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California Family's Easter Egg Hunt Uncovers Buried Human Skull · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Usually when we think about our public parks, there's like
0:03
this expectation of curated safety. You walk in and it
0:06
basically feels like a living room just outdoors.
0:09
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, like it's an extension of.
0:10
Speaker 1: Your house, exactly. You know, you have the manicured lawns,
0:13
the designated picnic spots, the paved trails. The city planners
0:17
have come in, tamed the wild and presented you with
0:21
this predictable escape from the concrete and the chaos of
0:26
the city.
0:27
Speaker 2: It's a highly structured environment, really, and it's built on
0:30
a very specific social contract.
0:32
Speaker 1: You mean, like we all agree on how the space works.
0:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. We design these spaces to be predictably safe.
0:40
The boundaries feel rigid, you know, the grass stops here,
0:43
the trail begins there. The lighting ensure you could see everything, right.
0:46
We want to believe that by putting a fence around
0:49
a patch of nature and adding a playground, we've entirely
0:52
subjugated that space to human rules.
0:54
Speaker 1: But then you step off that paved trail. You go
0:56
maybe just five or ten feet into the brush, pass
0:59
the line where the landscape or stop mowing, and suddenly.
1:01
Speaker 2: The illusion is gone.
1:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, that illusion of total control completely evaporates the boundary
1:07
between the city we built and the raw natural world
1:10
underneath it is. I mean, it's far more porous than
1:13
we ever want to admit.
1:15
Speaker 2: It's the absolute definition of an unpredictable ecosystem. The moment
1:19
you cross into that unmanaged brush, you're in a landscape
1:22
where the natural world just reasserts itself.
1:25
Speaker 1: The rules just vanish.
1:26
Speaker 2: They do, the rules of urban predictability vanish, and the
1:30
environment operates entirely on its own logic. And that logic
1:34
often conceals the very things society prefers.
1:36
Speaker 1: To look away from, which brings us to the focus
1:39
of today's deep dive. I want you to picture a
1:42
beautiful Easter Sunday in southern California. It is April five,
1:46
twenty twenty six, that perfect spring day exactly. The weather
1:49
is that perfect mild California spring day, the kind of
1:52
day that makes people put up with the cost of
1:54
living out here.
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Speaker 2: Right.
1:55
Speaker 1: Sure, families are gathered all over the grass. They are barbecues,
1:58
smoking music, playing game happening everywhere, and hidden all throughout
2:02
the greenery, tuck behind tree roots and under bushes are
2:04
colorful plastic eggs waiting for kids to find them.
2:07
Speaker 2: It's like the quintessential picture of community joy.
2:10
Speaker 1: It really is.
2:11
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a day entirely centered around renewal, family celebration.
2:16
The whole psychological framing of the afternoon is built around
2:19
safety and innocence.
2:21
Speaker 1: And then comes the macabre twist. A child hunting for
2:24
chocolate pushes past the tree line, pulls back some dense
2:27
brush and finds a human skull.
2:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just horrifying.
2:31
Speaker 1: We are taking this single, incredibly jarring event that happened
2:35
at de Forest Park in Long Beach, and we're using
2:38
it to unearth the hidden layers of our urban spaces, because.
2:41
Speaker 2: A localized tragedy like this, it doesn't exist in a vacuum.
2:46
Speaker 1: Right, We're looking at the geography of these public parks,
2:48
the frankly astonishingly advanced forensic science used to identify the
2:53
nameless and the broader societal shadows we literally walk past
2:56
every single day.
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Speaker 2: It forces us to connect the micro a single startling
3:01
discovery in a patch of dirt, to the macro. It
3:04
reveals the immense, silent crisis of unidentified remains across the country.
3:08
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Let's ground ourselves in the reality
3:11
of what happened that afternoon. DeForest Park is a massive space,
3:14
it really is. We're talking roughly fifty acres of green
3:18
space in North Long Beach, specifically at six' two fifty
3:22
five To Forest. Avenue it's an ideal spot for families
3:26
seeking outdoor recreation in a heavily populated urban, grid.
3:30
Speaker 2: Right because it features walking, trails natural, wetlands picnic, areas
3:34
wide open, fields.
3:36
Speaker 1: And On april five it was packed.
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Speaker 2: Southern california weather on a holiday. WEEKEND i mean it
3:42
draws people out in.
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Speaker 1: Droves, yeah you have multiple multi generational families sharing this communal,
3:47
space setting up their independent celebrations side by.
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Speaker 2: Side the atmosphere is, loud, festive entirely focused on. Children
3:55
the sheer volume of people creates this, chaotic albeit joyfull baseline.
3:59
Speaker 1: Environment so the afternoon is winding, down it's around FIVE,
4:02
pm but the egg hunts are still going, strong and
4:05
one family's hunt leads them off those main paved paths
4:09
and deep into a brushy, area which.
4:10
Speaker 2: Makes total sense if you think about, it, Right if.
4:12
Speaker 1: You're hiding eggs for older, kids you don't just leave
4:14
them on the short. Grass you want to make it,
4:16
Challenging you push a little further into the wilder features
4:18
of the.
4:19
Speaker 2: Park you utilize the, landscape the dense, foliage the, shadows
4:22
the uneven. Terrain it all becomes part of the. Game.
4:25
Yeah the, adults you, know they inadvertently direct the children
4:29
precisely into the unmanaged zones of the.
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Speaker 1: Park so a child is rummaging through this dense, brush
4:35
actively searching for something, hidden and instead spots what appears
4:39
to be a small skull partially buried in the. Dirt.
4:42
Unbelievable the family members rush over and they see additional
4:45
small bones scattered nearby in the. Soil they call the authorities,
4:49
immediately and The Long Beach Police department, responds and.
4:52
Speaker 2: They had to cordon off the, area pushing the crowds. Back,
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yeah and erect this stark white investigative tent right there
4:59
in the.
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Speaker 1: Brush the visual contrast broadcast by the local news helicopters that,
5:03
evening it was. Staggering oh, yeah you have this, clinical
5:06
opaque investigative, tent the bright yellow police tape strung up
5:10
between the trees and scattered right next to. It all
5:12
sitting on the nearby path are these, vibrant neon colored
5:16
Plastic easter.
5:17
Speaker 2: Eggs what's fascinating here is how that visual perfectly encapsulates
5:20
the psychological. Shock finding human remains always shatters the innocence
5:25
of a, Space But, easter.
5:28
Speaker 1: It's the ultimate contract.
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Speaker 2: Exactly easter is built around the symbology of life and.
5:32
Resurrection injecting the ultimate symbol of, mortality a human, skull
5:37
into that, space creates profound cognitive, DISSONANCE i.
5:41
Speaker 1: MEAN lbpd Spokeswoman Andrea moran quickly confirmed the basic, details
5:45
stating the skull was located by a child during an
5:48
independent family egg, hunt, right and.
5:50
Speaker 2: They noted there was no immediate foul play evidence just
5:52
from looking at the.
5:53
Speaker 1: Scene but they immediately called in The department Of Medical
5:55
Examiners Special Operations Response team OR, sort and by the
6:00
next day investigators officially confirmed that the remains were indeed, human.
6:05
Speaker 2: A skeletonized skull and lower jawbone the. Mandible they classify
6:09
this individual as unidentified dough number one ninety.
6:11
Speaker 1: Six the word skeletonized really jumps out at.
6:14
Speaker 2: Me it's vital. Here it isn't just a descriptive, Word
6:16
it's a specific forensic timeline. Marker it means all the
6:20
soft tissue has degraded. Entirely this wasn't a recent. Event
6:24
this individual had been resting, there hidden in plain, sight
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for a significant period of.
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Speaker 1: Time while the daily life of the, park the, runners
6:32
the dog, walkers the picnics just continued unabated a few yards. Away,
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precisely the eyewitness accounts from the park really drive home
6:41
the emotional. Whiplash Marx, aldonna a guy who was walking
6:45
the path shortly after the, discovery he captured it. Perfectly
6:48
he saw the family freaking out and immediately recognize the
6:52
sheer tragedy of a child finding something like.
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Speaker 2: That, yeah and another local, Resident george g echoed how
6:58
disturbing the timing Was Easter, sunday a day for.
7:02
Speaker 1: Kids but let me challenge the investigative aspect of. This,
7:04
obviously it's a horrific trauma for the. Family but from
7:07
a purely procedural, standpoint does the sheer shock of when
7:11
this happened to holiday and who founded a child actually
7:14
change the mechanics of the police investigation for minute.
7:17
Speaker 2: One, oh it radically alters the mechanics of the.
7:19
Speaker 1: Response, really how so think about?
7:21
Speaker 2: It if human remains are found by a lone hiker
7:24
in a remote state forest on A. Tuesday law enforcement
7:28
can establish a, wide secure perimeter.
7:31
Speaker 1: Quietly right nobody's.
7:32
Speaker 2: Around they have complete control over the physical scene and
7:35
the flow of. Information but in a packed urban park
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On Easter, sunday, ah you're dealing with hundreds of potential,
7:43
witnesses extreme emotional, volatility and the instantaneous spread of information
7:48
through smartphones.
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Speaker 1: Because everyone with a phone is suddenly an amateur. Reporter.
7:52
Speaker 2: Exactly the police aren't just securing a grid of. Dirt
7:56
they are performing acute crowd control and managing public trauma.
8:00
Speaker 1: Taneously and you have to interview the, family.
8:02
Speaker 2: Right, Yes and that's the hardest. Part you have to
8:04
interview the key witnesses while they are in a state
8:07
of acute psychological. Shock when people are in, shock their
8:11
memory encoding becomes.
8:12
Speaker 1: Fragmented getting an accurate statement about exactly where the child,
8:15
stepped what they, touched and how the bones are oriented
8:18
before the adult, intervened that becomes incredibly difficult because.
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Speaker 2: The witnesses are. Traumatized you're asking someone to recall clinical
8:26
details while their entire understanding of reality has just been.
8:29
Speaker 1: Upended that makes a lot of sense imagine being out.
8:32
There you compartmentalize your life, right the park is, safe
8:36
the dark alleys. Dangerous when the ultimate marker of danger
8:39
breaches the safe, space your brain short.
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Speaker 2: Circuits you're standing there in your comfortable barbecue clothes holding
8:47
an easter, basket and suddenly you're giving a police statement
8:50
about a.
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Speaker 1: Skeleton it's a movie changing genres in a single, second
8:54
from family comedy to dark, thriller which brings us to
8:57
the next massive, question why they're the. Geography, yeah we've
9:02
established the jarring nature of the, discovery but how did
9:04
these urban spaces manage to hide things like?
9:07
Speaker 2: This to understand, that we really have to look at
9:09
the physical borders of the. Park DeForest isn't just an
9:13
isolated green. Square it's a fifty acre ecosystem situated right
9:17
on the border of heavy industrial zones and dense residential.
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Neighborhoods and more, crucially it sits directly alongside The Los
9:26
Angeles river and the seven to Ten.
9:27
Speaker 1: Freeway the seven to ten is an absolute. Behemoth it's
9:31
a massive artery for freight trucks moving cargo from the
9:34
port Of Long beach up into the rest of the,
9:36
country and.
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Speaker 2: The la, river while mostly paved in, concrete is this
9:41
continuous channel cutting through the.
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Speaker 1: City regular users of The, tark people who run those
9:45
trails every single, day were totally blindsided by. This guys
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Like Babriel rivas And Fernando, guzman who treat that park
9:52
as their safe daily, routine suddenly had to reevaluate their.
9:56
Speaker 2: Surroundings but the reality is spaces like DeForests serve as
9:59
much microcosms of Urban. America how do you, Mean, well
10:02
they're designed for, joy, sure but they have these less trafficked,
10:05
edges dense, brush and unlit areas that naturally conceal the
10:10
cities underbelly.
10:11
Speaker 1: Homeless encampment's illicit, activity people who have fallen off the. Grid.
10:15
Speaker 2: Exactly this is the inherent paradox of urban park. Design
10:19
we crave, nature so we plant dense thickets of native
10:22
brush and create natural wetlands to filter runoff and provide bird.
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Speaker 1: Habitats but by engineering that natural, cover we inadvertently manufacture
10:29
spaces of supreme secrecy within a heavily surveilled.
10:33
Speaker 2: City right if you are an unhoused individual seeking shelter
10:37
from the elements and the, police or if someone is
10:41
attempting to conceal illicit. Activity that dense brush is highly.
10:45
Speaker 1: Functional it provides a visual and physical barrier from the
10:48
manicured paths it. Does but here's where it gets really
10:51
interesting for. Me i'm looking at the logistics of, this
10:54
and something isn't. Clicking.
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Speaker 2: Okay we think.
10:57
Speaker 1: Of parks as, manicured attic, spaces but they are actually dynamic. Ecosystems.
11:03
Right the park itself is moving things. Around how does
11:07
an entire human body decompose down to a skeletonized skull
11:10
and jawbone in a public park without a single, jogger dog,
11:15
walker or city landscaper smelling it or seeing it for?
11:19
Speaker 2: Months it seems impossible until you factory in how the
11:21
environment itself acts as an active.
11:23
Speaker 1: Participant, okay walk me through.
11:24
Speaker 2: That you're assuming the individual died precisely where the skull was,
11:27
Found but as you, said urban parks are incredibly. Dynamic
11:30
The Los Angeles, river for, instance is a massive hydrological conveyor.
11:33
Belt during Southern california's, intense albeit brief winter, storms that
11:39
river channels millions of gallons of runoff from the mountains
11:42
through the.
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Speaker 1: City so you're suggesting the remains could have washed in
11:45
from somewhere else.
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Speaker 2: Entirely it's highly probable if a body was situated miles,
11:50
upstream perhaps in a homeless encampment in the, riverbed and
11:54
a flash flood, occurred the water would carry those remains,
11:57
downstream and.
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Speaker 1: As the water level, recedes.
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Speaker 2: Debris sediment and heavy items like bones are deposited into
12:04
the brush and wetlands along the. Banks To Forest park's
12:07
wetlands are a natural catchment area for river.
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Speaker 1: Debris, Wow so the water does the work of concealment and.
12:13
Speaker 2: Transportation, Yes and with climate change causing more eradicate severe,
12:17
flooding we're seeing more historical remains being unearthed this. Way
12:21
that is.
12:21
Speaker 1: Wild the park isn't a static, painting it's a, machine
12:24
and it's not just the, water. Right what about animal?
12:27
Speaker 2: Activity urban wildlife plays a massive. Role Southern california cities
12:31
are teeming with opportunistic, scavengers specifically urban, coyotes, raccoons, rodents.
12:36
Speaker 1: And they interact with the.
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Speaker 2: Remains they absolutely do when an individual passes away in
12:41
an unmanaged. Area coyotes in particular are known to disarticulate.
12:46
Speaker 1: Skeletons, disarticulate basically pull the skeleton.
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Speaker 2: Apart, yes they will carry smaller bones like a skull
12:52
or a mandible away from the primary site to a
12:55
more secluded brushy area to scavenge in. Peace the.
12:59
Speaker 1: Family they noted seeing scattered, bones.
13:02
Speaker 2: That scattering is almost certainly the result of animal activity
13:05
or water, flow not the original positioning of a.
13:08
Speaker 1: Body so the dense brush provides the initial, veil but
13:11
then the natural forces the storm run off the river's conveyor,
13:15
belt the urban, coyotes they're constantly churning the environment.
13:19
Speaker 2: Exactly it's an endless cycle of concealment and revelation dictated
13:23
entirely by the local.
13:24
Speaker 1: Ecology and this environmental churning presents a monumental hurdle for, Investigators,
13:28
oh a massive.
13:29
Speaker 2: Hurdle if the river the coyotes move that, skull there
13:32
is no traditional crime scene.
13:34
Speaker 1: Right there is no blood, spatter no, footprints no weapon
13:37
left beside the. Body you just have a piece of
13:39
bone sitting in the, Dirt.
13:40
Speaker 2: Which means the narrative has to move from the dirt
13:42
path to the.
13:43
Speaker 1: Laboratory if the environment erase the, context the science has
13:47
to rebuild. It we have to answer the ultimate, question
13:49
who is identified Do. No one ninety six, Right let's
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dive deep into this forensic. Journey the recovery was handled
13:57
by The department Of Medical Examiners Special Operations Response team OR.
14:02
SORT i imagine they don't just walk in with a
14:04
shovel and a plastic.
14:05
Speaker 2: Bag absolutely. NOT sort is highly specialized for a. Reason
14:10
when you are dealing with skeletonized, remains you aren't just
14:13
processing a crime. Scene you are conducting a meticulous archaeological excavation.
14:18
Speaker 1: Because the bone can be, fragile.
14:20
Speaker 2: Incredibly fragile if it's been exposed to the. Elements they
14:23
have to measure the spatial relationship of the skull to
14:25
the scattered, fragments map the depth of the, soil and
14:28
look for transient.
14:29
Speaker 1: Data transient data like what like.
14:31
Speaker 2: Pupil casings from, insects which can help establish a. Timeline
14:34
all of this contextual information has to be perfectly documented
14:36
before the skull is ever lifted from the, ground and.
14:39
Speaker 1: The condition of the remains skeletonized is heavily influenced by
14:43
where we. Are in Southern, california prolonged exposure means something
14:47
very different than it does in a damp forest in
14:49
The Pacific.
14:50
Speaker 2: Northwest the climate dictates the decomposition. Timeline in Southern, california
14:55
you have intense dry heat for most of the, year
14:58
combined with highly app active insect populations and the scavengers.
15:02
Speaker 1: We, discussed it speeds everything up.
15:04
Speaker 2: Drastically this environment can reduce a human body to skeletal
15:08
remains in a shockingly short, window sometimes a matter of
15:12
weeks during the peak of summer weeks just. Weeks, yes
15:16
the heat bakes the moisture out of the tissues and
15:18
the local fauna takes care of the. Rest it essentially
15:21
obliterates the soft tissue evidence that a medical examiner would
15:25
typically use to determine the cause of.
15:26
Speaker 1: Death, okay so they carefully execate the skull in the
15:29
mandible and they transport them to The Herzberg Davis Forensic Science.
15:32
Center that's, right and this is where the five step
15:35
anthropological analysis. Begins this process is, fascinating BUT i need
15:39
to understand how it actually. Works step one is measurement or.
15:43
Speaker 2: Anthropometry the anthropologists measure the skull to estimate, age, sex,
15:49
ancestry and.
15:50
Speaker 1: Stature, now early speculation in the park pointed toward a
15:53
child or infant because witnesses described it as a small,
15:57
skull but establishing an age, demographic specifically confirming a subadult
16:02
requires looking past the overall size and examining dental, development suture,
16:06
closure and bone. Density walk me through. That how do
16:09
you look at a dry piece of bone and know
16:12
how old the person?
16:13
Speaker 2: Was it requires reading the microscopic and structural markers of human.
16:17
Growth let's start with suture, closure which is one of
16:19
the most reliable methods for aging a. Skull. Sutureclosure, okay
16:23
the human cranium isn't one solid bowl of. Bone it's
16:26
made up with several different. Plates the frontal, bone the bridal,
16:29
bones the excipital, bone like.
16:30
Speaker 1: The lines you see on a skull in a biology, classroom.
16:33
Speaker 2: Precisely when you are. Born these plates are separated by
16:37
fibrous tissue to allow the brain to grow. Rapidly as you,
16:40
age these plates slowly grow together in interlock like puzzle.
16:44
Pieces the lines where they meet are called. Sutures you
16:47
have the chronal suture running across the top of the,
16:49
head the sagital suture running down the, middle and the
16:52
lambdoid suture at the. Back forensic anthropologists know the precise
16:57
chronological schedule of when these sutures fuse together and eventually
17:02
obliterate or smooth.
17:03
Speaker 1: Out so if a skull has wide open, sutures they.
17:06
Speaker 2: Know they are looking at a child or a young.
17:08
Adolescent if the sutures are completely fused and, invisible they
17:12
are looking at a much older.
17:13
Speaker 1: Adult because overall size is, deceiving, Right an adult female
17:17
skull can be quite, small, exactly.
17:19
Speaker 2: But the fusion of those cranial plates cannot be. Faked that's.
17:22
Speaker 1: Brilliant it's a biological clock built right into the casing
17:26
of the. Brain and you also mentioned bone.
17:28
Speaker 2: Density, yes the internal architecture of the bone changes as we.
17:31
AGE a child's bone is highly vascular and less dense
17:36
because it is actively growing and. Modeling. Okay an older
17:39
adult's bone has a different microscopic, structure often showing signs
17:42
of wear or. Thinning by taking a cross section and
17:45
examining the, osteons the cylindrical structures that make up compact,
17:49
bone under a, microscope they can further refine the age.
17:52
Speaker 1: Estimate, Okay so that's step. One step two is dental.
17:55
Records since they recovered the lower, jawbone the, mandible they
17:59
likely have.
17:59
Speaker 2: Teeth teeth are incredibly durable and highly.
18:02
Speaker 1: INFORMATIVE i know they can compare DENTAL x rays to
18:05
missing persons, databases but how else do teeth help with
18:08
identification if they don't already have a suspect.
18:11
Speaker 2: In mind before you even run a database. Comparison the
18:15
teeth tell you a. Story just like cranial. Sutures teeth
18:19
erupt on a very strict biological.
18:21
Speaker 1: Schedule right losing baby teeth and getting adult.
18:24
Speaker 2: Ones exactly if the third, molars the wisdom teeth haven't erupted,
18:28
yet you can cap the age at late. Adolescents if
18:31
they're looking at a mix of deciduous baby teeth and
18:34
permanent adult, teeth they can narrow the age down to
18:37
a specific two to three year.
18:38
Speaker 1: Window that's incredibly.
18:40
Speaker 2: Specific, furthermore the presence of specific dental, work unique, fillings,
18:43
crowns or even the absence of dental care altogether provides
18:46
vital clues about the individual's socioeconomic status and life, history.
18:50
Speaker 1: Which naturally leads us to step THREE dna. Extraction they
18:54
need to extract nuclear or MITOCHONDRIAL dna for codus. Matching
18:58
BUT i, mean this is the part that always feels
19:00
like magic to. Me on television we just talked about
19:02
how the Southern california heat bakes the remains and destroys soft.
19:06
Tissue it does if THE dna and the tissue is
19:08
destroyed by the sun and the, Elements how On earth
19:12
do they get a genetic profile out of a, dry
19:14
degraded piece of.
19:15
Speaker 2: Skull it is an intensely complex chemical. Process you are
19:19
correct that environmental exposure rapidly breaks down the, long fragile
19:24
chains OF. Dna, sunlight, moisture and bacteria act like microscopic,
19:28
scissors shredding the genetic. Code but bone is a, dense
19:32
calcium rich. Matrix it acts like a biological vult well. Vault,
19:37
yes deep inside the hardest parts of the, bone often
19:39
the petrous portion of the temporal bone in the, skull
19:42
which is the densest bone in the human, body or
19:45
deep inside the root of a. Tooth the cellular material
19:48
is shielded from those environmental.
19:50
Speaker 1: Scissors so how do they get the vault open without
19:53
destroying what's?
19:54
Speaker 2: Inside very, Carefully, first they have to physically clean the
19:57
exterior of the bone fragment with a mild rave or
20:00
bleach solution to remove any MODERN dna.
20:03
Speaker 1: Contamination, oh because they don't want the profile of the
20:06
person who found the skull or the forensic tech handling it.
20:09
Speaker 2: Precisely then they take a small piece of that dense,
20:12
bone freeze it using liquid nitrogen to make it, brittle
20:17
and grind it into a fine.
20:18
Speaker 1: Powder they literally pulverize it into.
20:20
Speaker 2: Dust they have. To that bone dust is then submerged
20:23
in a chemical, bath usually an agent CALLED, edta which
20:27
essentially dissolves the calcium.
20:28
Speaker 1: Structure it decalcifies the bone, powder.
20:30
Speaker 2: Breaking down the hard walls and releasing the preserved osteocytes
20:34
the bone cells trapped. Inside from there they use enzymes
20:38
to break open the cell membranes and extract THE.
20:40
Speaker 1: Dna and if the NUCLEAR, dna the unique profile that
20:43
makes you is two degraded even inside the, vault are
20:47
we just at a dead?
20:48
Speaker 2: End not. Necessarily NUCLEAR dna is a single copy in
20:52
the center of the, cell it's. Tragile but outside the,
20:54
nucleus floating in the cell fluid are, mitochondria.
20:57
Speaker 1: The tower houses of the.
20:58
Speaker 2: Cell, exactly they have their OWN. DNA a single cell
21:02
might have hundreds or thousands of copies of MITOCHONDRIAL dna
21:05
because there is so much more of It MITOCHONDRIAL dna
21:08
survives environmental degradation far longer than NUCLEAR.
21:11
Speaker 1: Dna, okay but is it as?
21:13
Speaker 2: Unique the catch is that MITOCHONDRIAL dna is not entirely
21:17
unique to the. Individual you inherit it strictly from your,
21:20
Mother so you share the exact same MITOCHONDRIAL dna as your,
21:24
mother your, siblings your maternal. Grandmother.
21:26
Speaker 1: OH i.
21:27
Speaker 2: See it can't positively IDENTIFY doo one ninety six as
21:30
a specific, person but it is an incredibly powerful tool
21:34
for ruling out potential matches or confirming that the skull
21:38
belongs to a specific maternal family. Line that is just.
21:41
Speaker 1: Staggering they dissolve the calcium vault to read the surviving blueprints,
21:45
inside but if THE dna doesn't match anyone in the,
21:48
system they move to step. Four isotope. Testing, yes this
21:52
is used to estimate the time since death and potentially
21:55
even where the person. Lived, wait they can tell how
21:57
long someone has been dead just from isotopes and. Skull
22:00
how does a chemical element in a skull tell you
22:02
where someone grew?
22:03
Speaker 2: Up this is one of the most elegant intersections of
22:06
geology and human. Biology it relies on a machine called
22:10
a mass. Spectrometer. Okay isotopes are just variations of chemical
22:14
elements like, oxygen, strontium or carbon that have different atomic.
22:18
Weights let's look at strontium the.
22:20
Speaker 1: Strontium the ratio of.
22:21
Speaker 2: Different strontium isotopes in the soil and bedrock vary significantly
22:25
depending on geographical. Location the bedrock in The Ohio River
22:30
valley has a different strontium signature than the bedrock in Southern.
22:33
Speaker 1: California, Okay but how does the rock get into the skull.
22:37
Speaker 2: Through the food? Web, oh the soil interacts with the,
22:40
groundwater the local, agriculture the, plants and the animals that
22:44
graze on those plants absorb that. Water when you eat
22:48
the local food and drink the local, water you ingest
22:50
that specific strontium isotope RATIO. R and here is the key.
22:54
Mechanism as your body, grows it uses strontium as a
22:58
substitute for calcium when building bone and tooth.
23:00
Speaker 1: Enamel so your teeth are quite literally built out of
23:03
the specific chemical signature of your hometown.
23:06
Speaker 2: Exactly and because tooth enamel forms during childhood and then
23:10
does not remodel or change for the rest of your,
23:12
life the strontium isotopes locked in the specific tooth act
23:17
as a permanent geographical snapshot of where that individual lived
23:21
when that tooth was. Forming that is. Unbelievable if the
23:24
forensic anthropologists analyze the enamel of a wisdom, tooth they
23:28
can determine the geographical region Where. Doughno one ninety six
23:32
spent their teenage. Years by comparing the isotopic signatures of
23:36
different teeth that form at different, ages they can actually
23:39
track the person's migration patterns across the country throughout their.
23:42
Speaker 1: Childhood you're saying they can trace a nameless skull back
23:45
to a specific region of the country just by reading
23:48
the bedrock locked in the. Enamel that is. Profound and
23:51
they also use isotopes to figure out how long the
23:54
person has been, dead, Right.
23:55
Speaker 2: Yes through radiocarbon, dating specifically looking at carbon. Fourteen carbon
23:59
four it's a radioactive isotope that exists in the atmosphere
24:02
and is absorbed by living. Things when an organism, dies
24:06
it stops taking in new, carbon and the carbon fourteen
24:08
inside it begins to decay at a known constant.
24:12
Speaker 1: Rate but doesn't that take thousands of? Years?
24:14
Speaker 2: Usually. Yes, however modern forensic anthropology uses a specific quark
24:19
of history called the bomb.
24:21
Speaker 1: Curve the bomb.
24:22
Speaker 2: Curve during the atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the nineteen
24:25
fifties and, sixties the levels of carbon fourteen in the
24:28
atmosphere spiked. Globally by measuring the exact levels of carbon
24:32
fourteen in the, bone scientists can accurately estimate the year
24:36
of birth and the year of, death effectively placing the
24:39
individual on a precise historical.
24:41
Speaker 1: Timeline, okay so they have the, age the region of,
24:44
origin THE, dna and the. Timeline, Finally step five is trauma. Assessment,
24:49
yes they examine the bone for paramortem, injuries injuries occurring
24:53
at or around the time of. Death since they only
24:55
have dry, bone how do they know if a fracture
24:57
happened when the person was alive or if a coyote
24:59
just on the skull six months.
25:01
Speaker 2: Later it comes down to the biomechanics of living bone
25:04
versus dry. Bone living, bone what we call green, bone
25:07
is rich incollagen and. Moisture it is. Elastic it bent
25:11
exactly when it sustains a blunt force. Trauma it bends
25:15
lightly before it, breaks creating specific predictable fracture patterns that
25:19
often stay connected at the.
25:21
Speaker 1: Edges, okay and dry.
25:22
Speaker 2: Bone dry bone is, Brittle it shatters and splinters and
25:25
straight irregular, lines much like a dry twig. Snapping, furthermore
25:30
the edges of a pair of mortem fracture will be
25:32
the same color as the surrounding bone surface because they
25:35
were exposed to the same soil environmental staining.
25:37
Speaker 1: Simultaneously Ah so a post mortem fracture caused by an
25:42
animal or landscaper months later will expose the, pristine uncolored bone, inside.
25:47
Speaker 2: Creating a stark visual.
25:48
Speaker 1: Contrast, yes and if they still don't have an, identity
25:51
they use the skull and the mandible to perform a facial.
25:53
Speaker 2: Reconstruction they use tissue depth markers based on the demographic
25:57
data they gathered in step one to sculpt the muscles
26:00
and skin over a digital scan of the.
26:02
Speaker 1: Bone creating an image of What dono one ninety six
26:06
might have looked like to release to the. Public the
26:08
science IS i, mean it's absolute.
26:10
Speaker 2: Wizardry if we connect this to the bigger, picture the
26:13
science is, miraculous but it has a profound. Limitation we
26:18
can map the isotopic, migration we can sequence the MITOCHONDRIAL,
26:22
dna we can sculpt the. Face we can create a,
26:25
perfect scientifically flawless biological, profile but science cannot automatically generate an.
26:31
Identity FOR codis to. Yield to, match the INDIVIDUAL'S dna
26:36
or a direct family MEMBER'S dna must already be in
26:39
the criminal or missing person's. Database if the individual belonged
26:43
to a marginalized, group if they were, undocumented if they
26:46
were estranged from their, family or if their disappearance was
26:49
simply never, reported the traditional databases will return zero.
26:53
Speaker 1: Results so the science can tell us exactly what happened
26:55
to the, biology but it requires societal data to tell
26:58
us who it was.
26:59
Speaker 2: Exactly that is the tragic. Bottleneck you can read the
27:01
chemical diary of the, bone but you still don't have a.
27:03
Speaker 1: Name so what does this all? Mean it transitions us
27:06
from the brilliant science of a single skull to the
27:09
crushing reality of a nationwide. Crisis the struggle to identify Do.
27:13
No one hundred and ninety six forces us to confront
27:16
the nameless.
27:17
Speaker 2: Thousands it's a massive. Issue let's look.
27:19
Speaker 1: At the sheer scale of this. Namis The National missing
27:23
And Unidentified Person system is currently tracking over six hundred
27:27
unidentified remains just locally and thousands of missing persons. Nationally
27:32
historical estimates suggests there are hundreds of thousands of unresolved
27:35
cases individuals sitting in medical examiner offices across the.
27:39
Speaker 2: Country it is an epidemic of the. Invisible these are
27:42
individuals who often slip through the cracks of societal safety
27:45
nets while they were, alive and they continue to be
27:48
overlooked in. Death they are the, unhoused the, transient the.
27:51
Speaker 1: Vulnerable it's not just a modern urban phenomenon. Either we
27:55
see this. Continuously between twenty twenty three and twenty twenty
27:58
five In California, loone there were multiple incidents of hikers
28:01
pushing off a trail or dogs digging in a ravine
28:04
and surfacing human. Remains it echoes famous historical cases like
28:08
The boy in The box In, philadelphia a child found
28:11
in nineteen fifty seven whose identity remained an absolute mystery
28:14
for over sixty. Years to, me looking at these nomious,
28:18
databases it's like a massive tragic library where thousands of
28:21
books have had their covers and title pages ripped.
28:24
Speaker 2: Off that's a poignant way to put.
28:25
Speaker 1: It the stories are, inside the substance of life is right,
28:28
there but the traditional cataloging system has completely. Failed how
28:33
do we start reattaching names to these? Stories when the
28:36
police databases hit a dead.
28:38
Speaker 2: End we bypassed the police databases entirely and turned to the.
28:42
Public this is where the landscape of identification is undergoing
28:46
a tectonic shift through the advent of investigative genetic. Genealogy,
28:50
Okay organizations like THE dna Dough project are utilizing CONSUMER
28:55
dna databases platforms like ged match to circumvent the limitations
29:00
of traditional law enforcement.
29:01
Speaker 1: Systems, WAIT i need to push back on this. Heavily
29:03
are we talking about the COMMERCIAL dna kits people buy
29:06
for their relatives during the? Holidays you spit in a
29:09
tube to find out where your ancestors are, from and
29:11
suddenly the police are using your genetic code to identify
29:14
bodies in a.
29:15
Speaker 2: PARK i understand the. Concern isn't that.
29:17
Speaker 1: A massive dystopian privacy? Violation how is that even legally?
29:21
Speaker 2: Permitted that is the exact ethical and legal friction point
29:25
of the, decade and it requires a very clear. Distinction
29:28
law enforcement cannot blindly search, private closed commercial databases like
29:32
ancestry or twenty three a meters without a highly specific,
29:36
warrant and those companies fiercely fight those. Warrants, okay. Good,
29:39
however there are open source, platforms primarily gd, match where
29:44
consumers actively choose to upload their RAW dna files specifically
29:48
define distant. Relatives when you upload your profile to gd,
29:52
match you are presented with an opt in prompt explicitly
29:56
asking if you allow law enforcement to compare unidentified remains
29:59
or buil crime suspect profiles against.
30:02
Speaker 1: YOUR Dna OH i see so it relies entirely on
30:04
the consent of the public to act as.
30:05
Speaker 2: A dragnet entirely based on.
30:07
Speaker 1: Consent IF i opt, in how does my spit tube
30:09
help Identify dough one ninety.
30:11
Speaker 2: Six it's about triangulating, genetics but traditional code system requires
30:15
a nearly exact match apparent or. Sibling genetic genealogy looks
30:19
for the distant echoes distin. Echoes if the forensic team
30:21
extracts A dna profile From dough one ninety, six they
30:25
upload it to the opt in pool on ged. Match
30:28
they aren't looking for a direct. Match they're looking for
30:30
shared segments OF dna called centi. Morgans they might find
30:33
a third cousin twice, removed who lives In.
30:35
Speaker 1: OHIO a third, cousin someone who might not even know
30:38
dough one ninety six ever existed.
30:40
Speaker 2: Exactly the genetic genealogist then steps. In they use that
30:43
third cousin as an anchor. Point they utilized traditional archival,
30:47
research census, records birth, certificates marriage, licenses obituaries to meticulously
30:53
build a massive family tree backward.
30:55
Speaker 1: In, time finding the common great great grandparent shared by
30:59
the cousin and the un identify. Profile.
31:01
Speaker 2: Yes then they build a tree forward tracing every single
31:04
branch of that family line to the present, day looking
31:07
for an individual who is unaccounted, for who stopped paying,
31:10
taxes who vanished from the, senses who isn't mentioned in
31:13
the family.
31:13
Speaker 1: Obituaries it's reverse engineering a family tree to find the missing.
31:17
Speaker 2: Leaf that is a perfect way to describe. It it
31:19
is incredibly, painstaking labor intensive, work but it is profoundly.
31:23
Effective it is exactly how the boy in the box
31:26
In philadelphia was finally given his, Name Joseph Augustus sorelli
31:31
in twenty twenty, two sixty five years after his body was. Found.
31:34
Speaker 1: Wow sixty five.
31:36
Speaker 2: Years the science OF dna extraction from the, bone combined
31:40
with the crowdsource power of, genealogy provides an unprecedented beacon of.
31:44
Hope it allows us to bypass the systemic failings that
31:47
leave people undocumented and use the inherent biological interconnectedness of
31:52
humanity to restore their.
31:53
Speaker 1: Identities it's taking the most advanced laboratory chemistry and marrying
31:57
it to the oldest human, tradition knowing your family. Tree it's,
32:00
astonishing it really. Is but while the genealogists and anthropologists
32:04
are doing this, quiet meticulous work in the, lab we
32:07
have to bring the reality back to the dirt In Long.
32:09
Beach finding a skull in a public park doesn't just
32:12
trigger a scientific. Process it triggers immense community, trauma and
32:17
the neighborhood surrounding To Forest park had to grapple with
32:19
the immediate.
32:20
Speaker 2: Fallout the psychological ripple effects of a discovery like this
32:24
are instantaneous and highly disruptive to the social fabric of a.
32:28
COMMUNITY a park is a shared civic. Asset when that
32:32
asset is, violated the community feels.
32:35
Speaker 1: Violated we saw the immediate local. Impact, unsurprisingly foot traffic
32:39
and park usage dipped sharply in the days following the.
32:42
Discovery parents were horrified by the concept of children witnessing
32:46
something so. Grim, naturally residents who used the trails daily
32:51
started avoiding them, altogether but the physical avoidance was nothing
32:55
compared to the digital. Fallout social media immediately amplified the,
32:59
story but it didn't amplify. Facts it amplified.
33:02
Speaker 2: Panic, yes the rumor mil.
33:03
Speaker 1: Rumors ran, wild instantly linking the skull to missing children
33:07
cases or complex human trafficking, rings despite the fact that
33:10
the authorities had established absolutely no links of the. Sort
33:13
people were posting theories On, facebook trying to connect dots
33:15
that didn't. EXIST i look at this AND i get,
33:18
Frustrated but at the same, TIME i understand. It when
33:20
you feel, threatened your brain demands an.
33:22
Speaker 2: Explanation you are observing a fundamental survival mechanism malfunctioning in
33:27
the digital. Age pattern recognition is how human beings. Survive
33:32
when a community feels an acute, threat the collective anxiety
33:35
desperately seeks a narrative to make sense.
33:37
Speaker 1: Of the, fear and a skull with no identity is
33:40
a terrifying void of.
33:41
Speaker 2: Information social media provides an, instantaneous unfiltered platform to fill that.
33:46
Void the danger is that social media algorithms are designed
33:50
to prioritize, engagement and nothing drives engagement like terror and.
33:54
SENSATIONALISM a, legitimate localized concern rapidly morphs into a, viral baseless.
34:00
Speaker 1: Panic so how do we function in that. Environment it's
34:03
human nature to want to connect the, dots which is
34:05
why social media immediately jumps to missing children. Cases but
34:09
as consumers of, information how do we balance vigilance with
34:12
not giving in to baseless.
34:13
Speaker 2: Panic this raises an important question and requires immense cognitive.
34:17
Discipline balancing vigilance and panic means consciously adopting a critical
34:21
approach to information. Processing waiting for the. Facts it means
34:24
waiting for verified updates from the medical examiner or The
34:27
Long Beach Police, department rather than accepting a Neighbor's facebook
34:31
theory as empirical. Truth panic demands immediate dramatic. Answers vigilance requires,
34:38
patience a reliance on verifiable, data and the understanding that
34:42
the meticulous forensic process we just discussed takes.
34:46
Speaker 1: Time while the community wrestles with that, anxiety the municipal
34:49
government is forced to respond physically and. Administratively Long beach
34:54
is a city with a deep history of. Resilience it
34:57
grew massively POST. Wwii it manages one of the largest
35:01
port economies in the, world and it has a, vibrant
35:04
complex cultural.
35:05
Speaker 2: Makeup that's a major.
35:06
Speaker 1: Hub it is accustomed to handling modern urban. Friction in
35:10
response to this, event local officials immediately emphasized increased police
35:14
patrols into forest park and targeted brush. Clearing they went
35:18
right after the physical.
35:19
Speaker 2: Environment what is a classic application to cpatweeted crime prevention
35:22
through environmental. Design by clearing the dense, brush they are
35:26
systematically removing the veil of secrecy we discussed. Earlier they
35:29
are trying to engineer the danger out of the landscape
35:32
by increasing sightlines and removing the physical spaces where illicit
35:36
activity or concealment can. Occur it is an, immediate visible
35:40
action designed to restore the community's feeling of, security.
35:43
Speaker 1: But the reality is trimming bushes doesn't solve the systemic.
35:46
Issue the policies needed go much. Deeper experts point out
35:51
the necessity of, regular proactive park, sweeps particularly in remote
35:55
wetlands and specifically after heavy winter rains when the river
35:59
hydrology might expose new.
36:01
Speaker 2: Remains the policy demands must extend beyond the physical. Park
36:05
we need robust missing persons Advocacy that means allocating significant
36:09
municipal and state funding for the RAPID dna extraction in
36:12
genealogical testing.
36:14
Speaker 1: We detailed because it's not.
36:15
Speaker 2: Cheap these scientific processes are, miracles but they are expensive
36:18
and time. Consuming we also need to leverage technology for public,
36:22
awareness integrating safety alerts and community reporting tools for green
36:25
spaces directly into civic, Apps.
36:28
Speaker 1: And perhaps most, crucially we cannot ignore the immediate mental health.
36:31
Requirements the family who made the, discovery specifically the child
36:36
Whose Easter sunday was, shattered requires, acute accessible mental health.
36:41
Speaker 2: Resources absolutely every statistic is a lost, life and finding
36:45
one is a.
36:46
Speaker 1: Trauma the community at large needs support to process the
36:49
violation of their shared space because there is an economic
36:52
reality here. Too parks boost property, values they drive local,
36:56
tourism and they improve the baseline quality of. Life in
37:00
scidents like this erode public, trust the civic amenities, wither.
37:04
Speaker 2: Which is why the ultimate goal of the city and
37:06
the residents cannot simply be to clean up the, brush
37:08
forget the, incident and move. On these tragedies must act as.
37:12
Catalysts they force the city to brutally reevaluate its safety
37:16
protocols and its systemic commitment to its most vulnerable, populations
37:20
the people who vanish into the brush in.
37:21
Speaker 1: The first, place so they have to reclaim the.
37:23
Speaker 2: Park the community must reclaim their, park not by pretending
37:26
the horror didn't, occur but by actively occupying the space,
37:30
again honoring the unknown individual through remembrance and refusing to
37:34
abandon their communal ground to fear.
37:36
Speaker 1: Honoring the unknown by reclaiming the light that is a powerful.
37:39
Mandate we have covered an immense expanse of territory in
37:43
this deep. Dive we started with the jarring dissonance of
37:46
An easter egg hunt disrupted by a skull into forest.
37:49
Speaker 2: Park a huge.
37:50
Speaker 1: Contrast we explored the, dynamic almost living ecology of urban,
37:54
parks where rivers and coyotes hide and reveal our darkest.
37:57
Secrets we walked through the, astonishing the microscopic world of
38:01
the forensic, laboratory dissolving bone to READ dna and measuring
38:05
bedrock isotopes and tooth.
38:06
Speaker 2: Enamel the science is, incredible.
38:08
Speaker 1: And we zoomed all the way out to confront the
38:10
silent epidemic of The nameless, thousands finding a beacon of
38:13
Hope in the painstaking work of genetic. Genealogy we've seen
38:17
how a single discovery ripples, outward fundamentally altering city, policy
38:22
exposing community, trauma and challenging our understanding of the spaces we.
38:26
Speaker 2: Share it is a, vast deeply complex web of, biology,
38:30
geography and. Sociology but as we synthesize all of, THIS
38:34
i think it is vital to bring our focus back
38:36
to a place of. Stillness after the yellow police tape
38:39
is taken, down after the social media panic inevitably burns itself,
38:43
out and while the scientists quietly continue their meticulous work
38:46
in the, laboratory we must remember the individual at the
38:49
center of the, storm unidentified dough one ninety, six is
38:53
currently resting in forensic. Care they are a silent testament
38:57
amid the noise of the Southern california, sprawl patiently waiting
39:01
for the science and the society to catch, up waiting
39:04
for their story to finally be.
39:05
Speaker 1: Told as you walk through your own local, parks enjoying
39:08
the manicured trails and the weekend, sunshine consider the layers of,
39:11
history both natural and human resting just inches beneath your,
39:15
feet if the earth suddenly yielded its secrets, today what
39:18
forgotten stories would your community be forced to? Confront and
39:22
are we truly prepared to listen to what the silenced
39:24
voices have to say