Nez Perce County sheriff's investigators are hoping technological advances in DNA testing will help determine the identity of a man found slain in the Snake River 23 years ago. A fisherman found the body of a white or Hispanic man on June 26, 1982, 25 miles south of Lewiston. The man had been shot twice, once in the back of the neck and once in the left shoulder.
Having been in the water for about three weeks, the man was unrecognizable and all tips the department received failed to turn up a name, said investigator Kevin Messelt.
Now, Sheriff Jim Dorion is giving the OK to have the man's clothing tested for DNA at the Idaho State Lab at Boise.
"It is a cold case and it's always nice to solve those at some point," Dorion said. "I don't know if we'll be in a place that we can actually prosecute it, but at least we'll have an ID for a family out there."
The man was between 18 and 20 years old with long, dark hair, about 150 pounds and 5 feet, 11 inches tall. He had a 2-inch scar on his right ankle.
He was found wearing designer jeans over blue swimming trunks with red and white stripes down the sides, white socks and blue bikini-style underwear.
Eye color could not be distinguished, and no dental work was evident.
The body was found in a roadless area on the Idaho side of the river, near an eddy just across from the mouth of the Grand Ronde River, according to Tribune archives.
But the shooting could have occurred anywhere upriver on the Snake River, Messelt said.
Ballistics tests showed he was shot with a .38 caliber Smith and Wesson 36 Centennial Model, which has not been manufactured since 1967.
The body was buried July 14, 1982, in an unmarked grave at Normal Hill Cemetery in Lewiston. According to Idaho law, homicide victims cannot be cremated, Messelt said.
If the state lab cannot collect DNA from the clothing, there has been talk of exhuming the body, he said.
But technicians at the state lab, which is doing the testing at no cost, seem pretty sure they will be able get a good DNA sample because of the time the man was wearing the clothes after he died, Messelt said.
The body had started to decompose, and bits of skin were attached to the clothes, he said.
"It's gruesome, but that's what happens," Messelt said.
If DNA is collected, the results will be put into a DNA database and matched to missing persons reports.
Since the body was found, a couple of strong possibilities have turned up in the reports, Messelt said.
Solving the homicide is a priority, but time takes a toll on evidence, he said. And at this point, none has been collected for the case except the body.
But an ID would at least provide a geographical place to start looking for his acquaintances or anybody with information, Messelt said.
"Maybe somebody in the public will come forward now and say, 'I know him,' or 'I know what happened,' " he said. "Even if we could get a close 'might be.' "
Periodically, cold cases are reviewed by the FBI, which has more resources than small agencies, Messelt said.
The case is listed on the Doe Network Web site, an international database of unidentified and missing persons, which has generated a handful of tips, he said.
And the department is waiting to hear back from Project EDAN (Everyone Deserves a Name), an organization that does forensic sketches at no cost, he said.
The last sketch was done in 1986, and the department would like to improve the existing photo, Messelt said.
"First and foremost, we want to identify him," he said. "If anything, there's a family out there missing him."