Does anyone else get the feeling that this is another one of those cases where maybe the parents of this young man know/suspect that this was him and were content just to let it be? The reason I ask is because after reading the article posted about his burial and thinking about the parents of 300 missing young men coming forward to see if this was their son, it strikes me that it would be difficult for someone looking for a young man around that age at that time not to have been connected to this story.
There must have been a considerable effort to match missing persons with this young man, and there must have been a decent amount of information reported in the local area for so many families to have come forward. Was there something in the note that the parents recognized as being a message from their son? Something in the description of his clothing? Maybe they knew enough to accept that this was their son and wanted to honor his last wishes of anonymity.
However, there are two significant things that I think would have made it possible for a match not to have occurred, even if a family was actively searching:
1. The age is so off that a family looking for their son wouldn't have considered the Belle Chasse Doe a match. I know next to nothing about how age of a decedent is determined, aside from what Google just told me. What is the margin of error? Two years? Five years? More? If a family hadn't heard from their son who was 22 or 23 years old I can see this case not crossing their radar.
2. The location is so far from where people assumed he would be that they didn't hear about the case. A college kid from a family in Oregon says he'll be spending some time with friends in California and isn't heard from again. Parents don't see the AP article, LE on the West Coast doesn't hear about it, and the chance is missed.
And then there is the possibility that he was never reported missing. Maybe someone who traveled, who dropped out from time to time. This one just doesn't sit as well with me. Young man, well educated, presumably well cared for (although we don't know the specifics on that, do we?) suddenly stops calling home or visiting and the parents he clearly cares about don't report it? No one misses him? I can't accept that one. He references the fact that Mom and Dad should be allowed to carry on hope about their "missing" son and not know he was dead. He's telling us that his disappearance will be noticed, at least by them.
