Identified! VA - Virginia Beach, WhtMale UP 9528, natural causes, Oct'01 - Samuel Barnard

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"That was just good old detective work," Barnes said. "And starting from scratch, reading hundreds of missing-person reports."
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i know life isnt like law & order but i might save the word "good" for obvious connections made in 2 years or less, not 12...

sorry, its just hard to fathom that in one year a man spattered in paint dies and in the same town a man spattered with paint is reported missing and it takes 12 years to put the pieces together.

then again i have no idea what the local PD was dealing with in VB in 2001. though i shake my head at the situation, i will applaud det. lokey for connecting the dots and bringing SB home... hopefully, with increased technological resources a case like Sam's never slips through the cracks again :/
 
I also noticed that he lived 1 mile from the Burger King and thought that was crazy. Surely a neighbor would notice. Even more easy to be missed if you have a landlord and payments are missed. He does have family but no knowledge of how close they were to him, surely after several years you'd put him on a missing persons databank. This is just a weird case
 
Good news that he has finally been identified. It does sound like a case that maybe should have been solved years ago.
 
I bet the detective got the paint splat idea from those of you who brought up his painting a boat ;)
 
Good work by this detective. But come on guys, missing from an adjoining property and a missing person report WAS filed? This did not take Sherlock Holmes, it took someone who cared enough to go through old MP reports.

It seems that there are a lot of unidentified decedents in the VA beach area. Maybe someone is now starting to work on some of the older cases.
 
There have been many missing person cases that the unidentified person was a missing person within the local area but paperwork or any number of errors occurred that lead them to not get identified. I'm wondering if this is more the norm since so many of the last few cases that have been solved recently were like this!
 
Kaliste said:
Im catching up around here and just read this whole case. Your enthusiasm is precious! I'm so happy you were able to see "your" case solved!! Good job on keeping it alive here :)
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Thank you! Even though none of us truly had the resources (ie; an MP report) I'd like to think we all helped solve the case or bring it to light again. I know for a fact VBPD trolled this thread and I only hope they found some valuable suggestions from you guys to help them in their search for Sam.
 
I wonder if family is going to spring for a tombstone -- if not I would LOVE to donate to a fund to get him a proper resting place. The video report said he was buried shortly after his death, but with no identifying tombstone.
 
danzn16 said:
There have been many missing person cases that the unidentified person was a missing person within the local area but paperwork or any number of errors occurred that lead them to not get identified. I'm wondering if this is more the norm since so many of the last few cases that have been solved recently were like this!
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In the time I've been trying to work with missing persons, I've definitely formed the impression that the mistakes, jurisdictional blindnesses, missing paperwork, and missed connections are the norm.

Which is why I'm willing to cut Virginia Beach LE a lot of slack here. Barnard died only about three weeks after 9/11 and the whole east coast was still topsy-turvy. The mobilization to Afghanistan was going through Newport News. They had a lot of urgent problems. It's not surprising if by the time the missing persons report came in, the unidentified dead man had disappeared into the background.

And depending on what the "last seen" date on that report is, they might have ruled it out based on the time frame. I've seen that happen before, too.
 
astridxx said:
Thank you! Even though none of us truly had the resources (ie; an MP report) I'd like to think we all helped solve the case or bring it to light again. I know for a fact VBPD trolled this thread and I only hope they found some valuable suggestions from you guys to help them in their search for Sam.
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It's generally best to assume that LE or ME is lurking on most of these threads -- and in many cases they're actively participating. Lots of serious efforts and work put in these days to identify cold cases.
 
carbuff said:
In the time I've been trying to work with missing persons, I've definitely formed the impression that the mistakes, jurisdictional blindnesses, missing paperwork, and missed connections are the norm.

Which is why I'm willing to cut Virginia Beach LE a lot of slack here. Barnard died only about three weeks after 9/11 and the whole east coast was still topsy-turvy. The mobilization to Afghanistan was going through Newport News. They had a lot of urgent problems.
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bbm, snipped

i was thinking about the craziness of 9/11 and the fact that there is a huge military presence in VA too. i am sure there was a lot of stuff to contend with for LE then, as there is now. I don't envy any of these folks and the impossible amount of work they have to do with ever dwindling resources!

i only wish that Barnard's MP file had been uploaded onto namus or doe network, etc... since there have been eyes on the UID case for months here.

i guess having been in a position where i was searching desperately for a missing family member only to eventually learn that a month of pain and soul shattering uncertainty could have been avoided if 2 agencies had communicated better, i am just feeling for his family...
 
Jerri Blank said:
bbm, snipped

i was thinking about the craziness of 9/11 and the fact that there is a huge military presence in VA too. i am sure there was a lot of stuff to contend with for LE then, as there is now. I don't envy any of these folks and the impossible amount of work they have to do with ever dwindling resources!

i only wish that Barnard's MP file had been uploaded onto namus or doe network, etc... since there have been eyes on the UID case for months here.

i guess having been in a position where i was searching desperately for a missing family member only to eventually learn that a month of pain and soul shattering uncertainty could have been avoided if 2 agencies had communicated better, i am just feeling for his family...
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Yes, it's awful for his family.

I'm sorry for your family member. I hope there was a good result?
 
Unfortunately there wasn't :( he had died 2 days before we filed the MP report, but his car had been towed from the spot he was later located a full day before the report was filed. it then sat in impound for over a month while we desperately searched for him (and the car). it wasnt until the car reached the maximum time limit at the police impound lot and was about to be auctioned that someone put the pieces together and searched the area where it was towed. he was found within the hour a couple hundred feet from the car.

we were later told by an insider (OTR) the tow truck driver had raised concerns about the car the day it was towed. the area's local PD called the local PD of my family member and left message with "someone" to follow up. later that day, my brother and i showed up from a 6 hour drive to file a MP report at that same PD but the connection was not made.

that was hands down the worst month of my life. the not knowing was so brutal and could have been avoided so easily... in the end we were left with an impound bill of a couple thousand dollars (given no choice but to pay it) and remains that needed to be identified via dentals. being denied the chance to have a body to lay to rest has made grieving even harder for me.

i dont mean to hijack Sam's thread here, it just strikes a nerve with me to see his family deprived of that same right if that was how they would have wished to mourn him... no one deserves to not know where their loved one is, not even for a day, let alone a decade.

and we may not have solved Sam's case (we can only work with the tools we have, right?) but keeping that JD's case out there and gathering rule outs helped give him a name.
 
Glad to see this gentleman FINALLY identified. Scary how long it took, but it did happen.
 
And honestly, it's thanks to you guys here at WS. Before anyone posted this here this case sat, collecting dust. I'm more than positive we had inspired VBPD to look into it again, more thoroughly this time. And your hints and ideas I'm also sure inspired them to make the connections they did! Without you guys he'd still be UID. So thank you all from the bottom of my heart in helping to get this solved! VBPD may never admit our hand in it, but it's easy to see the connection. THANK YOU!!!!!
 
I am KB’s son. My dna is in missing persons database So if there ever was a hit they would be able to get a hold of me. The detectives determined fairly quickly the va guy wasn’t him. I have just discovered this thread and haven’t dove into reading many pages but it is interesting . Thanks for your efforts
 
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