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| FLU740928; Bradenton - skull only | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 12 2011, 08:44 AM (496 Views) | |
| tatertot | Jan 12 2011, 08:44 AM Post #1 |
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http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/jan/11/11.../news-breaking/ Mystery surrounds skull discovered in evidence room JIM HOCKETT/STAFF BY JACKIE BARRON News Channel 8 Published: January 11, 2011 Updated: 01/11/2011 03:56 pm BRADENTON - Police want the public's help with the case of a partial skull detectives discovered packed in a cardboard box and wrapped in newspaper during a check of cold case files in the department's homicide evidence room. "According to the report from the FBI, the skull was found in 4 inches of water near Bradenton, Florida, and that was on Sept. 28, 1974," said Deputy Chief Bill Tokajer as he read from a small piece of paper found with the box. Wearing white gloves, Tokajer lifted the skull out of the box today during a press conference. "This is obviously the eyes; down here would be where the jaw should be. There's no teeth, no jaw bone, nothing for dental records, which may have hampered the case in '74," Tokajer said. Lt. John Affolter made the discovery Thursday. "I ran across the box that said 'the skull' on it." Police property personnel had inventoried the box and knew it existed, but because it wasn't connected to any case number it just remained unsealed, on a shelf. "When we opened the box it appeared it hadn't been touched since September of 1974, when it came back from the FBI," Affolter said. "Everything was packed in there tightly as if in its original packing." The newspaper surrounding the skull has yellowed. "As we took out the newspaper we opened them up to see and it was from '74, various newspapers in the area, but all from '74," Affolter said. Tokajer said the department plans to send the skull to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement lab for DNA testing to find out if specialists can carbon date it to determine the age. Affolter doesn't believe the skull belongs to a murder victim because the department's homicide logs go back earlier than 1974. . He and other detectives have started sifting through old missing person reports. "I do have one article of a man in 1971 who went fishing on the Manatee River and his vehicle was found but he wasn't," said Affolter, who must rely on old newspaper stories since most of the department's records, with new technology in place, only go back to 1978. He said so far he has 20 missing person cases from the timeframe of 1970-74. Still, officers aren't giving up. It's a mystery department personnel are determined to solve. "Let's see if we can get some closure for a family," Affolter said, "It's a very big challenge."
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| tatertot | Jan 12 2011, 08:45 AM Post #2 |
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http://z10.invisionfree.com/usedtobedoe/in...0#entry11290626 |
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| tatertot | Jan 12 2011, 08:46 AM Post #3 |
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http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/regi...asking-for-help Decades-old mystery skull has Bradenton police asking for help Posted: 11:21 PM By: Scott Draper BRADENTON, Fla - Bradenton police are asking for the public's help to crack a decades-old case. On September 28, 1974, Bradenton police investigated a human skull found in 4 inches of water. That is the extent of the information detectives have been able to find. The skull was sent to the FBI to be examined back in 1974, but no paperwork has been found as to the FBI's findings. The FBI sent the skull back to police with little information, and the skull was packaged up and put into an evidence locker where it sat for 36 years. Last week, Lt. John Affolter with the Bradenton Police Department was going through the cold case evidence locker when he found the decades-ld skull. He immediately tried to find a case file on it, but there wasn't one. "We do not have anything in our record system that goes back to 1974 relating to this case," said Deputy Chief William Tokajer. The detectives started looking through newspaper clippings from the early 1970's hoping they would find a clue to this forgotten evidence. "So far we've run across over 20 missing persons reports from 1970 to 1974," said Lt. John Affolter. But they can not find any specific information on who this person was, or whether or not police even had any leads as to what happened. Detectives plan to send the skull to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for DNA testing and carbon dating to determine how old the skull is. In the meantime, they are asking for your help to crack this case. They hope someone may still be living in the area who remembers when this happened. After nearly 4 decades police truly want to close the book on the case, and find out who the person was. "To get closure, if somebody is still looking for a family member that may have gone missing back in the 70's, it would give us the chance to confirm who this is. It would give them closure," said Deputy Chief Tokajer. If you have any information you are asked to contact the Bradenton Police Department. |
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| tatertot | Jan 12 2011, 08:50 AM Post #4 |
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http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110...adenton-mystery Skull pulled from box renews Bradenton mystery By Anthony Cormier Published: Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 1:00 a.m. Last Modified: Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 8:37 p.m. BRADENTON - Police here are trying to solve a mystery over how an unidentified human skull sat in a box in their property room for more than 35 years until it was discovered last week. And they have virtually no records to indicate to whom it belongs or what happened to the person. In late 1974, someone found a human skull submerged in 4 inches of water in an area vaguely described as "near Bradenton." The skull was apparently sent by the Bradenton Police Department to the FBI and back again to the local agency's evidence room, where it was wrapped in newspaper, put in a box, marked with the word "SKULL" and forgotten. Until last week. Detectives, sifting through old evidence to see if any of it could be used to crack cold cases, found the box, and the skull, and are now trying to figure out to whom it belongs. Bradenton police believe it may have been part of a missing person's case from the early 1970s and plan to ask the FBI if it retained any paperwork on it. Local police say records regarding the skull were long ago destroyed. Detectives have been sifting through old newspaper clippings about disappearances to get started. They found several possible scenarios, including: Wendy and Kenny Wilson, 12 and 14 years old, who left for school one day in 1974 and vanished; Donna Jean Massey, an epileptic teenager who never returned from a camping trip in Riverview and a Wisconsin man who was last seen fishing on the Manatee River. DNA testing or carbon dating may be used to help police narrow their search. For now, though, the case remains as mysterious as it was 36 years ago. "We're gonna require a lot of help to solve this thing," said Lt. John Affolter said. "It's certainly unique." |
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| tatertot | Jan 12 2011, 09:08 AM Post #5 |
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(Original article) http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xD41A...g=4938%2C407272 Unearthed Skull Identification Sought Sarasota Herald-Tribune Oct. 2, 1974 Herald-Tribune Reporter A human skull, found by a couple of Bradenton boys who were digging around in swampleads near Second Avenue East, may turn out to be part of the remains of an 80-year-old man who disappeared from a local rest home nine years ago, according to Bradenton Police Maj. Larry Diehl. Maj. Diehl said the skull has been sent to the FBI in Washington, D.C. for analysis and a report by the federal investigators. Maj. Diehl said two boys, Timothy David and Chris Campbell of 1105 30th Ct. E were digging were digging around in a marshy area near Manatee River at the end of Second Avenue East on Saturday, when they came across the human skull, mired in the oozing mud. The boys turned the skull over to the Manatee County Sheriff Department. Det. Curt Siver, of the Sheriff Department, turned the skull over to Bradenton police, since it was found within city limits. Diehl said, "Our only interest is that the skull may turn out to be that of an 80-year-old man who disappeared nine years ago." "The old man was last seen walking away from a rest home in the area," the major said. The home is the Bradenton Convalescent Center Inc., at 105 15th St. E. Oddly enough, although Maj. Diehl said his men had been digging around the area where the skull was found, no other human bones have been unearthed. "It may have floated down the river from somewhere else," Diehl said, "Our only concern is that it may solve the mystery of this man who disappeared." The identity of the man was not released by Diehl, who indicated he did not wish to arouse false hopes among the octogenarian's relatives that perhaps the missing man had at last been found. Maj. Diehl said a report on the skull is expected from FBI men "in about a month or so." |
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| tatertot | Jan 12 2011, 10:32 AM Post #6 |
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http://www.bradenton.com/2011/01/12/286951...al-secrets.html Published: Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011 Updated: Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2011 Skull won’t reveal secrets By RICHARD DYMOND BRADENTON -- As cameras clicked inches from it and questions reverberated all around it, the mysterious human skull discovered at the Bradenton Police Department held tightly to its secrets Tuesday. Hours after the Bradenton Herald published a story about a skull found in an unmarked box in the corner of its 12-foot by 12-foot homicide evidence room, the police department held a press conference Tuesday to satisfy a flood of interest. The skull was discovered carefully wrapped in old newspaper in a box with the word “Skull” in caps underlined twice along with an FBI lab invoice. The invoice read, “Examination of portion of human skull discovered in four inches of water near Bradenton on Sept. 28, 1974.” The lower half of the skull is missing with no jawbone and, hence, no teeth, remaining. Investigators at the Bradenton Police Department had evidently sent the skull off for forensic testing, and the skull was mailed back, Oct. 21, 1974. “We want to bring closure to some family out there still missing a family member,” said Deputy Chief Bill Tokajer. “With new advances in technology, including DNA testing, we might now be able to solve the mystery.” Tokajer and Detective Lt. John Affolter believe the skull is that of a missing person and not connected to a Bradenton homicide. That’s because they have homicide books on cases dating far earlier than the 1970s, and none involve a missing skull. Following their hunch that the skull is from a missing person, the pair got clippings from old copies of the Herald and found about a dozen missing residents and missing tourists. A promising lead, they think, is a man named Richard Cavenough who left on a Braden River fishing trip in 1971 and was never found, although his overturned boat was discovered. Affolter termed “myth” a rumor that the skull belongs to an elderly man who wandered away from a nursing home. “We have no evidence of that,” Affolter said. The officers say if someone can produce evidence of a missing family member from 1970 to 1974, they will embark on DNA testing. “All we would need would be a hair from the present family member and DNA from the skull to see if there is a match,” Tokajer said. One thing is for certain: The mysterious skull stirs the imagination. For an hour, Tokajer and Affolter fielded roughly 50 questions from curious media members. “Was the skull an adult?” “Yes, we think so,” Affolter said. “Do you know the sex?” “No,” the officers said. “Could it be the skull of a Native American?” “It seems unlikely that it would be found right in the water if it were,” Tokajer said. “But we plan on doing carbon dating.” “Do you know what body of water it was found in?” “No,” Affolter said. “Wasn’t there a story in the local papers about a skull found in 1974?” “Not that we could find,” Tokajer said. “Does the Bradenton Police Department have any records of the skull?” “Our records go back to 1978,” Tokajer said. “Why did you just find it Thursday?” “It wasn’t missing,” Tokajer said. “It was part of our inventory, which is roughly 12,000 pieces. We decided we needed to get our detectives on some cold cases, and that is when it was found.” |
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| tatertot | Jan 10 2017, 09:38 PM Post #7 |
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http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/bayne...olice_evid.html Skull in police evidence since 1974 may be 100 years old, researchers say Last Updated: Thursday, August 16, 2012 BRADENTON -- A skull that was found sitting in Bradenton Police evidence since September 1974 may be over 100 years old. More than three decades ago, the human skull was put into a box in an evidence closet in the police department. The partial skull faded from memory until January 2011, when detectives stumbled upon it while going through old cold cases. Since then, they combed through missing persons cases in hopes of solving the mystery of the skull. Nothing has turned up to connect it to any cases, but the police department announced Thursday that University of Florida researchers said the skull may be that of a Native American who lived a century ago. Not much is known about the skull. The lower half is missing and there are no signs of trauma, which led investigators to believe the case was not a homicide. The gender and age of the person it belonged to are also not known. The only known detail comes from an FBI lab invoice that indicates the skull was found in four inches of water near Bradenton on Sept. 28, 1974. Anyone with information can call the Bradenton Police Department at 941-932-9303. |
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9:27 AM Jul 11