No stone unturned: Queensland detectives go global to identify man with no name
QUEENSLAND detectives will apply to the State Coroner to use genealogy websites to help identify a man whose body was found weighted down in a Sunshine Coast riverway as they cast their investigative net worldwide.
WARNING: This story contains content that readers may find distressing.
The strategy could potentially identify his family comparing his DNA profile compared to other profiles uploaded to the websites which pool results from various genealogy DNA tests.
Members of the public discovered the man in the Maroochy River under the Talep Bridge at Maroochydore, north of Brisbane on November 30 last year.
A post-mortem revealed the man died from drowning and had a relatively high blood-alcohol content.
He had dumbbells tied to his body. Investigators and experts found the knots were self-tied and no other person was involved.
His death has been deemed non-suspicious.
The man’s identity and reasons why he chose the Maroochy River to end his life have eluded Maroochydore CIB detectives despite their investigation leaving no stone unturned.
There is no obvious roadmap for investigators. The man had no identification, phone, car, electronic or social media footprints, credit cards, or specific body markings like tattoos. There is no passport or trail as to how he arrived or spent his time on the Sunshine Coast apart from CCTV camera footage of him at a local Bunnings.
Lead investigator Detective Senior Sergeant Craig Mansfield said police are using the structures of homicide and missing person investigations to ensure nothing is missed.
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Investigators are also liaising with State Coroner’s office.
He said the complex investigation has saturated government and law enforcement databases locally, interstate, and nationally for clues but nothing has eventuated.
“We will soon have his DNA profile… and his fingerprints have already gone to New Zealand, the UK and Ireland. Now we have extended that to Canada, the US and Germany.
“They say you are better off to concentrate on where countries where you think he may have come from and expand from there…’’ he said.
InQueensland can also reveal the detectives, with the assistance of Australian Federal Police, sent the man’s fingerprints to international law enforcement agency Interpol to be listed as a Black Notice.
Interpol issues Black Notices for unidentified human remains and any details about the individuals are shared among law enforcement agencies worldwide.
Detective Senior Sergeant Mansfield said police will apply to the State Coroner for investigators to use genealogy websites in the hope they can track down the man’s family members and birth country.
“Whilst it will be another line of inquiry, we’re not hedging our bets that it will be a successful as its reliant on so many factors and whether his family is engaging in (website genealogy),’’ he said.
His image has been run through facial recognition technology used to issue drivers’ licences by transport department databases across Australia, he said.
Searches are also underway for dental records that may match work done on the man’s teeth.
Checks have also been made with Australian defence forces.
Investigators have conducted hours of doorknocking in the Maroochydore area.
They have also interviewed and shown his photo to the local homeless community and support agencies in case the man was itinerant.
Licensed premises, liquor outlets, gymnasiums, and missing persons reports have been also checked, Detective Senior Sergeant Mansfield said.
While these types of cases are not common, Detective Senior Sergeant Mansfield said it is very important to diligently pursue the investigations for the sake of the person and their families.
He said police had received a lot of information from the public but needed more help to identify the man.
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“Another challenging point is he has no tattoos , no piercings.
“He is a large man, 189cm tall, weighs about 100 to 110 kilos and we think he is aged between 40 and 50 years old, ’’ Detective Senior Sergeant Mansfield said.
Detective Senior Sergeant Mansfield said thousands of hours of footage from Maroochydore city street and traffic cameras has been viewed in a bid to trace the man’s movements.
Police believe the man has brown eyes after viewing CCTV footage of the man at the Maroochydore Bunnings on November 27 – three days before he was found.
The footage was found after local residents handed the man’s backpack into police. The backpack was stamped with a travel company logo and found near a partially renovated house.
Checks are being made with the travel company, local cruise ships and tourist-related agencies, Detective Senior Sergeant Mansfield said.
Detectives believe the man died in the hours following his trip to Bunnings as he was wearing the same clothes when his body was discovered.
Inside the backpack, police found a cash receipt showing the man had purchased the straps found on his body.
The Bunnings footage also showed he made the purchase with coins he pulled from his backpack and did not appear to have a wallet.
“Some of the footage shows he is almost completely wet in Bunnings. It was a hot day, an extremely hot day…He’s on foot and he does have those knee braces so he may have struggled walking.
“One theory is he may have attempted to drown himself and failed at that and then gone to get the straps to weigh himself down in the water.
“In lieu of any actual hard evidence, your lines of inquiries explode exponentially with theorising how this all came about,’’ Detective Senior Sergeant Mansfield said.
Investigators also consulted national and international experts to inspect the knots used to tie the straps to the dumbbells, he said.
“A series of investigations have been done to show those knots were self-tied and nobody else was involved,’’ he said.
The man also had knee surgery using a German-manufactured surgical pin but it had no serial number, Detective Senior Sergeant Mansfield said
“We’ve talked to orthopaedic surgeons and found they import those pins. So the pin could have been put in his leg in any country in the world, including ours…so we can’t trace that to any specific person.
“There are so many gaps in identifying people in the world…it’s still a challenge…but we are staying on course,’’ he said.
If no one claims the man, he will be a John Doe and eventually cremated, he said.
“From past experience, this can take a few years. It also allows time for all investigative avenues to be finalised,” Detective Senior Sergeant Mansfield said.
Anyone with information contact CrimeStoppers on 1800 333 000.
If you or anyone you know needs help: Lifeline on 131144 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636
