Philadelphia investigators are hoping they’ll be able to finally make some advances in cold cases after exhuming samples from eight bodies that were buried in a potter’s field.
Among the victims are three women and three men who were found from 1972 through 1984, an infant boy who was discovered in 1983 and a young girl who was found in 1962.
All of these unknown dead people were buried in a small field in the northeastern section of the city through the 1980s.
Detectives are hoping that advances in DNA technology will help them finally identify who the people are.
Ryan Gallagher, who is the assistant director of the forensics unit at the Philadelphia Police Department, said this week:
“When there is an ID, it is satisfying to be able to give that information to the family, to give that closure to the family. Your loved one is now identified.”
The police department will work closely with the Medical Examiner’s Officer at the site, the FBI, genetic genealogists and some other people as they hope to not only identify the dead bodies but also figure out how they might’ve died.
The police department is able to carry out some of this work thanks to federal grants it received.
Thanks to scientific breakthroughs, there have been recent identifications in similar cases.
Just two years ago, the city was able to finally identify a victim who was known as “The Boy in the Box” and “America’s Unknown Child.” That small child, whose body was found in 1957 battered in a cardboard box, was finally identified as Joseph Augustus Zarelli, who was 4 years old at the time.
Investigators have developed some theories on how the boy died, though they haven’t announced any findings that are conclusive yet.
That one case was part of a string of other cold cases from around the country that have been re-examined in recent years thanks to genetic genealogy advancements. Some of the cases were even solved, including finding out who the Golden State Killer was.
Police in Philadelphia are hoping that they will have similar luck and be able to identify the eight victims who are the subject of their most recent project. All of these victims are believed to have died in a suspicious way, police said.
Thomas Walsh, a homicide lieutenant from the police department, said earlier this week while at the potter’s field that it was reading to see “the relief on the people’s faces when you can sit down in their living room and tell them, ‘Hey, this is your loved one that’s been missing for 30, 40 years.’ Of course, it’s tragic, the way it ended, but the relief is there, that they finally know this is my loved one and this is where they’re at.”
He spoke further about trying to solve cold cases:
“There’s always that eureka moment. Not everything’s cellular devices and video cameras. Sometimes, it takes good old-fashioned police work to bring a case in.”
