appalachian trail, Peters said. A shopping list found on the man's body included bulky items like paper plates and plastic forks that seasoned hikers would not use.

I wonder if his shopping list was written on the memo pad found on the UID. It would also explain how they knew he misspelled simple words.

Swartz's claim that he did not talk much with his victim
Again, from the Free Lance-Star article:

About all Swartz will say is that he didn't talk much with his victim, a story Peters doesn't buy.

"They didn't talk about sports. They didn't talk about the military. They didn't talk about girls or wives or drinking or anything men normally talk about," Peters said. "Everytime I talk to him, he tells me a different story."

All in all, quite a strange set of details. I wonder if the belt is Swartz's since he has the Texas connection. Maybe the victim's clothing is all a red herring?

 

[rob525]

There was a fire that destroyed army records for those discharged prior to 1960 but that would put "Chris" at being at least 45ish. NamUs says 20-40.

I wondered about the military angle. I joined in 1989 and remember being finger printed. So I do not know why his prints would not show up if he was in fact exmilitary 21-22 years of age in 1987. Also in the Navy, to reach E-4 you have to pass an exam and score in a certain percentile to make that grade. The difficulty of achieving this depends on what field you are in.I was just thinking about the odds that someone who misspells simple words would make E-4.

 

[hayaletcatcher]

The NamUs profile has been updated this month (is there anyway to know what is added?)

There are photos of the jewelry which I see is mentioned on this thread but wasn't viewable at the time.

There is also a 25 person rule out list now.

https://identifyus.org/cases/6248

 

[rainwater]

Bumping.

 

[carbuff]

29 names on the ruleouts list. Christopher Clark, suggested in post #34, is not one of them.

He's got a pretty fair resemblance to the reconstruction, especially considering the damage that was reported to the skull. Wish they had some other stats for him.

 

[scrambledeggs]

I wish there was a better pic of Ernie Earls: https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/11230/0/

What would the uniform be in that pic does anyone know?