Identified! WA - Marysville, Male 20-30, UP8969, in landfill w/trash from Seattle, Sep'77 - Blaine Has Tricks

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Kat

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http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20110617/NEWS01/706179824

Published: Friday, June 17, 2011
By Diana Hefley, Herald Writer

1977 'John Doe' unearthed to see if death was homicide

This unidentified male was discovered at a landfill in 1977 (approx September, by reading the rest of the article) while an operator of a bulldozer worked to push mud over the top of garbage.

Detectives speculated that the body came in on a barge that was then used to haul garbage from Seattle to the landfill the Tulalip Indian Tribes then operated off Highway 529. The landfill was home to trash collected from back-alley dumpsters outside Seattle area businesses.
Click to expand...

Seattle missing persons reports were checked at the time and nothing matched.

COD could not be established but now the UID male has been exhumed to try to establish COD and to do DNA tests so that he might be identified and returned to his family.

(Note: I usually don't post in this area much so if my headline needs to be amended to make it easier for those that do, please by all means do so! Also, I did search NamUs and did not find an entry for this UID male)

I did not search other websites for pages for this male. No other threads popped up during a tag search or while I created this thread.
 
The article indicates:

Reports from Sept. 8, 1977 indicate that the man was about 6 feet tall, 25 to 40-years-old and about 160 pounds. He had black hair and a blue sweater was found with the body. The last batch of garbage was dumped about six weeks before he was found in the landfill.
Click to expand...

ETA: I don't see any 1977 MP's on my list from the Pacific Northwest who fit that description.
 
KaylaraOwl said:
I submitted this man http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/s/sampson_david.html a few days ago and got this response
Hello Jessica,

I do not see that these two have been compared yet. I will forward your suggestion to the investigating agencies for their review.

Thank you for your interest in these cases.

Jessica Hager
Click to expand...

Wondering if you ever heard back from them about this one?

Also updating the URL link for David Sampson: David Robert Sampson – The Charley Project
 
Jay Pringle was known to be travelling along the West Coast when he disappeared. It’s a super long shot - he’s from Oregon but was last seen in California - but the vitals aren’t far out and the date last seen is April ‘77.

1250DMOR - Jay Calvin Pringle
 
Interesting... Now NAMUS shows the only rule out as David Sampson. No mention of a David Boniske.
They've now updated the age range to 30-70. Before I saw that, I was wondering about this young man: Andrew Ewing
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

He's described as very thin and "pasty white skin" and his picture certainly shows long, dark hair. He would have been 20-21 when the UID was found. He was last seen hitchhiking-- told his family he was going to Sacramento to see his brother, but what if he decided to go north instead?
With the updated age-range, it may not be a good match, but we've also seen some age/race/gender discrepancies that have driven cases in the wrong direction before...
 
Snohomish Co website still has this case list as 25-40yo (Namus says 30-70). Most of their UIDs have nice recons but this one doesn't have one yet.

"On September 7, 1977 a bulldozer operator discovered human remains in the Marysville landfill. It is believed that the garbage the decedent was found with came from a business area in Seattle. The remains were determined to be a white male with a fair complexion, long black hair, 25-40 years of age, 5'10"-6'0" tall, with long delicate fingers. He is estimated to have been deceased about six weeks prior to his discovery. The cause and manner of death are undetermined."

Unidentified Remains | Snohomish County, WA - Official Website
 
iulia said:
The NamUs page for this UID is down. He is still listed on the Snohomish County ME webpage.

Unidentified Remains | Snohomish County, WA - Official Website
Click to expand...

Well, that's curious. I double checked and sure enough, his NamUs page has been deleted.

I checked the NamUs pages for David Boniske and David Sampson, who had both been listed as exclusions at different times for UP8969. On both of their exclusions pages UP8969 is listed, although clicking the UP's profile just brings up the deleted page message.
 
Identified, thanks to @othram!

"In January 2021, a section of femur bone was sent to Othram, Inc. for DNA extraction, testing, and a DNA profile that could be uploaded to genealogical databases... On February 14, 2022, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Matt Lacy officially identified the decedent as Blaine Has Tricks. Blaine was returned home to his family in North Dakota. He will be buried at the St. James Catholic Cemetery in Shield, ND."

Blaine Has Tricks | Snohomish County, WA - Official Website

www.snohomishcountywa.gov www.snohomishcountywa.gov
 
sasha17 said:
Identified, thanks to @othram!

"In January 2021, a section of femur bone was sent to Othram, Inc. for DNA extraction, testing, and a DNA profile that could be uploaded to genealogical databases... On February 14, 2022, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Matt Lacy officially identified the decedent as Blaine Has Tricks. Blaine was returned home to his family in North Dakota. He will be buried at the St. James Catholic Cemetery in Shield, ND."

Blaine Has Tricks | Snohomish County, WA - Official Website

www.snohomishcountywa.gov www.snohomishcountywa.gov
Click to expand...
Glad Blaine is home! I really like his name!
 
Officials would later re-examine the remains in March 2012, even reconstructing the cranium and re-assembling skeletal remains. This took several years.

It was in April 2021 when the SCSO returned to Othram, who has helped them in the past. The Texas-based lab again came through, able to develop a DNA profile and finding the man was predominantly Native American.

Officials then took the profile and were able to make family trees and learned Blaine Has Tricks disappeared in 1977 after hopping a train to Spokane, Washington with his brother, Clayton ‘Ross’ Has Tricks. Ross returned home to North Dakota, but Blaine was never found or heard from again.

komonews.com

DNA evidence identifies body found in Marysville landfill 45 years ago

MARYSVILLE, Wash. – A bulldozer operator found human remains in the Marysville landfill 45 years ago. Officials finally found out who the remains belonged to this month, after decades of searching, DNA tests and the case growing colder. The remains were found Sept. 7, 1977 and the coroner’s...
komonews.com komonews.com
 
Othram, Inc. helped identify the remains of Blaine Has Tricks, whose body was found in a landfill in 1977, and Alice Lou Williams, who went missing in 1981, SCSO said.

Blaine has tricks​

In September 1977, a Marysville Landfill worker discovered human remains and contacted SCSO. SCSO determined that the man, later identified as Has Tricks, had come to the landfill from downtown Seattle commercial dumpsters.

The Snohomish County coroner ruled the death a homicide, but an autopsy could not determine the cause due to extensive post-mortem trauma from compaction during shipment and bulldozing processes at the landfill.

The Seattle Police Department and the King County Sheriff’s Office ruled out several missing persons based on dental records and circumstances.

SCSO pointed to the record-keeping practices of both the coroner’s office and the sheriff’s office that helped the case go cold.

Authorities have been re-examining the case since 2009 and exhuming Has Tricks’ body in 2011.

In 2021, detectives submitted remains to Othram, Inc. for DNA extraction and testing. The DNA was used to link Has Tricks to relatives in the Lower Brule Sioux tribe of South Dakota, and Has Tricks was identified.

SCSO learned that Has Tricks disappeared in 1977 after boarding a train with his brother in Spokane, Washington. Has Tricks has not been seen again or has been reported missing.

Has Tricks’ remains were returned to his family in North Dakota.
ustimespost.com

DNA helps ID 2 cold case victims in Snohomish County - USTimesPost

The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office said Othram, Inc. helped identify the remains of Blaine Has Tricks and Alice Lou Williams.
ustimespost.com ustimespost.com
 
Last edited:
Nothing is too difficult for @othram. Was so pleased to see the announcements on FB today. Our WA state folks must be elated to be one step closer in closing 2 cold cases. Heart hugs to the families and rest peacefully Blaine.
 
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