General Questions, discussions, briefings, newbies, etc.

[Laughing]

I've been looking through UIDs and I see very few listed as Asian. How likely would it be that skeletal remains, especially pre-1980, are listed as white?

I'm just not sure how easily MEs were able to tell the difference before science got this far.

sbm

Decades have passed since I took Physical Anthropology, but iirc there are dental & skeletal differences between & among the major racial groups. Since I knew this in the '70's, I figure that medical examiners know this much & more.

Sure, there are mix-ups. We see this in many threads.

jmho ymmv lrr

 

[Springrain]

I've been looking through UIDs and I see very few listed as Asian. How likely would it be that skeletal remains, especially pre-1980, are listed as white? I could also see the Asian community being hesitant to get involved with the police given the long proven history of racism in the US. I'm just not sure how easily MEs were able to tell the difference before science got this far.

I have wondered this as someone who is mixed Asian myself, and I also wondered about Christy Crystal Creek (Janet Lee Lucas), who was thought to be an Asian woman (specifically Japanese), but was instead fully white, no traces of Japanese or any other Asian ancestry. I have no idea why they thought she was Japanese in particular.

Estimating race from skeletal remains is just flat out wrong sometimes, because it's not an exact science. There's been cases similar to Janet Lee Lucas's where the race was incorrect. One more well-known one was Princess Blue (Julie Davis) who was white and thought to be black. There is also a woman whose name I unfortunately cannot recall who was depicted as a heavier white woman and was actually a petite black woman - for this lady, they also said she had never given birth, but she had multiple kids, I think 4 or 5. Estimations from skeletal remains can also be pretty off for height, age, etc. since it is so hard to estimate. (Ex: Marilee Bruszer).

One factor that I have wondered about is less of Asian remains being categorized incorrectly as white and more of them actually being categorized incorrectly as Native American. To me, this makes a lot more sense from multiple different perspectives, especially with human history being so that Native Americans were descended from ancient Asian populations, and that there are genetic similarities there. Lots of Native Americans are thought to be Asian by people and vice versa. So, I could see this easily happening.

I have to wonder if part of it is also because lots of UIDs are found dumped in rural areas and there are far larger Asian populations in coastal cities and other urban areas, rather than these areas. Just a thought. There is a large Asian population in the Los Angeles area, and I've seen some UIDs listed as Asian from the area.

 

[eoyste]

Hello! General question regarding Unidentified remains. Are there specific reasons as to why investigators typically do not post pictures of clothing or accessories found on/near the bodies? I understand if a person was victim to a horrific event where their clothing or items may be covered in blood/graphic in nature. Or if something is being kept away as evidence that they know only a killer would know about. But for things such as glasses, shoes or details of clothing sizes/visuals (etc.), why do they not help post these identifying features so that someone may recognize them? When they only post the bare minimum in details and no pictures, how is that deemed helpful? Just curious! TYIA!

 

[Laughing]

Hello! General question regarding Unidentified remains. Are there specific reasons as to why investigators typically do not post pictures of clothing or accessories found on/near the bodies? I understand if a person was victim to a horrific event where their clothing or items may be covered in blood/graphic in nature. Or if something is being kept away as evidence that they know only a killer would know about. But for things such as glasses, shoes or details of clothing sizes/visuals (etc.), why do they not help post these identifying features so that someone may recognize them? When they only post the bare minimum in details and no pictures, how is that deemed helpful? Just curious! TYIA!

IMHO it's more a matter of time & resources. Someone would have to spread each item out on a table & photograph, while wearing gloves & preserving evidence, then post the images. That all takes time, and time is money.

Some jurisdictions do this, others don't.

Some NAMUS pages have great pictures showing the size tags!

Would be a great volunteer position for a brave person, to write careful accurate descriptions of the clothing & belongings of unidentified remains.

(But, imhexperience the people paid to describe & photograph clothes for ThredUp are woefully inaccurate.)

jmho ymmv lrr

 

[eoyste]

IMHO it's more a matter of time & resources. Someone would have to spread each item out on a table & photograph, while wearing gloves & preserving evidence, then post the images. That all takes time, and time is money.

Some jurisdictions do this, others don't.

Some NAMUS pages have great pictures showing the size tags!

Would be a great volunteer position for a brave person, to write careful accurate descriptions of the clothing & belongings of unidentified remains.

(But, imhexperience the people paid to describe & photograph clothes for ThredUp are woefully inaccurate.)

jmho ymmv lrr

That definitely makes sense and that's what I was thinking too. You'd think they would document those items up front on the initial autopsy so they had them easily available to share more details with the public.

 

[sunnynz]

Hello! General question regarding Unidentified remains. Are there specific reasons as to why investigators typically do not post pictures of clothing or accessories found on/near the bodies? I understand if a person was victim to a horrific event where their clothing or items may be covered in blood/graphic in nature. Or if something is being kept away as evidence that they know only a killer would know about. But for things such as glasses, shoes or details of clothing sizes/visuals (etc.), why do they not help post these identifying features so that someone may recognize them? When they only post the bare minimum in details and no pictures, how is that deemed helpful? Just curious! TYIA!

I would say they definitely have those pictures, it’s more that the pictures just haven’t been uploaded to Namus or wherever. This would be down to lack of resources I imagine.

 

[clevelandsparkle]

General Question: Has anyone reached out to an investigating agency and directly asked how they can help with an unidentified case?

 

[JackieBrown]

Once a UID becomes ID’d and warrants a move to a different forum, does WS want us to report to a mod for moving or do we start a new thread?