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San
Bernardino County is the largest geographical county in the 48 contiguous
United States. There are over 25,000 square miles, most of which are comprised
of the greater Mojave Desert, a vast, remote area with
a history of being a perfect dumping ground for homicides and
accidental deaths.
In
2008 alone, more than 36,000 adults and over 114,000 children were
reported missing in the State of California. The law requires that
once a person is reported as missing, after a period of 90 days
the reporting party is required to supply information to law enforcement
regarding the missing person's dental and medical records if such
records exist. The investigating officer then forwards these records
to the appropriate agency for comparison to unidentified decedents.
A clearinghouse exists for maintaining this information at the California
Dept. of Justice, Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
In San Bernardino County, over the last
twenty years Dr. Golden has performed hundreds of dental autopsies
on unknown victims of crime whose remains were discovered in the
Mojave Desert and remote and urban regions elsewhere in the County.
Many of those who were later identified were found to have been
reported missing from other States. For each of them there is a
tale about how they ended up here, either voluntarily or against
their will.
By
State Law, any accidental or unreported death must be examined by
the County Coroner or Medical Examiner to
determine the cause and manner of death. If there are no other means
of identifying an individual, (visual, personal effects, fingerprints,
etc..) then a dental examination is conducted and, if available,
a DNA sample is collected from the decedent.
Dental
identifications are usually made either by radiographic (x-ray)
comparison or photographic comparison for consistant features between
the post-mortem appearance and the ante-mortem appearance of the
individual's teeth. When there are no dental or photographic records available, a DNA sample is collected from the decedent and sent to the California Department of Justice where it is compared to the DNA national database of missing persons.
Actual
Case (see pg 10) Need
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