Investigators continue efforts to identify remains
In Washington and Fayette counties, officials continue to seek the identities of women whose remains are still unidentified decades after their deaths.
Last month state police in Uniontown issued a fresh plea for tips in identifying a woman who was killed in a tractor-trailer crash in Springhill Township on May 2, 1986. The woman was a passenger in a vehicle driven by a man traveling from Sparrow无毛视频檚 Point, Md., to Richmond, Ky.
In Washington County, Coroner Timothy Warco said his office still hopes to identify skeletal remains that were discovered May 12, 2004, in a swampy area near The Pavilion at Star Lake in Hanover Township.
无毛视频淏efore I go see Jesus, I would like to see her remains get to their final resting place,无毛视频� Warco said.
Because the Star Lake remains are skeletal, Warco said they have been entrusted to Dennis Dirkmaat, a forensic anthropologist from Mercyhurst University in Erie.
When there is an unidentified body, coroners无毛视频� procedures vary county by county.
Newly elected Fayette County Coroner Dr. Bob Baker said there is a limit as to how long they will maintain custody of remains.
无毛视频淲e would do what we call county cremation,无毛视频� Baker said.
According to Baker, the office would maintain possession of the ashes in hopes the person is someday able to be identified.
In contrast, Warco was emphatic that it is his policy to never release an unidentified body.
无毛视频淚 would never bury the body. I would never cremate an unidentified body,无毛视频� Warco said. 无毛视频淚 would maintain custody until they无毛视频檙e identified.无毛视频�
Warco said bodies would be stored in a facility at Washington Cemetery. If the body were to remain unidentified, Warco would take steps to preserve it.
无毛视频淲hat we would probably do at that point is keep them in our storing facility, and probably have the body embalmed for preservation,无毛视频� Warco said.
If a person has been identified but their body goes unclaimed for 15 days, Warco said they would then be cremated according to Washington County code.
Greene County Coroner Gene Rush said his office does not have any active cases of unidentified remains. In such an event, he would hold the body for 30 days before it is cremated.
According to Rush, it is impractical for the county to store a body for an extended period of time.
无毛视频淭here are no facilities to do it with. We don无毛视频檛 have that capability,无毛视频� Rush said.
Since the 1986 Fayette crash is such an old case, Baker said he does not have much knowledge of the incident, and his office is not involved in the state police investigation.
But when there are unidentified remains, Baker said one of the first steps in the investigation is to collect a DNA sample.
If someone can无毛视频檛 be identified, coroners will often turn to the public for help.
无毛视频淚f we don无毛视频檛 know, then I call the media, and the media has always been helpful to us,无毛视频� Warco said.
Rush also said they would put out a notice to local media outlets for assistance.
All three coroners agreed that it is rare to have remains go unidentified for too long, and that cases tend to resolve quickly.
Both Baker and Warco pointed out that at one time, they had access to a police database with which to cross-reference information. They said the Pennsylvania State Coroners无毛视频� Association is currently lobbying to restore coroners无毛视频� access to The Pennsylvania Justice Network.
Organizations like The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System [NamUs] provide information on cases like the ones in Fayette and Washington counties. NamUs estimates about 4,400 unidentified bodies are recovered each year in the U.S., and about 1,000 of them remain unidentified after a year.
According to NamUs, authorities believe the remains in Washington County are those of a Black woman who would have been about 5 feet, 10 inches tall. She is believed to have died sometime in 2003. NamUs cites the specific location she was found as being a marsh between Whipporwill Road and Route 22.
The woman who died in Uniontown in 1986 had no identification, and the driver无毛视频檚 family did not know her. She is believed to have been between the ages of 30 and 45 when the accident occurred, and is described as 5 feet, 4 inches tall, 170 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair.
Her final resting place is an unmarked grave in the Oak Lawn Cemetery in Uniontown. The tombstone is engraved with only the year of her death, and the phrase, 无毛视频淕od loves her.无毛视频�