He was known only as up57617 his name was stacy gause

AA year ago on May 15, a black man older than 65 and younger than 80 was found in cardiac arrest on the sidewalk at the corner of Wood and Grove in Bridgeport. He was dressed casually — black warmup pants, size 12 black sneakers — and had with him two laundry bags, one black and one light blue. He was also wearing a cap that said “We Hold The Cards Since 1775” and “U.S. Army” with a pin that marked him as a Vietnam vet.

He carried no identification — or if he had any, it was gone by the time the ambulance arrived.

There was little to go on other than the cap and pin, so a Bridgeport detective contacted Bridgeport’s Homes for the Brave (Applied Behavioral Rehabilitation Institute Inc.), which offers transitional housing and support services for veterans. The detective had a photo, but no one recognized the man, said Vincent Santilli, CEO/executive director. He wasn’t one of theirs.

A little less than two weeks after he died, the nameless man’s particulars were entered into the national clearing house for missing and unidentified persons, National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUS. For more than 10 years, NamUS has offered free access to information about people like the man found in Bridgeport, with incredibly detailed files, right down to photos of the missing people’s socks. The service is run out of the University of North Texas

At the one-year anniversary of his death, I thought it was worth it to ask: Did anyone ever find out the identify of the man who died nameless on a Bridgeport sidewalk last year?

Center for Human Identification.

The Bridgeport man was given a name, as such: NamUs #UP57617. His height (5’9”) and weight (210 lbs.) were entered into the system, as was a photo of his face in death. Meanwhile, his remains were stored at the Farmington office of the state’s medical examiner, and most of the world — sadly — moved on. Another nameless dead man. Another story ending sadly.

If this were a movie, a hotshot forensic scientist would track down the man’s name. It would take just hours, and a grateful family would be given a sense of closure about their lost loved one.

Then again, if this were a movie, no man would die alone and nameless on a Bridgeport street.

And this isn’t a movie. Advocates and activists in the state have done a heroic job of housing its veterans, and providing services for them. Even during this pandemic, the impact of a virus that has decimated veteran populations at facilities in Massachusetts and New Jersey has been relatively light in Connecticut. But people – veterans, people who are homeless, people who aren’t tethered to family or friends -- go missing all the time. Sometimes, Connecticut’s veterans end up among the unnamed dead.

Once the pandemic kicked into high gear, the everyday identification of missing people slowed. It wasn’t that people stopped caring. It was that they had to care about other things, like the increasing body count left by a confounding virus, like coming up new ways to track down information, to grieve, to find rituals that keep us sane.

The lean staff at Homes for the Brave scrambled to work with their 25 residents remaining in a transitional house. Bridgeport police department issued masks and gloves and began sending officers out by themselves, rather than as two-person teams. All over the state, nation, and world, things shifted to crisis mode.

In normal days, the state tends to allow some time for family or loved ones to come forward in cases like that of NamUs #UP57617. The pandemic stretched that time a little longer, said Dr. James Gill, the state’s chief medical examiner. Eventually, if no one comes forward, the state takes care of the final arrangements through the Department of Social Services. The final arrangements for NamUs #UP57617, said Gill, would have been taken care of as the pandemic wanes.

But at the one-year anniversary of his death, I thought it was worth it to ask: Did any one ever find out the identity of the man who died nameless in Bridgeport last year?

Even in crisis mode, people are capable of doing incredibly decent things. Gill asked an investigator to check again. As it turns out, Bridgeport PD had a missing person’s report that matched the description of the man, whose name is Stacy Gause, age 71, late of Bridgeport and perhaps a life-long resident. (Isn’t that him in an online Harding High’s 1967 yearbook, looking serious in tie and glasses?)

The family will take care of the arrangements, said Gill who, given the circumstances, could have been excused had he not bothered to take one more look. The same goes with the investigator, and Bridgeport PD. With everything else that demands their attention right now, some people decided to help, and now Mr. Gause can come home.