San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
SDPD SEEKS ID OF JOHN DOE FOUND IN ’81 DUMPSTER FIRE
Victim, believed to be in his 30s, was found in Mira Mesa
Nearly 40 years after a homicide victim’s body was found burned in a dumpster behind a Mira Mesa supermarket, police Thursday renewed their calls for help identifying the man.
Cold case detectives said re-examining old evidence has helped clarify some details about the John Doe’s identity, including his age.
An apartment complex now stands where the man’s charred body was discovered Sept. 28, 1981, inside a dumpster behind the Big Bear supermarket on Mira Mesa Boulevard just off Interstate 15.
According to police and stories from the time in The San Diego Union, two workers at the supermarket reported a fire around 5 a.m. in a dumpster by the store’s loading dock. After firefighters extinguished the flames, the victim’s badly burned body was discovered. The San Diego Union reported that a preliminary examination by the county Medical Examiner’s Office showed no evidence of stab wounds or bullet wounds, and that police believed the man was strangled and then set on fire. Among the evidence the fire was set intentionally was a plastic bottle partially filled with gasoline discovered nearby.
The body was too badly burned to retrieve fingerprints, according to newspaper reports. But police and personnel from the Medical Examiner’s Office said the victim appeared to be in his late teens — which authorities now say was wrong.
“Recently, using the dental charts from the initial autopsy, we asked the dental experts at the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office to review them,” Detective Lori Adams said in a video released Thursday. “All of the dental experts agree, John Doe is likely in his mid-30s, not late teens like initially thought.”
Adams, a San Diego police cold case investigator, said that newfound detail “gives us an opportunity to consider a larger group of individuals who could be John Doe, and perhaps identify him.”
An artist from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children recently produced a rendering of what the victim was believed to have looked like before his death. Authorities say the man was between 25 and 37 years old and of an unknown race, with a medium skin tone. He was between 5 feet 7 inches and 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 125 to 135 pounds, with wavy auburn hair and brown eyes.
“I think it’s important as a community and a Police Department we do whatever we can to help identify the victim and give him the respect of a name,” Adams said. “The biggest obstacle we have is identifying who John Doe is. That really is the first step into solving the homicide. Once we identify and know who he is, we can know more about his lifestyle, who his friends are, his relatives and his coworkers, and where he’s from. From there, we’ll be able to piece together what happened to him.”
Anyone with information about his identity or what led to his slaying was asked to call San Diego police’s homicide unit at (619) 531-2293 or the San Diego County Crime Stoppers’ anonymous tip line at (888) 580-8477. Authorities are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case.