Toronto’s saddest lost and found: The morgue
Some bodies lie unidentified for years DNA databank for the missing proposed
There are 10 at the Toronto morgue: one has been there since 1987; the most recent one came in about two months ago. They are dead men, women and babies, unidentified and unclaimed. Over the years, unidentified bodies in the basement morgue on Grenville St. have come from various backgrounds — known runaways whose missing-persons reports had lower priority, loners with little or no family, a person whose family went vacationing in Europe for the summer, and victims of foul play.
Although missing-person reports are eventually filed on a national police database, matching a dead person to a report of someone missing can be difficult, says Dr. Jim Cairns, the deputy chief coroner for Ontario.
“ We have had bodies here for a considerable length of time. If a body is found in one police jurisdiction, but has been reported missing in another jurisdiction, it can be hard to match the two,” he says. Normally when human remains are found, the first step is to search missing-person reports from the area and reports filed in a computer system that all police forces in Canada can access.
Like many in his profession, Cairns believes a national missingpersons DNA databank would reduce the number of
bodies left unidentified in the morgue. “There’s no doubt it would be a tremendous advantage,” he says. Often when bodies are found decomposition has begun, making recognition difficult.
Every year, police across Canada file 100,000 missing- persons reports, according to the RCMP. The majority of missing people return within a week, but after one year the RCMP estimates 4,800 remain missing. Those include runaways, parental abductions and missing people with mental health issues. And each year human remains from 20 to 30 people are found. Sometimes a complete body is discovered; other times just bones or body parts are located. Currently, about 285 partial or complete bodies remain unidentified in Canada.
Cairns was involved in the investigation of Alicia Ross, the 25- year- old who went missing in August from her family’s York Region home. Her body was later discovered in a wooded area northeast of Toronto. Ross’s neighbour has been charged with her murder. Before her remains were found, Cairns says he received a late- night phone call from the media asking if a body found in Halton Region along a country road was that of Ross. Cairns says the coroner’s office had been confident the body was not Ross’s because of the height and dental structure, but the woman’s identity remains a mystery.
That woman is one of the 10 at the morgue who remain unidentified. If a missing- persons DNA databank existed, Cairns says authorities could have a better chance of identifying her.
“ It is sad. You wonder if there’s a family out there missing this woman,” Cairns says. But the problem could be that the woman — believed to have been 35 to 55 years old, 5- foot- 6 and about 130 pounds — was from another province.
“ This is a case where we are considering a skull reconstruction, a 3D model,” Cairns says.
Because there is some subjectivity to such a reconstruction, Cairns says coroners don’t rush to that step, which can mistakenly narrow an investigation. With a databank, Cairns says DNA could be collected from a missing person’s hairbrush or toothbrush and stored in a central system in Ottawa. If DNA couldn’t be obtained, the missing person’s parents could voluntarily provide samples for a cross- paternity match. When remains are found, a DNA sample could be compared with all missing persons.
“ Often we can’t show a photograph and the fingerprints are gone because of decomposition,” Cairns says.
Cairns has heard arguments against such a databank, but he says he thinks if DNA was taken only on a consensual basis, privacy issues could be overcome. Among the Toronto morgue’s 10 unidentified bodies are a girl found in a suitcase in York Region in 1994 and two babies found near college campuses.
Cairns, who has been with the coroner’s office since 1979, can recall numerous cases involving unidentified bodies. One girl was found and identified only after a man confessed to his brother that he had killed a young girl and wanted to move her body.
Another was identified after a distant relative of a 40- year- old man came from Europe looking for him, only to find him at the morgue. The dead man had been unidentified for two years.
Cairns has also had to talk to relatives and family members when a match has been made. He still remembers details of a conversation he had with a mother whose daughter’s body was found two years after she was reported missing. “She said she was relieved. When a body is found and identified, it helps in a bizarre kind of way,” Cairns says. No longer are family members living each day wondering if their loved one is still alive, or if he or she is being hurt. With a missing- persons DNA databank, Cairns says he believes more identifications could be made, and more families would be able to move forward with their grieving.