Police Struggle To Identify Human Remains Found On Wisconsin Shoreline
KENOSHA, Wisc (CBS) -- Kenosha County police said they do not have much to go on in the attempt to identify human remains found nearly two months ago, on Dec. 28 by out-of-state visitors on the Lake Michigan shoreline in the town of Somers.
At the bottom of a cliff at 10th Street and Sheridan Road in Kenosha, people who were out for a walk along Lake Michigan, found the unimaginable - human remains.
The person's head was missing and so are most of the person's limbs, but Sheriff David Beth said that does not necessarily mean foul play. WBBM's Bob Roberts reports.
"We do not know if this was accidental, suicide or homicide," Beth said. "We don't know."
Beth said the body could have been in the water for a year and a half. Police recovered keys to a late 1980s or early 1990s-model Cadillac; an old Thornton's loyalty card issued in Waukegan in 2012, before the gasoline retailer routinely took identifying information, and clothing that includes a dark blue or black Reebok sweatshirt with orange or red lettering made in 2015 (size 3x), a Fada thermal T-shirt and Lion's Crest pants.
Beth said the Thornton's card tells investigators that the holder bought coffee, M&Ms and Mentos, but gives no clue to his identity.
Lake Michigan's current typically carries items in the water near Kenosha to the south, Beth said.
The remains are at a Texas lab, and Beth said attempts to identify the remains there could take four to six months.
"We have now transported the remains to the University of North Texas," said Patrice Hall, Kenosha County Medical Examiner. "Which works with NamUs which is the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System."
The goal is to extract DNA, from the skeletal remains and find a match in the database. Tests so far, haven't revealed anything about the person found.
"We weren't able to determine the cause of death, the manner of death," Hall said. "We weren't able to determine the age, gender, race anything like that."
