(PENSACOLA Fla. ) May 20 - By far the most difficult cold cases to solve are the one's with nameless faces. A body with no I.D. Earlier this year the FBI launched what's called "The President's DNA Initiative" to get family members to submit DNA in hopes that many of these cases could be solved. Our area is no stranger to these type of crimes.
Charlie Bockwith of Pensacola combs through a photo album. For Bockwith, it's no ordinary album. "It just has all the chronological history, all the newspaper articles and clippings." Clippings and pictures of his sister Barbara, who's been missing since 1979.
Recently Charlie submitted his DNA to the FBI's mitochondrial data base in hopes someday there will be a match, a match that could coincide with DNA from dozens of unidentified bodies. Some have been found along Interstate 10.
Special agent Kenny Pinkard with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement says I -10 and many other interstates have become a dumping ground for murder victims.
Pinkard is investigating one case in particular, a case that is featured in the FDLE deck of cards given to inmates in hopes they will talk about the case, if they have any information about it.
Pinkard's case dates back to 1994 when a Jane Doe left only her jewelry and her skull behind. Her remains were found at the Holt exit off I-10 east of Pensacola. "There's a family out there somewhere wondering, you know, where their daughter, their wife or their sister is," the FDLE investigator says.
In another investigation, Baldwin County Sheriff Huey Hoss Mack has only tattoos and a drawing to go by. He calls this victim, also found off 1-10, "The Seminole Doe." Sheriff Mack says:"This person may be transient in nature, but obviously something brought him to this area of Alabama and Florida because it was on the state line."
Mack says this victim left little to go by. "This individual was so decomposed were only able to get partial prints,not full prints." Sheriff Mck is also hoping that someone will come forward and help solve this crime that dates back to 2000. So what we have here is probably an individual that was not reported missing initially or that someone may think is still alive and living somewhere else and they're not."
Charlie Bockwith knows the feeling well. For years he and his parents hoped his sister was still alive. But time has changed things, Bockwith says. "Both my parents have since deceased and if there was ever anything to trigger her coming back, it would have been one of those events, so I do not believe she's alive." But he knows she could be one of those many nameless victims somewhere out there.
If you would like to learn more about the President's DNA Initiative, click on the following weblink:
http://www.dna.gov .
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