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More: Body to be exhumed in case of missing Shelby woman She may have been killed, or she may have adopted a new identity and lived a long life. A decades-long search by her children - and now her grandchildren - have turned up no clue as to what happened. Vangilder's children stopped hearing from her in early 1945, when letters to her bounced back. The depot was set up to produce munitions and make plane parts to help the war effort, and Vangilder joined a force of women who took over factory jobs while the men were fighting. “We’re doing more with less and we can get a better profile with less information … and degraded DNA as well, which is what we’re talking about in exhumed remains,” Slaper said.Ħ0 years and an exhumation: Coventry girl's murder is still unsolved These tactics may not have been available when the crime occurred.ĭNA testing, for example, has greatly advanced in the past two decades. Is it a case that might involve phones or computers or other data? We’re going to do all that before exhuming.” Advances in forensic techniques, and what they mean for exhumationĪdvances in forensic techniques in the past 20 years could prompt investigators to consider an exhumation. They’re going to try the investigative side of things. “Exhuming a body is always a sensitive subject, especially for families, and so it’s always one of the last resources,” she said. The unit is currently reviewing 30 cases requested by law enforcement agencies. Slaper said the new BCI Cold Case Unit, started in May, will also consider exhumations where they make sense. In another case, the Summit County Sheriff's Office requested an autopsy to get nail clippings from Marion Brubaker’s remains when a detective couldn't find a report indicating that had been done before. An exhumation allowed a second autopsy to prove he was right.
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In Stow, a suspicious detective thought the 1985 autopsy that ruled Margaret Purk's death a suicide seemed incomplete, and it conflicted with other evidence. “It gives you an opportunity to find out more about this deceased person, so that you can perhaps document injuries that were not documented adequately the first time,” said Lisa Kohler, who has been the Summit County Medical Examiner since 2001. There are hundreds of unidentified bodies on Ohio databases. They can be done to confirm a person's identity. There are two major reasons for exhuming a body in a criminal case. Why would a body be exhumed in a criminal case? "I think we're at the precipice of it becoming more common," Turner said. With advances in technology and the knowledge that buried bodies may hold the key to their own identities or unsolved murders, Turner thinks it makes sense to consider exhumations more often.Ĭase solved: How an exhumation solved the 1985 murder of a pregnant Akron woman And he's in the process of trying to arrange two more. Others say exhumations are an underused tool.ĭetective Adam Turner in Shelby - a small town between Cleveland and Columbus - has had two bodies exhumed in his search for a woman who vanished during World War II. “They don’t want to give false hope to a family.” “I think it’s a challenge for investigators,” said Kristen Slaper, a DNA expert with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) who is part of the state’s new Cold Case Unit. Some view exhumations as a last resort after other avenues have been exhausted.
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Linda Pagano, a 17-year-old presumed to have run away from her Akron home in 1974, then later proven to have been a Jane Doe buried in a pauper's grave.Linda Komar, a 45-year-old Cuyahoga Falls woman who perished in a 1997 house fire that was ultimately ruled an arson.Marion Brubaker, a 12-year-old Coventry Township girl who was killed in 1962 while riding her bike home.Purk, a 24-year-old Akron woman who was 8½ months pregnant when she died in 1985.That makes Summit County unique, with investigators turning to exhumations four times in the past 12 years for these cases: Among larger counties, Stark had zero, Hamilton had two, and Cuyahoga and Montgomery reported one each.Ĭold case investigations: Summit County's four exhumations yield different results A recent survey by the Ohio State Coroners Association found that most Ohio counties had no exhumations in the past 10 years, with a few reporting one or two.