He was a black man, probably in his 30s or 40s, when someone robbed him of his life — and his name — more than 30 years ago.
His body was left in a heavily wooded area of Mascot, covered with leaves, brush and limbs freshly cut from a nearby tree. Animals had brushed the vegetation aside. His skeletal remains were found on Jan. 12, 1982, about 600 yards off Clear Springs Road near Mine Road, a remote site probably known to whoever dumped the body, investigators theorize.
In life, the victim had stood about 5-feet-10. In death, he wore a blue pullover shirt, dark trousers, red and white socks. There was a pair of size nine zip-up shoes on his feet. There was a 38-caliber bullet wound in the back of his head. He had no identification or possessions.
Body decomposition indicates he was most likely killed sometime between March and June of 1981. Today, the best hope for identifying him lies with the relatively new National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, known by the acronym NamUs.
"It is a perfect example of a case that NamUs has the potential to help resolve," said Amy Dobbs, criminal analyst for the Knox County Sheriff's Office Cold Case Squad. She is one of the state's five key NamUs associates.
NamUs is a dual database system that offers a quick way to compare large numbers of cases of unidentified human bodies with reports of missing people.
"It is the only system like that, where you can cross-check these cases," Dobbs said.
Later, NamUs will feature a publicly searchable database of dead people who have been identified but for whom no family member has been located.
NamUs is less than three years old. Many police remain unfamiliar with it. Dobbs and some of her colleagues around the country offer training sessions.
Part of NamUs is available to the general public. It's website, www.namus.gov, is available free of charge to them as well as police departments. Anyone can view the cases or even add a missing person to the system once the information is verified by a NamUs case manager, Dobbs said.
Dobbs also is available to make educational presentations to organizations such as civic clubs and school groups, although those sessions will differ from the ones given to law enforcement.
"The more people you have searching, the better chance you have of finding something," said David Davenport, a retired TBI agent and former Jefferson County sheriff who heads up KCSO's Cold Case unit. "Up until just a few years ago, there was a void because there was no central depository of information that let you compare these cases, so a lot of them got lost in the shuffle. I think NamUs can help us put an end to that."
Cold Case Squad Criminal Analyst Amy Dobbs discusses the new National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) last month at the Knox County Sheriff's Office. She hopes the new law enforcement tool will help crack old cases such as the 1982 discovery of a man found shot to death in Mascot. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL)
Photo by Michael Patrick, copyright © 2011
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Cold Case Squad Criminal Analyst Amy Dobbs discusses the new National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) last month at the Knox County Sheriff's Office. She hopes the new law enforcement tool will help crack old cases such as the 1982 discovery of a man found shot to death in Mascot. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL)
"NamUs is my dream come true for a publicly accessible database (of cases of both) missing people and unidentified dead," said Dr. Kenna Quinet, professor of criminology at Indiana University and Purdue University. "I think law enforcement will begin to participate in bigger numbers" when they realize that confidential case information will not be part of the public access.
NamUs grew out of a 2005 conference of law enforcement officials, forensic scientists, criminologists and victim advocates to discuss the need for a central source of information for unidentified dead body cases. In 2007, the database for unidentified body cases was set up. In July 2009, the missing people database and the ability for cross-checking was set up.
But there are still many more cases not in NamUs than are in it.
Many agencies have yet to enter their cases into NamUs. And cases entered into the FBI's National Crime Information System are not automatically made available to NamUs because the FBI has a different set of rules for sharing information, Dobbs said.
Federal legislation is pending to allow NCIC to share information with NamUs, and to prompt local law enforcement agencies to enter cases into NamUs. It is called "Billy's Law" for William Smolinski Jr., a Connecticut man who disappeared in 2004 and whom police now believe was murdered.
Cases do not always involve foul play or tragedy. Dobbs recently located a woman, reported missing 30 years from St. Louis, Mo., alive in the Knoxville area. She had simply decided to leave her family.
"It is not a crime for an adult to simply disappear, and she was not wanted for anything," Dobbs said. "All we could do in this case was notify her family that we had found her alive and OK." Dobbs said the woman was told how she could contact family members if she wants to.
Given the sheer volume of unidentified body and missing person cases around the country, a sudden tidal wave of solutions to cases is unlikely.
The NCIC, at the end of 2010, had records of 85,820 missing person cases still listed as "active."
NamUs estimates there are about 40,000 unidentified body cases around the nation. Of 4,400 new unidentified body cases each year, about 1,000 are still unidentified a year later.
But only a fraction of either type of those cases are so far entered in NamUs.
As of mid-December 2011, there were 9,350 missing person cases in Namus, including 155 from Tennessee. The 8,621 unidentified body cases in NamUs include 92 bodies found in Tennessee.
"NamUs, police, medical examiners will always be strained to give these cases the detailed attention they deserve," Quinet said.
And there is the added problem of what she calls the "missing missing:" those people whose disappearances are never reported. Many are prostitutes, homeless, repeat runaway kids and drug addicts — all perfect prey for serial killers, Quinet said.
"Potentially (any) unidentified dead case in NamUs could be a 'missing missing,'" she said.
Nevertheless, Quinet is enthusiastic about NamUs and its potential. "We have only seen the tip of the iceberg for what it can do," she said.
Ultimately, NamUs' effectiveness will depend on the volume and quality of information it contains, Dobbs said. Again, she points to the John Doe found in Mascot.
Even if he is a "missing missing," Dobbs said, "He has to have family somewhere. And there is always a chance that someone has reported him missing."
But if there is a missing-person report, for him, KCSO has no name to check. And DNA testing was not available when John Doe was killed. Many people who disappeared before the age of DNA remain missing.
"You can't compare something if you have nothing to compare it with," Dobbs said.A dental chart of John Doe's teeth, a forensic artist's rendition of what he probably looked like, and DNA extracted from his body have all been placed in NamUs.
And around the country, NamUs operatives are available to take DNA samples from family members of missing people to place in the system.
It is Dobbs' hope that someday, somewhere, someone in John Doe's family may give NamUs a DNA sample. That could give back to him his real name. And ultimately, that could lead to his killer.
Anyone with information about this case, and anyone interested in a presentation or training session about NamUs, can contact Dobbs at 865-215-3705, or amy.dobbs@knoxsheriff.org (cq both)
By Jim Balloch
Posted January 15, 2012 at 4 a.m.
2012, Knoxville News Sentinel Co
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/jan/15/identifying-the-unknown-dead-new-system-that-to/
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