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02-06-2009, 11:19 AM
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090206/NEWS0107/902060350
Mom's DNA ID's boy's bones
http://cmsimg.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=AB&Date=20090206&Category=NEWS0107&ArtNo=902060350&Ref=AR&MaxW=308&Border=0
Cincinnati woman linked to 1974 murder victim
February 6, 2009
After nearly 35 years, "Boy X" has a name, age, and hometown: James Dean Johnson, 13, from Cincinnati.
And now the search for the killer in one of the nation's longest-unidentified children cases can begin anew.
Jimmy's body was found in Dayton in 1974. He had been bound and strangled.
A DNA sample was taken last October from his mother, who lives in a Cincinnati nursing home and struggles with dementia. The sample was sent to a North Carolina lab, which last week verified that "Boy X" is the woman's son.
Now Jimmy's relatives, who have requested privacy, plan to put his proper name on a gravestone, says Harry Brown, chief investigator for the Montgomery County Coroner's Office in Dayton.
Jimmy was the longest-unidentified person in that coroner's case files. The case also ranks among the oldest of its kind in the nation. The bodies of just seven missing children have remained unknown for more than three decades before being identified through DNA tests or dental records, says the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. About 300 others in newer cases have been identified in the past decade.
What Jimmy's relatives still don't know: Who would be callous enough to tie up and strangle a child, then dump his nude body along some railroad tracks for a passerby to find?
The case has been turned over to Dayton's cold-case squad.
Marks left on his wrists and ankles showed he had been bound, but the restraints were gone. His only distinguishing mark: a homemade tattoo of a cross with three teardrops on his right arm.
Jimmy had been dead only about three hours when his body was discovered on May 20, 1974.
Since then, hundreds of families have called about Boy X, says Ken Betz, director of the Dayton coroner's office and the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory.
"It's sad when you get that many phone calls from people who are desperately seeking their missing children," he said.
At least five families viewed Boy X's preserved remains before he was buried Oct. 2, 1974, in Butler Township, outside Dayton, surrounded by strangers.
His rectangular gray granite gravestone reads: "On Behalf of Those Who Cared," Boy X, Died May 20, 1974. The only other inscription is his autopsy number: AC-315-74.
Authorities now know that, before the burial, one of Jimmy's relatives came to see the body but didn't recognize him. The relative had brought a photo taken when Jimmy was 9 or 10 - at least three years before he died. So his appearance may have changed as he got older - or had been altered by his injuries.
In 1980, investigators from the Montgomery County Coroner's Office traveled to Texas to meet with people who identified Boy X as theirs but later changed their minds.
Little happened in the case until last August.
"I got an e-mail from a lady in Alabama that thought it might be her brother," Brown said. She told investigators that she and her brother were in the custody of Hamilton County Children Services when he ran away in late 1973.
"We don't have anyone here that remembers this case at all," said Brian Gregg, children services spokesman.
Jimmy was sick of foster homes and institutions, Brown said.
The boy had been on the streets for about five months before his body was found, Brown said. No one knows where he went or what he did during that time.
The Alabama sister, Rose Johnson, has asked reporters not to contact her, Brown said. She provided another photo of Jimmy that closely resembled ones already in investigators' files.
Based on that, investigators obtained a DNA sample from Johnson's mother and exhumed Boy X's skeletal remains. Bone marrow yielded usable DNA despite the passage of time.
"We were lucky this time," Brown said.
Often, old DNA degrades too much to leave a usable sample. But in this case, the results from North Carolina concluded: "The probability of maternity is 99.95 percent."
Brown and others were thrilled. Brown has worked the case on and off since joining the coroner's office in 1988.
Mom's DNA ID's boy's bones
http://cmsimg.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=AB&Date=20090206&Category=NEWS0107&ArtNo=902060350&Ref=AR&MaxW=308&Border=0
Cincinnati woman linked to 1974 murder victim
February 6, 2009
After nearly 35 years, "Boy X" has a name, age, and hometown: James Dean Johnson, 13, from Cincinnati.
And now the search for the killer in one of the nation's longest-unidentified children cases can begin anew.
Jimmy's body was found in Dayton in 1974. He had been bound and strangled.
A DNA sample was taken last October from his mother, who lives in a Cincinnati nursing home and struggles with dementia. The sample was sent to a North Carolina lab, which last week verified that "Boy X" is the woman's son.
Now Jimmy's relatives, who have requested privacy, plan to put his proper name on a gravestone, says Harry Brown, chief investigator for the Montgomery County Coroner's Office in Dayton.
Jimmy was the longest-unidentified person in that coroner's case files. The case also ranks among the oldest of its kind in the nation. The bodies of just seven missing children have remained unknown for more than three decades before being identified through DNA tests or dental records, says the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. About 300 others in newer cases have been identified in the past decade.
What Jimmy's relatives still don't know: Who would be callous enough to tie up and strangle a child, then dump his nude body along some railroad tracks for a passerby to find?
The case has been turned over to Dayton's cold-case squad.
Marks left on his wrists and ankles showed he had been bound, but the restraints were gone. His only distinguishing mark: a homemade tattoo of a cross with three teardrops on his right arm.
Jimmy had been dead only about three hours when his body was discovered on May 20, 1974.
Since then, hundreds of families have called about Boy X, says Ken Betz, director of the Dayton coroner's office and the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory.
"It's sad when you get that many phone calls from people who are desperately seeking their missing children," he said.
At least five families viewed Boy X's preserved remains before he was buried Oct. 2, 1974, in Butler Township, outside Dayton, surrounded by strangers.
His rectangular gray granite gravestone reads: "On Behalf of Those Who Cared," Boy X, Died May 20, 1974. The only other inscription is his autopsy number: AC-315-74.
Authorities now know that, before the burial, one of Jimmy's relatives came to see the body but didn't recognize him. The relative had brought a photo taken when Jimmy was 9 or 10 - at least three years before he died. So his appearance may have changed as he got older - or had been altered by his injuries.
In 1980, investigators from the Montgomery County Coroner's Office traveled to Texas to meet with people who identified Boy X as theirs but later changed their minds.
Little happened in the case until last August.
"I got an e-mail from a lady in Alabama that thought it might be her brother," Brown said. She told investigators that she and her brother were in the custody of Hamilton County Children Services when he ran away in late 1973.
"We don't have anyone here that remembers this case at all," said Brian Gregg, children services spokesman.
Jimmy was sick of foster homes and institutions, Brown said.
The boy had been on the streets for about five months before his body was found, Brown said. No one knows where he went or what he did during that time.
The Alabama sister, Rose Johnson, has asked reporters not to contact her, Brown said. She provided another photo of Jimmy that closely resembled ones already in investigators' files.
Based on that, investigators obtained a DNA sample from Johnson's mother and exhumed Boy X's skeletal remains. Bone marrow yielded usable DNA despite the passage of time.
"We were lucky this time," Brown said.
Often, old DNA degrades too much to leave a usable sample. But in this case, the results from North Carolina concluded: "The probability of maternity is 99.95 percent."
Brown and others were thrilled. Brown has worked the case on and off since joining the coroner's office in 1988.