Identified! WI - Delafield, WhtMale, UP7632, car stolen, lighter, Sep'77 - John Lindberg Scott

Zanko

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Here is a very sad case that has all the earmarks of a case that should be able to be solved (IMO). This is a young male (age 17 to 25) with a partial upper dental plate. Not only would it be unusual for someone this age to have a dental plate, this would be another avenue to identifying him :confused:?

[SIZE=-1][FONT=arial,verdana,geneva,lucida]http://www.doenetwork.org/hot/hotcase680.html[/FONT][/SIZE]

WARNING POST MORTEM PHOTOS:
http://www.theyaremissed.org/ncma/gallery/ncmaprofile_all.php?U200700068S
 

  • UNIDENTIFIED WHITE MALE


    [*]The victim was discovered on September 14, 1977 in Delafield, Waukesha County, Wisconsin
    [*]Estimated Date of Death: September 14, 1977
    [*]Cause of Death: Injuries from a fatal car accident

Estimated age: 17 - 25 years old
Estimated Year of Birth: 1952 - 1960
Approximate Height and Weight: 5' 8" - 6' 0"; 150 - 170 lbs.
Distinguishing Characteristics: Brown hair; brown or hazel eyes; medium complexion. Old scar on dorsum of right hand over first metacarpal; old scar over upper outer edge of left patella; uncircumsized; extensive chest hair.
Dentals: Not Available; upper front dentures.
Clothing: Long sleeve blue, white, and gray striped shirt; black and gray checkered pants with a brand name "Gaedes"<; green "Jockey" shorts; gray and black herring bone coat with black fur collar; blue socks; brown crepe soled shoes.
Personal Effects: He had a cigarette lighter with the inscription "To John Love Lauri", and a "Waltham" brand wristwatch.
DNA: Not Available;

CASE HISTORY
The victim had been operating a stolen vehicle from Illinois and was involved in a fatal car accident in the vicinity of County Highway SS and Golf Road in Delafield, Wisconsin on September 14, 1977.
 
I found this site on Waltham watches.
http://www.waltham-community.org/WalthamWatch.html
The man that runs the site says he repairs watches and is not an official of the Waltham company. Just skimming the site I saw he states that the Waltham watch co. went out of buisness in 1957. That would make the watch at least 20 yrs old at the time of death. He says a company called Berger and Makin Time made watches later that were battery powered under the Waltham name. So it would be important to find out if the one John Doe wore was battery powered or not. It would make sense that he was wearing one of the battery powered ones but an older watch could mean sentimental value.
Also he has alink to a picture of the watch. http://www.ward3.org/watches/watchphoto2.html
I had a hard time looking at the pictures of John Doe so I was not sure if this watch was the same as one shown or if there was even a photo of the watch. (sorry, when there are post mortem photos I try to keep my screen minimized for my own sanity.)
 
Wow Julessleuther, that second one looks a lot like this John Doe!

Thanks for the watch info Becklynn!

The other thing that I'd like to research (don't know where to start) is the coat. It sounds very unique.

"gray and black herring bone coat with black fur collar"

I wonder if this is a unique coat or not. It doesn't say anything about brand.

Does anyone else think he looks Russian or Slavic?
 
Interesting about the watch, thanks! I understand about the post mortem, I used to have more of a hard time, and some I still do, but I think I have developed alittle thicker skin being here.


I found this site on Waltham watches.
http://www.waltham-community.org/WalthamWatch.html
The man that runs the site says he repairs watches and is not an official of the Waltham company. Just skimming the site I saw he states that the Waltham watch co. went out of buisness in 1957. That would make the watch at least 20 yrs old at the time of death. He says a company called Berger and Makin Time made watches later that were battery powered under the Waltham name. So it would be important to find out if the one John Doe wore was battery powered or not. It would make sense that he was wearing one of the battery powered ones but an older watch could mean sentimental value.
Also he has alink to a picture of the watch. http://www.ward3.org/watches/watchphoto2.html
I had a hard time looking at the pictures of John Doe so I was not sure if this watch was the same as one shown or if there was even a photo of the watch. (sorry, when there are post mortem photos I try to keep my screen minimized for my own sanity.)
 
You are right Zanko, he does look slavic. Yes, I thought he did look alot like the 2nd guy.


Wow Julessleuther, that second one looks a lot like this John Doe!

Thanks for the watch info Becklynn!

The other thing that I'd like to research (don't know where to start) is the coat. It sounds very unique.

"gray and black herring bone coat with black fur collar"

I wonder if this is a unique coat or not. It doesn't say anything about brand.

Does anyone else think he looks Russian or Slavic?
 
Julesleuther I think Martin John Munawych should be called in. If this John Doe is Martin John Munawych, having his eye color listed differently could be why this wasn't looked into. What do you think?
 
"Gaedes", as far as I can discern from an internet check, is a clothing store in Wheaton, IL which sells "fine clothing and apparel", including custom-made shirts and suits.
Wheaton, IL is some 120 miles south and west of Delafield, WI. It is near Chicago, and just north of Joliet (home of the Joliet Correctional Center, which closed in 2002).
The scars, the dental work (replacement of front upper teeth), the "mish-mash" of clothing and the stolen car all initially indicated to me someone who had recently been released (or escaped) from prison. However, if he had escaped, I'd think there would have been a large amount of media coverage in the area at the time.
 
In this case, which occurred September 14 1977; deputies were pursuing a 1962 Pontiac 4-door Catalina with Illinois plates that had been stolen out of Gurnee, Illinois. The victim and sole occupant of the vehicle has yet to be identified.

The victim is a Caucasian male, approximately 17 to 25 years of age. He is 68 to 72 inches in height and approximately 150-170 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes. He has an old scar on the back of the right hand over his first finger, an old scar over the upper outer edge of his left knee and upper front dentures.

http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/Pontiac/1962_Pontiac_Catalina_421_Super_Duty_Hardtop_Black_Side.jpg
 
Thank you Shadowangel and Snarkymalarkey! This is great information. I wonder if LE ever followed up on any of this? Or did they care, since he died in the "commission of a crime"?

I wonder if we could see the prison release records for Joliet around the time of this accident? I see that they closed, but sometimes they'll archive records someplace. Would we check with the library? County Records? Any ideas?
Is the clothing store still open?
I wonder who the vehicle was stolen from? Sometimes people steal from acquaintances. It might help to know. Or at least EXACTLY where the vehicle was stolen from.
 
The clothing store closed in December of 2007 after 53 years in business. I had previously found a site which listed the inmates by year of Joliet, I'll look for the link.
Not only was there the prison in Joliet, there is also the Statesville Correctional Center in Nearby Crest Hill which opened in 1925.
I find it a little strange that dental records aren't available, even though the UID had a partial dental plate. I can find no mention of fingerprints being available in the various links.
 
Does anyone else think he looks Russian or Slavic?

If you mean the body I'd say yes, he does look Slavic, and Munawych is more than likely a Slavic name. But that said there are many Slavic people -mainly Ukrainian- in the Midwest and out west on both sides of the border. Moreover Milwaukee, which is very near the accident site, has one of the largest Slavic communities of any US city.

@Julessleuther - one of the narratives linked above states that the car had been stolen from Illinois but they don't specify if it's because it had Illinois tags, or had been reported stolen in that state, or both. But of course that doesn't exclude Munawych because being Canadian does not preclude one from stealing a car in Illinois obviously.

Eye color however makes Munawych a less likely "suspect". While many white people's eyes have shades of both blue/green and brown that may be considered either blue or brown depending on lighting conditions Munawych's eyes on the picture appear either blue or green and too clear to be mistaken for brown, although hazel may be a possibility. We can't tell for the guy from Arizona though.
 
Very true KarlK. It would be unlikely that brown eyes would be mistaken for blue. Sometimes I wonder about data entry errors. I work where information is passed through several people and errors happen. If it's a coding issue of BL versus BR. Let's hope those errors don't happen often. But it's worth a check.
 
Yes I also think that data entry error may be a possibility in some cases. It would be useful to have access to the original report, in '77 it would have been typed on paper and less likely to contain errors since the person doing the typing would typically be paying more attention to what they're doing in order to avoid having to use that dreaded Liquid Paper stuff.
 
I'm working on this case right now. Is it typical for the height and weight range to be so wide? I mean, they had the body right there in front of them. Couldn't they have gotten pretty good measurements? 5 foot 8 to 6 feet tall? 150 to 170 pounds? This reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer was pretending to be the dermatologist and was dictating his observations of George's boss, Mr. Kruger.
 
I have been looking at this case too.

The prison angle is an interesting one, but I have not been able to find any leads regarding it.

I was hoping to look at some old copies of the Milwaukee Journal (the precursor to today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) but none of my local libraries has a copy. Anyone in the Milwaukee area that might have better success?

I was also intrigued by the fact that he is reported as being uncircumcised. The vast majority of U.S. whites, particularly in that area of the country and that era, were circumcised. That seems to be an important clue that might help point to his background or ethnicity. Perhaps he was an immigrant.

As far as the reported range of weight and height, I'm not sure but presumably some areas of his body had to suffer from the accident. That's my guess.

Coal
 
I am from the Milwaukee area. I have family in Delafield, too, which is the city the accident happened in. Delafield back then was far less developed than it is today.

I may go to the library and see the old Milwaukee Journals. I used to be a paperboy for them. The Journal came out in the afternoon. The Milwaukee Sentinel came out in the morning back then. They merged in the mid-1990's into the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

That lighter they found on him keeps drawing my interest. Was it his? Who knows? If it was, then his name must be John. I was looking around Classmates.com for high schools in the area of the Gaedes clothing store, and specifically looking for women named Lauri who would be about the same age as "John". Still working on that.
 
kaylenbabysims,

I think he could be a possible match. Too bad Rickey's dental info isn't listed or if he was circumcised or not...

I think he's worth a shot!!
 

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