Ontario Provincial Police are seeking the public’s help solving a case of an unidentified young male, whose remains were found in Algonquin Park close to four decades ago, by releasing a three-dimensional clay facial reconstruction image for the first time.
Police said a hiker located the remains on April 19, 1980 while on the Harwood Lookout Trail near Whitney, Ont., 77 metres from trail marker number five.
Investigators also found a size 11 Greb-brand boot, a wallet containing no identification, clothing, a black sleeping bag, a camp stove and an aluminum cooking pot.
Police managed to recover further remains following another search of the area in 1995.
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“In 1995, someone found his lower jaw,” said forensic anthropologist Dr. Kathy Gruspier. “I was asked to look at the lower jaw and determine if it actually matched his skull. I did determine that.”
Gruspier said the evidence gathered allowed police to create an image of the deceased using 3D clay reconstruction.
“We were able to give that information to a forensic artist and being able to create a face is a huge step forward. Now we have something we can share with the public,” Gruspier said.
“We’re hoping that a face humanizes the remains enough so that people may take another look and think back to those days.”
The unidentified male is believed to be Caucasian, between 18 to 29 years of age, with blonde hair from six to 11 inches in length, which may have been worn in a ponytail.
The man’s cause of death is unknown, however police believe information recovered from the scene and a stamp found in the wallet led analysts to determine that his death occurred between July 1, 1971 and spring of 1978.
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“Maybe somebody might recognize something about this individual. May recall a friend that they hadn’t seen, hung out in the 70s,” Gruspier said.
“We can’t say for sure that he’s Canadian. He could be American. The Vietnam War was going on at the time. So we don’t know. The border was quite fluid, unlike today.”
Anyone with information on the case can call the missing persons hotline toll-free at 1-877-934-6363 (1-877-9-FINDME) in Canada only or 1-705-330-4144 from outside Canada. An email can also be submitted to opp.isb.resolve@opp.ca.
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