The Problem with Marilee Bruszer and Other Unidentified

As has been going around this website and in real life, the situation with Marilee Bruszer has become a massive concern for other unidentified.

Has the unidentified got DNA, dentals, fingerprints? If so, there may be the chance of a match (if they were reported missing). Circumstances? Sorry, rule out.

Until, that is, Marilee Bruszer was identified. The victim, found in September 1978 in Utah, was thought to be 18-22, with blonde or brown hair, 5'2/5'3 tall, around 110 pounds, having died 2-3 years prior to her discovery.

But, as we found out, Marilee was 33, 5'5 and between 140 and 150 pounds. She had disappeared two weeks earlier. While the nose and hair color were accurate, this could have ended very badly.

If Marilee's family hadn't been able to submit DNA, I don't think Marilee would ever have been identified. This does prove the powers of DNA, but also a terrifying situation for other unidentified bodies.

How do we know that little boy isn't a little girl? How do we know that dark-haired body isn't actually blonde? How do we know that 40-year-old isn't sixty? These unanswered, nerve-racking questions are every forensic investigator's nightmare.

What I would think would help this problem is for unidentified bodies to be checked on whenever there is new technology available. I personally think the poor 1970s tech might have hindered the case, so check-ups may close many cold cases.

I give my greatest sympathies to Marilee's family and the investigators who worked hard on this case.

But I truly think this may solve many cases where suspected identities have been ruled out due to 'circumstance'.

Thanks for the post, Earth, it's very true. We need to focus less on circumstance and more on DNA/dentals/fingerprints. Since so many factors were incorrect with Ms. Bruszer's UID information, hopefully it will be a reminder to look past the circumstances and focus on definite technology.

Did a family member finally submit DNA that was put into a database or was this a direct submission used for manual comparison?
Also does anyone have any examples of a family submitting DNA to be entered into database, that later rendered a match with an UID's profile that was already residing there? If so, how long was it before associations were made between the 2 DNA profiles? Thank you for any help, this mentioned case is an excellent example indicating that circumstances, best guesses and the like should never be used to rule out, most especially in the case of skeletal remains.

JezyUn said:

Did a family member finally submit DNA that was put into a database or was this a direct submission used for manual comparison?
Also does anyone have any examples of a family submitting DNA to be entered into database, that later rendered a match with an UID's profile that was already residing there? If so, how long was it before associations were made between the 2 DNA profiles? Thank you for any help, this mentioned case is an excellent example indicating that circumstances, best guesses and the like should never be used to rule out, most especially in the case of skeletal remains.

Click to expand...

Late comment to this thread.

For this UID (http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...0-60-distinctive-tattoos-Aug-00-Name-withheld), he was unidentified since 2000, but had fingerprints available (despite the profiles saying they weren't). When I suggested a comparison to a missing person thinking that dentals or DNA would be used, the request initiated a resubmission of his fingerprints which ended up identifying the decedent as someone else whose fingerprints were in the database. That led to me wondering just how many old and archived fingerprints are added to the system on a regular basis and why they aren't compared to previous fingerprint searches like DNA searches apparently are.