skeletons, I constructed a biological profile for each: age, sex, race, and height. When finished, I checked my findings against the case files.
At one fifteen Corcoran came to see if I wanted to break for lunch. Over a machine sandwich of very questionable-looking chicken salad, a six-pack of Oreos, and a Diet Coke, we discussed my intentions with regard to Jurmain. I told him Id be phoning Edward Allen first thing in the morning, maybe even driving to Winnetka to pay a surprise call.
Corcoran apologized again. As before, I assured him he was not the target of my ire.
At one forty-five I returned to the storeroom.
By four Id finished the skeletons. One Mongoloid female had been classified as Negroid. One elderly white male had a surgically pinned right humerus that was actually a femur from a very large dog.
No Lassie candidate.
Knowing Id need X-rays, I skipped the mummified and burned individuals and moved on to the cleaned-up decomps. On the third set of bones I hit pay dirt.
During the first half of the twentieth century, Cook County was one of the leading producers of limestone and dolomite in the U.S. The bulk of the stone came from quarries situated in suburbs to the west and south of Chicago: Elmhurst, Riverside, La Grange, Bellwood, McCook, Hodgkins, Thornton. Most was shipped on the Illinois & Michigan Canal, later on the Sanitary and Ship Canal.
Though the golden age of quarrying has long since passed, the scarred landscapes remain. Im not talking little dents in the ground. These pits are whoppers.
And great places to off-load bodies.
According to Police Officer Cyril Powers, on July 28, 2005, a decomposed corpse was spotted floating facedown just south of a bridge carrying the Tri-State Tollway over the Thornton Quarry. Powers contacted personnel at the Material Service Corporation, owners and operators of the quarry, then called for grappling hooks and a morgue van.
The remains were logged in as 287JUL05. A staff pathologist named Bandhura Jayamaran was assigned to the case. Jayamaran estimated PMI at two to three weeks.
Due to advanced putrefaction and severe cranial damage, including absence of most of the left side of the face and all of the lower jaw, only three teeth remained, the upper-right premolars and the first molar. None had a unique characteristic or dental restoration.
Fingerprinting was not an option. Concluding that little could be done with the body, Jayamaran ordered it cleaned and the bones stored pending anthropological analysis.
One month later, 287JUL05 was examined by someone identified only by the initials ML, who determined that the individual was a white male, approximately thirty-five years of age, with a height of five foot eight, plus or minus one inch. Age was based on the condition of the pubic symphyses, the small surfaces where the pelvic halves meet in front. Stature was calculated using the length of the femur.
ML noted trauma to the vertebrae, ribs, and skull, caused by the victims fall into the quarry, and healed antemortem fractures of the right distal radius and ulna. ML ventured no opinion as to manner of death.
MLs descriptors were entered into a database at the Chicago PD missing persons unit, one week later into NCIC, the FBIs National Crime Information Center. Neither submission resulted in a positive ID.
287JUL05 went onto a shelf in the CCME storage room on September 4, 2005. Hed been there ever since.
OK, ML. Lets see how you did.
First, I arranged the cranial fragments into what resembled an exploded skull. Then I aligned the postcranial bones anatomically.
I began my assessment with gender, viewing first the skull, then the pelvis.
The right frontal bone bulged into a large, rounded ridge at the bottom of the forehead, above the orbit. The occipital had a prominent muscle attachment site dead center at the skulls back. The right mastoid, a hunk of bone
At one fifteen Corcoran came to see if I wanted to break for lunch. Over a machine sandwich of very questionable-looking chicken salad, a six-pack of Oreos, and a Diet Coke, we discussed my intentions with regard to Jurmain. I told him Id be phoning Edward Allen first thing in the morning, maybe even driving to Winnetka to pay a surprise call.
Corcoran apologized again. As before, I assured him he was not the target of my ire.
At one forty-five I returned to the storeroom.
By four Id finished the skeletons. One Mongoloid female had been classified as Negroid. One elderly white male had a surgically pinned right humerus that was actually a femur from a very large dog.
No Lassie candidate.
Knowing Id need X-rays, I skipped the mummified and burned individuals and moved on to the cleaned-up decomps. On the third set of bones I hit pay dirt.
During the first half of the twentieth century, Cook County was one of the leading producers of limestone and dolomite in the U.S. The bulk of the stone came from quarries situated in suburbs to the west and south of Chicago: Elmhurst, Riverside, La Grange, Bellwood, McCook, Hodgkins, Thornton. Most was shipped on the Illinois & Michigan Canal, later on the Sanitary and Ship Canal.
Though the golden age of quarrying has long since passed, the scarred landscapes remain. Im not talking little dents in the ground. These pits are whoppers.
And great places to off-load bodies.
According to Police Officer Cyril Powers, on July 28, 2005, a decomposed corpse was spotted floating facedown just south of a bridge carrying the Tri-State Tollway over the Thornton Quarry. Powers contacted personnel at the Material Service Corporation, owners and operators of the quarry, then called for grappling hooks and a morgue van.
The remains were logged in as 287JUL05. A staff pathologist named Bandhura Jayamaran was assigned to the case. Jayamaran estimated PMI at two to three weeks.
Due to advanced putrefaction and severe cranial damage, including absence of most of the left side of the face and all of the lower jaw, only three teeth remained, the upper-right premolars and the first molar. None had a unique characteristic or dental restoration.
Fingerprinting was not an option. Concluding that little could be done with the body, Jayamaran ordered it cleaned and the bones stored pending anthropological analysis.
One month later, 287JUL05 was examined by someone identified only by the initials ML, who determined that the individual was a white male, approximately thirty-five years of age, with a height of five foot eight, plus or minus one inch. Age was based on the condition of the pubic symphyses, the small surfaces where the pelvic halves meet in front. Stature was calculated using the length of the femur.
ML noted trauma to the vertebrae, ribs, and skull, caused by the victims fall into the quarry, and healed antemortem fractures of the right distal radius and ulna. ML ventured no opinion as to manner of death.
MLs descriptors were entered into a database at the Chicago PD missing persons unit, one week later into NCIC, the FBIs National Crime Information Center. Neither submission resulted in a positive ID.
287JUL05 went onto a shelf in the CCME storage room on September 4, 2005. Hed been there ever since.
OK, ML. Lets see how you did.
First, I arranged the cranial fragments into what resembled an exploded skull. Then I aligned the postcranial bones anatomically.
I began my assessment with gender, viewing first the skull, then the pelvis.
The right frontal bone bulged into a large, rounded ridge at the bottom of the forehead, above the orbit. The occipital had a prominent muscle attachment site dead center at the skulls back. The right mastoid, a hunk of bone
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