Bone Remains: Cold Cases in Forensic Anthropology

8. Man Overboard

63 8. Man Overboard T he Ross Barnett Reservoir near Brandon, Mississippi, is a large artificial body of water surrounded by expensive homes, condominiums, and apartment complexes. On April 28, 2011, in the vicinity of a row of apartments, a man looked out across the water and saw what he thought was a body floating in the water. He immediately called authorities. The subsequent autopsy report noted that the white male was somewhere between fifty and sixty-five years of age, more than likely weighed around two hundred pounds, and was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He had died by drowning. For almost five months, investigators Chris Barnes and Tim Lawless worked the case, trying to get the man identified. Their search took them to all dwellings around the reservoir , where they asked everyone who lived there if they knew of a neighbor who was missing or perhaps someone who was visiting the area and who had not been seen lately. A few days before the body was found, someone had discovered an abandoned kayak quite a distance away from the body, but authorities had no idea whether the kayak was associated with the man. In May 2011, authorities had a conversation with a potential witness who told them that he had encountered an older, white male in a kayak one evening in late April and had given him a small flashlight. Though the investigators were grateful for the information , it still did not lead to a positive identification of the drowning victim. Authorities were completely frustrated with their efforts. They even tried to get an image of the man out to the public to see if anyone recognized him. No one came forward to suggest that he or she knew who the victim was. Having heard about our work at the LSU FACES Laboratory, and especially the success of our imaging specialist, Eileen Barrow, they called me in September, approximately four and one half months 64 Bone Remains after the man’s body had been discovered, to ask if the FACES Laboratory would assist them in trying to get the man identified. Of course, we agreed. On September 13, 2011, the cranium, mandible , and first two cervical vertebrae of the unidentified man were submitted to us by the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office in Brandon, Mississippi. Figure 18 is the image Eileen Barrow completed and we submitted to Rankin County. A day after the image was placed in the local newspaper, someone called investigators with their first clear lead. The caller said that he felt that the man in the facial reconstruction was Mr. Larry Daugherty. Subsequently, dental records were used to identify the man positively as Mr. Daugherty (figure 19). Where was the disconnect in this case? It was simple. Mr. Daugherty’s family noted he had recently retired to the reservoir area, and they felt that few in the area knew him. He had not had time to make new friends. They also noted that he had a kayak and loved to take it out into the reservoir. However—and this was most important—he had informed his family back in April, only a short time before his body was found, that he had met a lovely woman on the web and that he would be taking a trip out of the country with her. The family Figure 18. Facial reconstruction of man found in Ross Barnett Reservoir; image enhanced. Man Overboard 65 simply thought that he had left the country and was having such a good time with his new friend that he had failed to contact them and let them know where he was. After a few months, however, they had become concerned about not hearing from him for so long. One of the keys to resolving this case was certainly the tenacity of detectives Barnes and Lawless. They did not want to let it go. Another was the publicity for the image created by the FACES Laboratory. The Daughtery case was not the first to be resolved by the public airing of an image created by an agency—in this case, ours. Law enforcement authorities may have an imaging specialist create a likeness of an unidentified person, but if that image is not publicized several times, the positive identification of that person may never happen. Publicize, publicize, publicize. It is not always about the image looking exactly like the person, though...