Harlem Marine John Doe
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This is the original Veteran Doe case. His case started this whole project and he was identified Dec. 2017 or Jan. 2018. His name and the circumstances of his identification have not been released (Feb 2018).
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Camp Pendleton: 7th Engineer Support Battalion EOD Company?
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This John Doe was found deceased in a Harlem New York City subway station June 23, 1997.
Due to some recent sharing of our other blog posting (thank you so much everyone!) it has been discovered that he would have been in Twentynine Palms, between 1994 and 1996. It is unknown if he was stationed in 29 Palms California, or, if he simply had a short visit for training or other purposes. With the age range max of 30 his oldest year of birth may be 1967. Working with that year of birth would make him 18 in 1985. So, his likely active duty time would have been between 1985 and 1997. His main page is here: http://www.veterandoe.com/top-case.html |
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A lot of people have asked about the fingerprints as a form of identification. From what I've read, it is possible his prints were not available in digital form until after 2000. My impression is that military personnel print may have still been in the process of being digitized at the time of his death so, without a name to go by; checking thousands of print cards would have been a massive task.
Shortly after his prints may have become available NYC was dealing with the identifications due to 9/11 so, without a name or other new information, it is likely his case would have been put on a back burner. I am working on finding out when his prints were last run in databases that includes military personnel. I made a few inquiries about this so, hopefully, I will get a response shortly. There is no DNA sample so that is not an option at the moment. There is dental information, but no specific person to compare it to so it's not helpful right now. A lot of you have also asked about missing persons reports. I’ve been watching for him on several websites for a couple years. I keep track of a couple possible persons but none have jumped out as an incredible possibility yet. On that note, a family member of another long missing Marine has shared her difficulties with trying to report an adult missing, and, obtaining records for an adult. I can see that being the case here as well. Maybe his family is dead, maybe they know he is deceased and have simply not claimed him…..or, like the woman who I was in contact with, maybe they have been looking for answers for decades and keep running into brick walls. I’ve seen a few solved cases where there was not a missing report from the time of the disappearance. They don’t get filed for all sorts of reasons. Some of the late reports were submitted by friends and that is what cracked the mystery of the unidentified person. So, keep sharing him! His name is out there somewhere. |
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Background from NamUs: https://identifyus.org/en/cases/6814
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The Reconnaissance community has been amazing with their feedback on him. The end result is that no one recognizes him. So…..maybe he got dropped from that training, maybe he was part of it in the late 80’s and we haven’t hit the right group of people. I don’t know the answer to that riddle.
If he was never Recon, I do find it odd that he would not have a lot of other tats. I mean, if he was inclined to get tattoos for flamboyant purposes it would feel like he would have more than just this one.
As far as the medical examiner notes go, this is the only tattoo he has. If there are more, maybe the NYC ME held it back for ID purposes. That could be, but, he seems real clean cut. There are no noted piercings, he’s in great shape and he is wearing his clothes in a way that suggests, to me, military not civilian. The PT gear under, the jeans with the belt: that reminds me of all the military people in my family….but not the civilian family members.
It has been suggested that there were not a lot of African Americans in Recon. Ok, he’s pretty light skinned so maybe more people just need to see his pic. Or, maybe something happened to disrupt that training……or maybe that part of the tat is bullsh*t. I don’t know.
That tattoo came from Twentynine Palms though. I do know that.
If he was never Recon, I do find it odd that he would not have a lot of other tats. I mean, if he was inclined to get tattoos for flamboyant purposes it would feel like he would have more than just this one.
As far as the medical examiner notes go, this is the only tattoo he has. If there are more, maybe the NYC ME held it back for ID purposes. That could be, but, he seems real clean cut. There are no noted piercings, he’s in great shape and he is wearing his clothes in a way that suggests, to me, military not civilian. The PT gear under, the jeans with the belt: that reminds me of all the military people in my family….but not the civilian family members.
It has been suggested that there were not a lot of African Americans in Recon. Ok, he’s pretty light skinned so maybe more people just need to see his pic. Or, maybe something happened to disrupt that training……or maybe that part of the tat is bullsh*t. I don’t know.
That tattoo came from Twentynine Palms though. I do know that.
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For more on this case visit the Top Case page.