Identified! IL - Alton, HispMale UP12861, 43-60, mummified remains in car trunk, Aug'14 - Jose Randolfo Pagoada

NamUs UP 12861 https://identifyus.org/en/cases/12861

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Unidentified Hisp Male


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News article regarding the discovery: http://fox2now.com/2014/08/05/alton-police-working-mummified-remains-found-in-a-car/



The news article really confuses me... it states that the remains were that of a black male between 25 and 35, but I guess that was based on the neighbor's impression?

Any ideas on this one?

Another article including an interview of the woman who notified police about the body.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_10e9ad7f-695f-55c8-a189-dc188e983443.html

It probably is Michael Womack, the height, the fact the family has ties to that neighborhood, and the fact she noticed the car there about the time he went missing is all probable. Hope his family can get answers..

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-543674
According to an appeal on CNN (in the link) there are details about Michael that would have been pretty distinct. I wonder if they knew right away it was him? Because Michael was doing chemo when he went missing and had a cath in his neck. The only thing that doesn't fit is the outfit the UID is wearing. It describes in detail that Michael was wearing blue jeans and a boca outfit when he went missing. Our UID is wearing sweats. I wonder if he went home to change and then went back out? It's sad on both accounts. RIP, friend. JMO

A neck catheter is not terribly conspicuous. My friend had one of them for a while. Here's a photo: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Port-catheter.jpg (Rest of article, if you're curious about the details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_venous_catheter)

If the body was wrapped in carpet, as described, the place where the catheter was might not even have been visible.

carbuff said:

A neck catheter is not terribly conspicuous. My friend had one of them for a while. Here's a photo: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/Port-catheter.jpg (Rest of article, if you're curious about the details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_venous_catheter)

If the body was wrapped in carpet, as described, the place where the catheter was might not even have been visible.

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IDK, maybe I got my words mixed up. I thought that maybe they knew it was him because of the neck cath (when they got him back to the morgue)? I was more curious of the outfit than anything. JMO

jenstar said:

IDK, maybe I got my words mixed up. I thought that maybe they knew it was him because of the neck cath (when they got him back to the morgue)? I was more curious of the outfit than anything. JMO

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Ah, I thought you meant that the people looking into the car should have noticed it.

Maybe he went home, changed, and was taken from there?

Identity of dead body remains a mystery
Last updated: September 05. 2014 5:09PM
By Linda N. Weller lweller@civitasmedia.com

Snipped:

“It may take a couple months yet,” said Pfc. Emily Hejna, public information officer at the Alton Police Department. “We are waiting on the lab results.”

While police are not saying the body definitely is not that of either of three men missing from the region, Hejna said the investigation appears to be going away from those individuals.

“The leads we are investigating is leading us away from our local cases, but there is no positive identification and it probably will be months before do have an identification,” she said.

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http://www.thetelegraph.com/news/news/50264243/Identity-of-dead-body-remains-a-mystery

https://thetelegraph.com/news/81947/alton-detectives-awaiting-dna-on-body-found-in-2014

It’s been 21 months since a decomposed body turned up inside the rear of a Mitsubishi Galant, but detectives still do not know the man’s identity, and remain waiting for DNA test results...

“We are waiting on the forensic anthropologist,” Ford said. “These labs are bombarded with work. It is always a waiting game, but it’s nice when you get back the information. We have no results and no information. The case is still active; we still are in a holding pattern. Once we get answers, it will give us directions” on how to proceed with the investigation...

Police previously did say the remains are not of anyone missing from Alton.

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Waiting for 21 months? That's horrifying.

Unfortunately not atypical though...

https://thetelegraph.com/news/82866/dna-of-mummified-body-entered-into-database

A national database has the DNA test results of a mummified, Hispanic/Latino man’s body found nearly two years ago in Alton, which authorities hope will lead to determining his identity...

Alton police previously told a Telegraph reporter the remains are at the Medical Examiner’s Office of St. Louis (city), and the DNA test results still had not been completed or forwarded to a national database, but that information proved erroneous.

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Body found in car, Alton, IL

What is taking so long for this poor soul to be identified? Who's car was he found in? Who owned the carport? Why was the car allowed to sit for seven years without any problems, no "tow warning"??? Any other car in Alton can't sit for more than one or two months without getting towed... Someone had a pretty large amount of confidence that the victim would be hidden, in plain sight, no less.. Then he changes from an African American male to a Hispanic male...but the facial reconstruction looks Caucasian as far as facial features go... What is going on?? Sounds like a lot of smoke and mirrors.Also, there WAS another black male that disappeared from Alton, similar circumstances as Mike... But nothing is ever said about him. Just one small article in the telegraph.

This man's profile is no longer available in Namus.

I found a couple of articles from 2017 when they finally got around to having DNA done, and nothing after that, so I assume it came in as with a match. I couldn't find any information about it though. The article indicates they found the man was probably deceased only about three years before he was found, and was not Michaell Womack.

DNA of mummified body entered into database

Modern Mummy: Law enforcement, examiners need public’s help to ID Alton body | RiverBender.com

There still has been no match, a while ago I actually contacted the administration of the namus.org page about this profile. I was unsure of whether or not it was a broken link, or some other problem with the page. I received a reply which seemed to imply that there may have been a break in the case, but that it was not something that they were at liberty to discuss further. Except nothing has happened since then... The garage that the body was found in, along with the abandoned home on the property were both recently demolished, and the owners of the property live in the Southwest. What nobody mentioned, is that while there are no 'missing person cases' from this area involving a Hispanic/Latino male-- there are a number of local businesses that employ immigrants. Usually, the employees live together in one house, and there are (and were back then) at least two of these houses in the upper Alton area, within a few blocks of the property in question. These workers will often pick up and move to different cities, or even states, to get work at other establishments. They will do this with little to no notice, as a friend of mine left Alton one evening and started a job in Wisconsin about a day later. So, it's not unlikely that nobody realized the man may have been missing. It could easily have been assumed that he left town of his own accord, or may have just arrived in Alton from another town. If he was an undocumented illegal, his own family may not have been aware of his current place of employment. It's just a thought... I think of this case often, as I live less than a mile from the property where the body was found. Also, the house on the property had a very negative vibe, I wouldn't be surprised if the murder occurred in the home (if you believe in that type of thing) There was a lot of personal belongings and construction materials left laying around in the house, and it appeared that someone was in the process of remodeling, but abruptly stopped. Perhaps someone used illegal laborers, and the victim was one of them... Perhaps they were also from out of town.

Michael Womack's profiles on Namus and Charley Project were updated in January with new photos and details:

[URL="https://www.namus.gov/MissingPersons/Case#/18975"]The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)[/URL]
Michael Anthony Womack – The Charley Project

That doesn't automatically mean he was ruled out. It's not uncommon for identification to be kept confidential (sometimes even from the family) when there's a question of a criminal investigation.

I mentioned this case to a friend of a friend, who said that his parents know the woman who reported the body to the police. This is just hearsay, but he was told that the victim either owed someone a substantial amount of money, or he came across a large amount of money-- but in either case, someone wanted to get their hands on it. What caught me off guard was that he said the body wasn't in the trunk that entire time, but that it was kept in a freezer for several years. I tried to get more details, but he said that was all he heard from his parents. I asked if he was ever identified, or if anyone was arrested; since there's been no local coverage of any developments in this case. If the owners of that property live out west, their arrest might not have been considered "news worthy" in this area, especially if the victim was from another area, as well.
I have little faith in The Telegraph to accurately report on any breaking news, other than the leaves changing color along the River Road... But it'd be nice to have some kind of update on this. The victim's information was never reposted on Namus, so one could deduce that an ID was made...if so, the discovery of a viable suspect shouldn't have been too far off. Right? I'm just taking all of that with a grain of salt, because the damage done to the tissue when placed in a freezer should have been apparent during autopsy, yet it was never mentioned as far as I recall. Maybe that detail was withheld-- but now it seems that the identity of the victim, himself, is being withheld. Very sad and very mysterious...

Bumping.

The UID's Namus page is still off line. I still couldn't find anything more recent than the 2017 DNA update. He apparently wasn't Michael Womack.

I'm so happy for this to have a resolution, it has never been far from my thoughts.

RIP Jose Randolfo Pagoada