Do these faces look familiar? They were reconstructed by FBI specialists who create facial approximations from unidentified skulls. These two were found in Caroline County in November of 1988.
If you were a resident of Caroline in 1988 and know anything about a missing persons case, it would be worth taking a close look at the images above.
The Virginia Department of Health recently presented eight FBI facial approximations made from unidentified skulls found in Central Virginia dating from 1972 through 2014. Two were found in Caroline County.
Anthropological studies revealed information about each, including race, gender, and estimated height and age. Using the data along with the remains, specialized artists assigned tissue-depth markers to the skulls to make close-to-accurate facial depictions.
“We want to show the facial approximations to see if anyone recognizes these people, if we are able to get them identified based on that,” said Laura Newell, Central District Investigator. “At this point we’ve kind of hit a brick wall and this is our last attempt to try to get them identified.”
In November of 1988, the skeletal remains of two Hispanic men were discovered in a wooded area off I-95 in Caroline County, and labeled a double homicide. DNA testing determined that they were related, though their exact relationship wasn’t clear. It was estimated that they had died during that spring or summer because there was no flesh left on the bones.
The FBI identified the age of one to be between 35 and 45 years, with a height range of 5’5” to 5’9”. He was wearing a gray, white and navy short-sleeve shirt with a navy long-sleeve shirt underneath. He had on brown denim pants and a brown leather belt with the word “Silvano” engraved on it. The belt buckle had the design of a man with the word “Mexico” on the front. His tan cowboy boots were size 10, and he wore a medallion with an archangel figure.
“We couldn’t do a lot with his dental because the majority of his teeth were loose,” Newell said. “Some before he died, some after he died.”
The other man’s age ranged between 17 and 25 years, and his height was between 5’3” and 5’4”. He was wearing blue jeans, a blue short-sleeve shirt and red cowboy boots, size 8 ½. He had his natural teeth with four extracted and no evidence of any other dental work.
Both men had black hair. The Virginia Department of Health also keeps nuclear and mitochondrial DNA samples from both men in its database.
“The national DNA Data Bank for Unidentified Missing Persons constantly compares them to each other, so when we put DNA on our side of the unidentified side, it gets compared to all the Stanley profiles on the missing persons side, in hopes that we can get a cold hit off of DNA,” Newell said. “We tried to get all DNA from the persons, just in case it ends up matching someone that doesn’t come from Virginia, that comes from somewhere else.”
This Caroline case has no clues on who the men could have been, so there is a chance that they were not from the area. With the release of these facial approximations, there is a chance of finding out.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner is asking the people of Virginia to contact them or law enforcement if they recognize any of the faces.
By Bridget Douglas CP Reporter
Loading ...