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#Post#: 7473--------------------------------------------------
BUFFALO CAVES JOHN DOE: WM, 18-49, found in Clark County cave -
26 August 1979 *Identified as Joseph
DIR By: Akoya
Date: June 29, 2020, 8:32 am
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HTML https://i.imgur.com/T30fSgq.png
On August 26, 1979, hikers found the torso of a white male in
Buffalo Cave in Clark County. Years later, on March 30, 1991,
different hikers found found an arm and both legs in the same
cave. The victim's head was never found.
#Post#: 7474--------------------------------------------------
Re: BUFFALO CAVES JOHN DOE: WM, 18-49, found in Clark County
cave - 26 August 1979 *Identified as Jo
DIR By: Akoya
Date: June 29, 2020, 8:33 am
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HTML https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/13310
HTML https://i.imgur.com/NSp3dQj.png
Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP13310 Male, White / Caucasian
Date Found
August 26, 1979
Location Found
Dubois, Idaho
Estimated Age Range
40 Years
Case Information
Case Numbers
NCMEC Number
--
ME/C Case Number
C4503
Demographics
Sex
Male
Race / Ethnicity
White / Caucasian
--
Estimated Age Group
Adult - Pre 50
Estimated Age Range (Years)
40
Estimated Year of Death
1975-1979
Estimated PMI
5 Years
Height
4' 11"(59 inches) , Estimated
Weight
Cannot Estimate
Circumstances
Type
Unidentified Deceased
Date Found
August 26, 1979
NamUs Case Created
December 19, 2014
ME/C QA Reviewed
--
Location Found Map
Street Address
Buffalo Cave
Dubois, Idaho
County
Clark County
GPS Coordinates
--
Circumstances of Recovery
Aug. 26,1979, Hikers found the torso of a white male in the
Buffalo Cave, Clark county, Idaho. Then on 3-30-1991 different
hikers to the same cave found arm and both legs. No head was
ever found.
Details of Recovery
Inventory of Remains
Head not recovered
Condition of Remains
Not recognizable - Traumatic injuries
Physical Description
Hair Color
Unknown or Completely Bald
Head Hair Description
--
Body Hair Description
--
Facial Hair Description
--
Left Eye Color
Unknown or Missing
Right Eye Color
Unknown or Missing
Eye Description
--
Distinctive Physical Features
No Known Information
Clothing and Accessories
Item
Description
Clothing Dark colored pants, white shirt with blue pin stripes,
maroon sweater - photos of clothing in IMAGES On the Body
[img]
HTML https://www.namus.gov/api/CaseSets/NamUs/UnidentifiedPersons/Cases/13310/Images/34947/Thumbnail[/img]
[img]
HTML https://www.namus.gov/api/CaseSets/NamUs/UnidentifiedPersons/Cases/13310/Images/34950/Thumbnail[/img]
Investigating Agencies
Clark county Sheriff Dept
--
Agency Case Number
C4503
John Clements
--
Case Contributors
Kyra Stull, Forensic Anthropologist
No Agency Entered
John Clements, Law Enforcement
Clark County Sheriff's Office
(208) 374-5403
#Post#: 7475--------------------------------------------------
Re: BUFFALO CAVES JOHN DOE: WM, 18-49, found in Clark County
cave - 26 August 1979 *Identified as Jo
DIR By: Akoya
Date: June 29, 2020, 8:35 am
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HTML http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/2447umid.html
Case File: 2447UMID
HTML https://i.imgur.com/74zLvW5.jpg
Unidentified Male
Date of Discovery: August 26, 1979
Location of Discovery: Dubois, Clark County, Idaho
Estimated Date of Death: 1975 to 1979
State of Remains: Not recognizable - Traumatic injuries
Cause of Death: Unknown
Physical Description
** Listed information is approximate
Estimated Age: 18-49 years old
Race: White
Gender: Male
Height: Unknown
Weight: Unknown
Hair Color: Unknown
Eye Color: Unknown
Distinguishing Marks/Features: Unknown
Dentals: Not available.
Fingerprints: Not available.
DNA: Not available.
Clothing & Personal Items
Clothing: Dark-colored pants, white shirt with red pin stripes,
and a maroon sweater.
Jewelry: Unknown
Additional Personal Items: Unknown
Case History
On August 26, 1979, hikers found the torso of a white male in
Buffalo Cave in Clark County. Years later, on March 30, 1991,
different hikers found found an arm and both legs in the same
cave. The victim's head was never found.
Investigating Agency(s)
If you have any information about this case please contact;
Agency Name: Clark County Coroner's Office
Agency Contact Person: Brenda Laird
Agency Phone Number: 208-351-8852
Agency Case Number: Unknown
NCIC Case Number: N/A
NamUs Case Number: UP #13310
Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with
information regarding this case.
Information Source(s)
NamUs
#Post#: 7476--------------------------------------------------
Re: BUFFALO CAVES JOHN DOE: WM, 18-49, found in Clark County
cave - 26 August 1979 *Identified as Jo
DIR By: Akoya
Date: June 29, 2020, 8:37 am
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HTML https://www.wired.com/2015/05/mystery-torso-buffalo-cave/
AUTHOR: BRENDAN KOERNER
05.26.1505:45 AM
THE MYSTERY OF THE TORSO IN BUFFALO CAVE
LAST NOVEMBER, SHORTLY after he’d been hired as a sheriff’s
deputy in rural Clark County, Idaho, John Clements indulged his
curiosity by reviewing the county’s unsolved homicides. It was a
short list. Clark County, a former rail hub in a desolate swath
of eastern Idaho, has fewer than 870 residents, and years often
elapse between murders. But one killing stood out: In August
1979, a family hunting arrowheads dug up a headless male torso
deep within a rock-strewn cave. The torso, wrapped in burlap and
clad in a pink shirt and maroon sweater, was found in a grave 18
inches deep. Folks thought it might belong to a hard-drinking
shepherd from Montana they’d known as John. But with no head and
thus no way of identifying the fellow, the investigation
stalled.
Twelve years later, an 11-year-old girl exploring the same cave
stumbled upon a partially buried hand; more excavation yielded
two arms and two legs, all wrapped in burlap. Volunteers combed
the cave’s myriad nooks and crannies, but found nothing of note
beyond the skeleton of an ostrich that had once escaped from a
nearby farm. The case once again went cold.
Given how much forensic science has evolved since the early
1990s, Clements figured he had a shot at finding something new.
“With everything that’s been happening with DNA and all that, I
just felt that this was the case that was most likely to produce
some kind of resolution,” he says. Though resolution remains
elusive, new technologies have given Clements a clearer portrait
of who the victim was—a crucial first step toward tracking down
whoever caused him to meet such a grisly end.
Technology Yields Some 'Extremely Helpful' Clues
In years past, an investigator in so small a department would be
hard-pressed to access the technologies and expertise needed to
solve so baffling a whodunit. But sophisticated forensic tools,
and the know-how to use them, are now within reach of even the
tiniest agencies. In fact, Clements discovered two rising stars
in forensic science work just 100 miles from his office.
They’re at Idaho State University in Pocatello, where the
Buffalo Cave victims’ limbs have long resided. Authorities sent
the severed arms and legs to the school in 1991 after unearthing
them in Buffalo Cave. (The cave, formed eons ago by cooling
lava, is 1,000 feet deep and among several in the area
designated as bomb shelters during the Cold War.) Anthropology
professors were enlisted to analyze the bones, in the hopes that
they could shed light on the victim. They did the best they
could, which wasn’t much—all they could say about his age, for
example, was that he was younger than 50. Once the investigation
hit a dead end, the limbs were placed in storage and forgotten.
Then Clements came calling in late January. His inquiry piqued
the interest of Kyra Stull, a forensic anthropologist who joined
the university in August. She invited Clements to campus to
explain how that field has progressed in the years after the
Buffalo Cave case went cold. “Since the early 1990s, there has
been a lot of advancement in our field, in terms of us being
able to estimate the components of a biological profile with a
high degree of accuracy,” says Stull, whose primary research
interest is using CT scans of children’s’ bones to determine age
and gender.
With the aid of a software program called ADBOU, which automates
the process of converting skeletal measurements into age
estimates, Stull determined that the man was most likely in his
mid- to late-30s. She also concluded, with 95 percent accuracy,
that he was between 5’6” and 6’2”. She even managed to come up
with his probable hair color (brown) by examining follicular
remnants on the limbs’ leathery skin. Such details may seem
minor, but Clements characterizes them as “extremely helpful.”
Stull gave this information to the National Missing and
Unidentified Persons System, a database managed by the
University of North Texas Health Science Center. Launched in
2007, NamUs contains details on over 10,500 missing persons
cases and over 9,800 unidentified bodies. It has been
instrumental in resolving more than 380 cases in which the
victims’ names were unknown for months, years, or even decades.
Now that the database has an entry for the Buffalo Cave case,
the hope is that an investigator will notice that the victim’s
biological details align with those of someone who went missing
in the mid- to late 70’s. Should a match occur, the victim’s
identity could be confirmed by comparing his DNA (obtained from
a sliver of his femur) to that of a relative of the missing
person. That is what happened in the case of Paula Beverly
Davis, a murdered Kansas City woman who was buried as a Jane Doe
in Engelwood, Ohio, in 1987. Twenty-two years later, her family
saw descriptions of her tattoos in a NamUs entry and provided
the DNA sample that led to a positive identification.
Mapping a Cave In 3-D To Aid the Search
Finding the victim’s head would make Clements’ job much easier,
of course, which is why he told Stull he was keen to search
Buffalo Cave again. To maximize his odds of success, Stull
recruited Nicholas Holmer, an osteologist at the Idaho
Virtualization Laboratory. Holmer’s specialty is using the
tripod-mounted FARO Focus3D laser scanner, which retails for
around $43,000, to create detailed computer models of excavation
sites. The technology typically is used for surveying projects,
but could come in handy while combing the vast, dark depths of a
cave dotted by rocky alcoves and mounds of debris.
“What the scanner does is it lets us see areas that we
potentially missed during our initial observation,” Holmer says.
“It also helps us record change of the cave over time, so if we
go back later, we can compare a new scan with the previous one
and see if anything’s changed.” Holmer and his team made an
initial scan of Buffalo Cave in late February; the 3-D model
hasn’t yet led to new discoveries, but excavations will continue
as potential hiding spots are identified.
The investigators realize their quest may be quixotic—the killer
may have buried the head elsewhere, or animals may have spirited
it away long ago. But they hope that if word of their dogged
search spreads via social media, an old acquaintance of the
killer may decide that he or she is tired of keeping an awful
secret. “When word gets out to the public, that’s what gets the
phones ringing,” says Janet Franson, a former Lakeland, Florida,
homicide detective who is handling the Buffalo Cave case for
NamUs. “And then maybe you hear from someone who isn’t friends
anymore with someone who maybe had something to do with this.”
In the world of police work, a pair of loose lips is still a bit
more valuable than even the fanciest 3-D scanner.
If you have any information about the Buffalo Cave torso, please
contact Todd Matthews at NamUs: (817) 408-6723 or
J.Todd.Matthews@unthsc.edu
#Post#: 7477--------------------------------------------------
Re: BUFFALO CAVES JOHN DOE: WM, 18-49, found in Clark County
cave - 26 August 1979 *Identified as Jo
DIR By: Akoya
Date: June 29, 2020, 8:37 am
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Buffalo Caves - Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho
HTML https://i.imgur.com/vAWxtpf.jpg
HTML https://i.imgur.com/qziB0Wp.jpg
#Post#: 7478--------------------------------------------------
Re: BUFFALO CAVES JOHN DOE: WM, 18-49, found in Clark County
cave - 26 August 1979 *Identified as Jo
DIR By: Akoya
Date: June 29, 2020, 8:39 am
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HTML https://www.deseretnews.com/article/155073/HUMAN-LIMBS-DISCOVERED-IN-IDAHO-CAVE-LIKELY-CAME-FROM-TORSO-FOUND-IN-79.html
HUMAN LIMBS DISCOVERED IN IDAHO CAVE LIKELY CAME FROM TORSO
FOUND IN '79
Published: April 3, 1991 12:00 am
Human limbs found in a cave near Dubois last week probably came
from the same unidentified body as a torso found in 1979, Clark
County authorities say.
Sheriff Craig King said Monday that he wants to solve the
11-year-old mystery, which investigators consider a case of
homicide. But he said it will be difficult unless someone finds
the victim's skull.The Idaho Bureau of Investigations and the
FBI have been called in, and the limbs will be sent to an FBI
laboratory. King plans to organize a search of the cave for more
evidence.
"I'd like to get that skull," he said. "That's where the cause
of death would show."
Lynn Thomas of Dubois said he and his daughter, Lynette Rogers
of Renton, Wash., and her children, Nathan, 15, and Anna, 11,
found an arm Friday morning while exploring caves once used for
fallout shelters about one mile north of Dubois.
People looking for artifacts found an unidentified man's torso
in the same cave on Aug. 26, 1979. The circumstances of the
man's death have never been determined, but authorities are
still treating it as a homicide.
Thomas said family members had been talking about the torso
found almost 12 years before when they came across the
additional remains Friday.
"My daughter shined a flashlight on it, and it was a human
hand," Thomas said.
He said the hand was still attached to an arm with a piece of a
sweater on it, close to a hole in the ground. The family left
the cave and notified King's office.
The sheriff said authorities discovered another arm next to the
one Thomas' family found. Bits of burlap sack were still
attached to both arms. In the hole, authorities also found two
legs wrapped in a deteriorated burlap sack.
King believes the limbs belong to the same body as the torso,
which was found about 100 feet deeper into the cave. Clothes on
the limbs appeared to match those found on the torso, including
dark wool pants, a white cotton shirt with pink stripes and a
maroon sweater.
The torso also was found wrapped in burlap.
The limbs were cleanly severed from the body, possibly with a
saw, King said, although there were no wounds on the torso. He
said a medical examiner's report concluded that the man died six
months to five years before the remains were found.
The arms and legs still have shriveled, leathery flesh on them,
King said and were well-preserved in the cool, dry cave.
"Somebody killed him, that's for sure," Earl Holden, who was
Clark County sheriff at the time the torso was found, said
Tuesday.
But neither Holden nor King have any solid ideas about what
happened to the man.
King said all he knows about the man is that he was a Caucasian.
Having the legs and arms should help determine height and
weight, but no positive identification is possible without a
skull.
The remains found Friday probably were uncovered within the past
six months, the sheriff said, because he and others had been in
the cave within the last year and had noticed nothing.
He said the hole that contained the remains appeared to have
been dug with a shovel, not by an anima
#Post#: 7479--------------------------------------------------
Re: BUFFALO CAVES JOHN DOE: WM, 18-49, found in Clark County
cave - 26 August 1979 *Identified as Jo
DIR By: Akoya
Date: June 29, 2020, 8:41 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[img]
HTML https://www.google.com/maps/vt/data=KZfjBWUOew_q2TPAKijC92lTyfG9QEzBnPtdV_7Di3dAh4iu9UJ5Pfowsfp0oCIvLpUABK2sOT-xjF-Vhgyupgw807Jc7SKtbP4ZgL2WZ-PH6kgtotnLxWA_noAl0HbGg2zSl1Yt6lI0DR2MpI3eyNLvuLrc-VaTvpvqsKdkznImu_bcDsVYwGnEzmNg2vsrL8UgnHOEM5woNG0_g4HNP-FjL3pMi0bCSf4rWv1C37UI-kix9NR5pHDZOPfhiEGWsG5fNw3edUmljZxr2GxUD3KSr77A_MYR-SQJ2Q[/img]
[b]Dubois
Idaho 83423[/img]
#Post#: 7480--------------------------------------------------
Re: BUFFALO CAVES JOHN DOE: WM, 18-49, found in Clark County
cave - 26 August 1979 *Identified as Jo
DIR By: Akoya
Date: June 29, 2020, 8:43 am
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://i.imgur.com/OR9Ecl6.gif
HTML https://i.imgur.com/9sc2ESh.png
#Post#: 7481--------------------------------------------------
Re: BUFFALO CAVES JOHN DOE: WM, 18-49, found in Clark County
cave - 26 August 1979 *Identified as Jo
DIR By: Akoya
Date: June 29, 2020, 8:44 am
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://i.imgur.com/2K3eas5.gif
#Post#: 7482--------------------------------------------------
Re: BUFFALO CAVES JOHN DOE: WM, 18-49, found in Clark County
cave - 26 August 1979 *Identified as Jo
DIR By: Akoya
Date: June 29, 2020, 8:45 am
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://www.localnews8.com/news/idaho/researchers-identify-clark-county-john-doe-discovered-in-1979/1141921791
POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK) - The DNA Doe Project, with help
from Idaho State University anthropologist Samantha Blatt and
former ISU faculty Amy Michael, has made a tentative positive
identification of Clark County, Idaho/Buffalo Cave John Doe,
whose remains were originally found in 1979.
The name and details of his life will not be released until law
enforcement is able to provide secondary confirmation. However,
researchers are continuing their study about this fascinating
cold case for publication.
In 1979, the headless torso of a man was found buried in a cave.
In 1991, more partially mummified remains, some wrapped in
burlap, were found by a young girl exploring the cave with her
family.
ISU conducted excavations of the cave, but never recovered the
entire body. Since then, the skeletonized remains have been
stored at ISU.
This unknown man is now identified with high confidence through
dedicated DNA Doe Project volunteers trained as forensic
genealogists.
Copyright 2019 NPG of Idaho. All rights reserved. This material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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