DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
The Lost and the Found
HTML https://theunidentified.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Kansas
*****************************************************
#Post#: 7748--------------------------------------------------
SEDGWICK COUNTY JOHN DOE (1986): WM, 25-30, struck by a vehicle
in Wichita - 29 August 1986
By: Akoya Date: July 8, 2020, 3:14 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://i.imgur.com/cdXBw9M.jpg
The deceased was struck by a vehicle and killed instantly while
crossing the road.
#Post#: 7749--------------------------------------------------
Re: SEDGWICK COUNTY JOHN DOE (1986): WM, 25-30, struck by a vehi
cle in Wichita - 29 August 1986
By: Akoya Date: July 8, 2020, 3:20 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/2430/details?nav
HTML https://i.imgur.com/QPcXYW5.png
Unidentified Person / NamUs #UP2430Male, White / Caucasian
Date Body Found
August 29, 1986
Location Found
Wichita, Kansas
Estimated Age Range
25-30 Years
Case Information
Case Numbers
NCMEC Number
--
ME/C Case Number
W62795
Demographics
Sex
Male
Race / Ethnicity
White / Caucasian
Estimated Age Group
Adult - Pre 40
Estimated Age Range (Years)
25-30
Estimated Year of Death
1986
Estimated PMI
--
Height
6' 0"(72 inches) , Estimated
Weight
175 lbs, Estimated
Circumstances
Type
Unidentified Deceased
Date Body Found
August 29, 1986
NamUs Case Created
August 25, 2008
ME/C QA Reviewed
April 21, 2011
Location Found Map
Location
Wichita, Kansas 67203
County
Sedgwick County
GPS Coordinates (Not Mapped)
--
Circumstances of Recovery
The deceased was struck by a vehicle and killed instantly while
crossing the road.
Details of Recovery
Inventory of Remains
All parts recovered
Condition of Remains
Recognizable face
Physical Description
Hair Color
Brown
Head Hair Description
--
Body Hair Description
--
Facial Hair Description
--
Left Eye Color
Brown
Right Eye Color
Brown
Eye Description
Contact lenses
Distinctive Physical Features
No Known Information
Clothing and Accessories
Item
Description
Clothing Blue jeans; Green long sleeve sweater; Brown and tan
long sleeve flannel shirt; Yellow t-shirt; Black socks On the
Body
Eyewear Contact lenses On the Body
Footwear Size 7 white hi-top tennis shoes On the Body
Investigating Agencies
Wichita Police Department
--
Agency Case Number
W-62795
Ryan Schomaker, Detective
--
Case Contributors
Ryan Schomaker, Law Enforcement
Wichita Police Department
(316) 268-4659
#Post#: 7750--------------------------------------------------
Re: SEDGWICK COUNTY JOHN DOE (1986): WM, 25-30, struck by a vehi
cle in Wichita - 29 August 1986
By: Akoya Date: July 8, 2020, 3:22 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[img]
HTML https://www.google.com/maps/vt/data=YD98jTMcm9p8Dyvy87QlUr9ulUUcasAJ5fxmGfVJ8RlmYxiGxtN0gbrzKt6Z4WG18L_GbJkZML7wQGLMAckf8OKERqfnqMSXz70obqMUjqOuOI9kLOkE2ECPGHR578dtsZn3mtCJla4EulvpFKqBJ5uIDqUq_VfYqv5wyMckHRQG6JdOkkRL_pqOfMVlzAyg0s7JebDkxmH7bGE-1rJ0qdZHhYMblDn1XLe5gY5-kshZkzGwpgeaola4dAbV1viD6Ni2QC6O3eTX975yRQKW3iTTYm_r4zOuI0oNq3S52o75iZf2ZYf5LHZzUZE[/img]
Wichita
Kansas
#Post#: 7751--------------------------------------------------
Re: SEDGWICK COUNTY JOHN DOE (1986): WM, 25-30, struck by a vehi
cle in Wichita - 29 August 1986
By: Akoya Date: July 8, 2020, 3:23 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://i.imgur.com/S2wuPkn.png
HTML https://i.imgur.com/I8kQmKG.png
HTML https://i.imgur.com/KDB0nx9.png
#Post#: 7752--------------------------------------------------
Re: SEDGWICK COUNTY JOHN DOE (1986): WM, 25-30, struck by a vehi
cle in Wichita - 29 August 1986
By: Akoya Date: July 8, 2020, 3:27 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Bodies found in remote spots
Wichita Eagle
Sedgwick County Forensic Science Center investigators Kevin
Berry and Mandi Brunow work the scene
HTML https://i.imgur.com/zlqmQod.jpg
#Post#: 7753--------------------------------------------------
Re: SEDGWICK COUNTY JOHN DOE (1986): WM, 25-30, struck by a vehi
cle in Wichita - 29 August 1986
By: Akoya Date: July 8, 2020, 3:29 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://www.kansas.com/news/local/crime/article51696320.html
Bodies found in remote spots challenge Sedgwick County
detectives
By Tim Potter
tpotter@wichitaeagle.com
DECEMBER 26, 2015 04:06 PM
Police surround a scene on north 29th Street, west of Hillside,
where a body was found in 2013. (Jan. 16, 2013)
Police surround a scene on north 29th Street, west of Hillside,
where a body was found in 2013. (Jan. 16, 2013) TRAVIS HEYING
FILE PHOTO
If a killer has the chance, he will try to put time and distance
between himself and his crime.
If he’s in a hurry, investigators know, he might look for a
roadside ditch to leave his victim’s body. If he has more time,
maybe a tree row. If he has time to plan, he finds the right
lonely dusty road, kills there and leaves the body.
“It’s not unusual to hear a gunshot somewhere out in the county
any time of day,” said Sedgwick County sheriff’s Capt. Greg
Pollock.
As commander of the sheriff’s investigations section, Pollock is
familiar with bodies showing up in remote places. His detectives
work those cases — which pose special challenges.
On Dec. 1, a hunter found the body of 54-year-old James Labat in
the woods near 61st and Hillside. Although an examination found
no sign of trauma, it’s considered a suspicious death, and
investigators have asked the public to help with clues.
With a body obscured by tall weeds or hidden in a hedgerow,
weeks or years can pass before someone stumbles onto the
remains, often scattered by scavenging animals.
To investigators, it’s called a body dump.
It’s also someone’s loved one, and it’s sometimes the beginning
of a mystery that lasts forever.
MAP WITH 14 BODY LOCATIONS
Pollock keeps a map showing the locations of 14 body-dump cases
that he has worked or is tracking. His map has 14 blue dots,
with case numbers for bodies found from July 1977, when a farmer
spotted Sandra Talbott’s remains in southwest Sedgwick County,
to December 2015, when the hunter saw Labat’s bones.
Pollock has dealt directly with seven of the 14 cases. He points
out that the 14 cases are not a complete list, but provide a
fairly full accounting of bodies found over the years in a ring
around Wichita. Of the 14 he’s tracking, 10 remain open or
unsolved.
The blue dots stretch from near Viola in the southwest part of
the county to near Kechi in the northeast. There is a
concentration of eight dots in the northeast section —
consisting of a tight bunch of four just north of Kechi and a
line of four more spaced-out dots stretching from Kechi west to
Valley Center.
Pollock doesn’t know why the Kechi area has the biggest
concentration. It could be partly because highways converge
there, giving access.
That kind of case is often difficult to solve because sometimes
the remains can’t be identified and because evidence is almost
always lacking. There are no eyewitnesses or leads to secondary
witnesses. Often, timelines are unclear. The bones could be
years old.
And just because bones have been found doesn’t mean a coroner
can rule it a homicide unless there is evidence of violence, say
a bullet lying nearby or telltale damage to a skull. Still,
minus the official homicide ruling, the investigators treat it
as a suspicious death. It defies logic that a body would just
turn up out in a hedgerow.
Investigators try to overcome the disadvantages and collect the
missing puzzle pieces, turning to DNA testing to help identify
the remains. They look for fragments of physical evidence,
including trash and debris along the roadside, tire tread marks,
shoe patterns.
“They can’t get rid of all the evidence,” Pollock said of the
killers.
In some cases he has worked, investigators found blood in
vehicles linked to the victim. Once, a vehicle used to transport
a body had been cleaned out thoroughly, it seemed. But the
killer hadn’t cleaned under a seat that investigators removed.
JOHN AND JANE DOE CASES
Identification can be elusive. The Sheriff’s Office has a John
Doe case from 1994 and a Jane Doe case from 2011. As the
nicknames suggest, both sets of remains are still unidentified,
and there wasn’t enough evidence to rule them homicides.
In both Doe cases, sheriff’s investigators turned to the FBI
forensic unit for help. Based on Jane Doe’s skull, the FBI came
up with a clay composite of what she look liked in the hope that
someone might recognize her. Skeletal remains showed she was a
black female. Her remains were found April 29, 2011, at 10000 S.
343rd St. West, on a farm near the Ninnescah River. Authorities
publicized a photograph of her composite and got some tips. “But
those all went cold,” Pollock said.
John Doe was found on Oct. 29, 1994, at 5600 W. 47th South. A
DNA profile showed that he was a white man, about 20 to 26 years
old. Although investigators have the basic profile to work with,
it has never been linked to anyone. The Sheriff’s Office has
sent information about John Doe to agencies in the area and
across the nation. “Nothing has ever come back,” Pollock said.
HOW INVESTIGATION UNFOLDS
When remains like a skull are found, Pollock explained,
investigators will systematically search out from the initial
find sometimes with a search line, sometimes by dividing the
area into grid boxes. The grid helps ensure that nothing is
missed. In the most recent search, near 61st and Hillside, they
looked for evidence in more than 200 grid boxes in pasture
crisscrossed by trees. About a dozen of the grid boxes yielded
something.
Animals had scattered James Labat’s remains on what used to be
an old salvage yard.
Investigators found most of his skeleton on the first day of
searching. On the second day, they found smaller parts. On the
third day, they had recovered about 90 percent of his bones. The
fact that it was pure skeletal remains told them that the body
had been there for more than a few months.
The case remains unsolved and has not been ruled a homicide.
Labat had been out of prison a short time and had stopped
reporting to his parole officer. He was released from prison on
June 15 and was last seen alive 10 days later in Wichita. He had
a history “of running” while on parole, so his family was not
overly concerned about his disappearance, Pollock said.
It’s common for the people whose bodies are found to have
disappeared and to have some kind of disconnect with their
families, he said. The person might not speak with their family
for six months at a time. So when they disappear, there’s a lag
before investigators become involved.
With Labat, investigators used dental records to identify his
remains.
Clothing or bits of clothing and distinctive jewelry also can
help identify someone. Clothing can suggest the person’s age.
Bones can be used to look for identifying DNA, and teeth are
rich in DNA, Pollock said. But the ability to get DNA depends on
how deteriorated the bone is.
The Sheriff’s Office turns to anthropologists to say how long a
body has been out in the woods. Depending on weather and other
factors, it can take 26 days or more of decomposition for
skeletal remains to start forming.
Passing motorists, farmers, hunters, joggers find the bodies.
Sometimes the bodies show up in visible spots. One of the
bodies, Amber Kostner’s, was left right across from Campus High
School along 55th Street South in September 2012, Pollock noted.
Her killing was solved.
Some cases take extensive teamwork. That was the situation in
the killing of Dale Childress, whose body was found on East 69th
North in February 2015. Law enforcement agencies in three states
— Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas — helped investigate it. Childress
was found shortly after his death, and a slip of paper in his
pocket with a cellphone number was a key piece of evidence in
solving the case, Pollock said.
FAMILIES WANT TO KNOW
The oldest of the body cases marked on Pollock’s map dates back
38 years. Sandra Talbott, 27, of El Dorado, was last seen in
Wichita on July 13, 1977, according to Pollock’s files. Her body
was found in a tree row at 111th Street South and 231st Street
West, in southwestern Sedgwick County. The body was partially
decomposed and had been there at least 20 days. An autopsy
determined that she was a homicide victim.
According to Eagle articles from 1977, Talbott had gone to a
bingo game at an El Dorado church and ended up in Wichita, where
she was last seen in at least three Wichita bars. A farmer
checking fields found her remains. A deputy coroner noted marks
on her neck vertebrae indicating that “she had been cut with a
sharp instrument.” “The only clothing she was wearing was
wrapped around an ankle.” She also was found wearing a leg brace
and several rings.
Sheriff Johnnie Darr had about 20 detectives and deputies
working the case. They picked up several people and interviewed
them. “We’ve got some interesting leads,” Darr said.
Thirty-eight years later, Talbott’s killing remains unsolved.
Families want to know what happened and why, Pollock said.
Always they would rather know that the body has been found and
identified than to wonder.
As investigators, he said, “We have the same frustrations they
do.”
But often, he said, “You just don’t have the right pieces to
pull the case together.”
Tim Potter: 316-268-6684, @terporter
Sheriff’s office seeks help from public
In the most recent case of a body being found outside Wichita —
that of James Labat — the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office is
asking that anyone who may have had contact with Labat in June
or July call investigators at 316-660-5300 or Crime Stoppers at
316-267-2111.
#Post#: 7754--------------------------------------------------
Re: SEDGWICK COUNTY JOHN DOE (1986): WM, 25-30, struck by a vehi
cle in Wichita - 29 August 1986
By: Akoya Date: July 8, 2020, 3:29 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Wichita, Kansas
HTML https://i.imgur.com/YpY0xX5.jpg
HTML https://i.imgur.com/hBRHIGJ.jpg
#Post#: 7755--------------------------------------------------
Re: SEDGWICK COUNTY JOHN DOE (1986): WM, 25-30, struck by a vehi
cle in Wichita - 29 August 1986
By: Akoya Date: July 8, 2020, 3:31 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://i.imgur.com/qNTKtEu.gif
*****************************************************