By elaine van develde
Staff Writer
MIDDLETOWN — When two township employees took a walk in the woods March 26 to find deer antlers last week, they found what may be some answers to a 16-year-old missing person mystery.
The two Clean Communities Program employees were walking "through briar in Hartshorne Woods looking for deer antlers that typically are shed this time of the year. They were following the deer tracks when they stumbled on parts of a human skeleton," Detective Sgt. Joseph Capriotti said. "It had been scavenged by the animals in the woods."
There was a skull, some skeletal bones and clothing still on what may have been the body of a 79-year-old township man who has been missing since 1987 and was never found, Capriotti said.
The clothing remnants found on the body matched the description of what the missing elderly man was wearing when he disappeared.
The clothes included brown corduroy pants, brown shoes, a yellowish sweater and parts of a brown jacket. There was also a silver ring with what appeared to be an eagle on it, Capriotti said. However, the family members of the missing man could not positively identify the ring as his.
The two who found the bones and clothing "got in their truck and came to the detective bureau to report what they had discovered," Capriotti said.
With three missing persons cases open in Middletown, police attempted to match files with what was found to see if there was a possible link, he said.
One of the open cases traced back to the 1960s. It involved a teenage boy who had had a quarrel with his father and left home.
Another open case, Capriotti said, involved a young woman in the 1980s.
Factors in the profile of the third open case matched what was found in the woods.
However, Capriotti was careful to say that no definitive conclusions have yet been drawn.
The case involved a man who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and wandered away from home in the winter of 1987.
Along with the fact that the clothing near and on the bones matched what the man was wearing in 1987, it appears that the person whose bones were found in Hartshorne died of natural causes in the woods, Capriotti said.
"There no appearance or indication of foul play so far from what we saw, and the clothing matched the clothing this man was last seen wearing according to our files," Capriotti said.
The family still lives in the area and was notified of the skeletal find.
Measures to "positively identify the person are being taken. But that will be difficult considering the lack of evidence left behind," Capriotti said.
While there is no positive ID yet, police are hoping to close the case, which has remained open for more than 15 years, to give the family some closure as well. The family thinks it may have been their loved one, he said.
The Major Crimes Unit of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office was called in to investigate, Capriotti said, "because of the possibility of foul play that exists when a body or its remnants are found. It’s just standard procedure."
While the information left behind in the Hartshorne Woods was too scant to wrap up the case quickly, Capriotti said, "we looked through the area [where the bones were found] again to see if we could find any more conclusive identifying objects or factors, but there was nothing else."
A forensic anthropologist will be brought in this week and a medical examiner will also review the information and materials found.
"A DNA test is, of course, an option," Capriotti said. "I just hope we can find out what happened in this case and who it definitely was one way or another for this family’s sake. Then they’ll at least know after all this time.
"If this is the same person, when the incident happened, the family circulated flyers and searched hospitals all the way to New York to find him. There were news stories, too. He was never found. I hope this will give them answers."