COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Thursday, January 5, 2006 10:20 a.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILMAN JUAN RAMOS COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL RESOLUTION 051162 - Resolution authorizing the Committee on Public Health and Human Services to conduct hearings to investigate the policies and procedures of the City's Medical Examiner's Office with regards to identifying missing persons. - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2
Good morning, everyone. The public hearing for the Committee on Public Safety -- I'm sorry. I chair Public Safety. The Committee on Public Health and Human Services is about to begin. I am the Vice-Chair of that Committee, Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, and also in attendance is Councilman Juan Ramos, who is also a member of the Committee. This hearing is actually a follow-up to the missing persons issue in Philadelphia, and so we're very pleased to have everyone here. We don't need a quorum because we will not be voting anything out. We can now have the Clerk read the title of the resolution.
Resolution 051162, resolution authorizing the Committee on Public Health and Human Services to conduct hearings to investigate the policies and procedures of the City's Medical Examiner's Office with regards to 3 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 identifying missing persons.
Thank you. Before we begin, Councilman Juan Ramos has opening remarks.
Good morning. Thank you, Madam Chair. This hearing today is a follow-up to what started off as a search for the deceased La'Toyia Figueroa in July where a young lady disappeared in Southwest Philadelphia and her family and friends and neighbors all got together to search for her, and on August the 20th, she was found in the City of Chester killed. It brought closure to the family, closure as well because someone was apprehended and arrested and charged with two counts of murder. La'Toyia was carrying a six-month child in her womb. In the process in the search for La'Toyia Figueroa, some people in the community and myself came across people 4 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 that were searching for their loved ones as well, and I became very much interested in this issue of missing people and families who were agonizing because they had no idea of the whereabouts of the disappearance of their particular loved one. As a result of just my heartfelt interest in the stories that I was told by families in different parts of the City, my Council team and I and other Councilmembers, Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller and Jannie Blackwell and others, joined me in helping put together a Missing Persons Conference in West Philadelphia. I thought that I needed to do something for those people that had approached me about their missing loved ones. And at that conference, 18 families who had missing loved ones attended the conference in West Philadelphia High. I felt particularly very proud of the 18 families, because we 5 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 were in the middle of a SEPTA strike and it was very difficult for people to get out in that early November week and November 5th. And we also had families who had experienced, such as the Figueroa family and others, who had experienced a person missing, and the cases that came before us, the end was very, very tragic. They had found them deceased. We also were able to get the media to participate in the conference, and at this time, I want to take this opportunity to thank the media for their support, and also last, but not least, the Police Department. The Police Department participated fully, from the Commissioner to Deputy Fox, Chief Inspector Fox, and others that came there, and those families that were there were able to speak to the police about their particular case, which is what we wanted the conference to accomplish, to provide help to people who had missing 6 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 loved ones at that conference. As a consequence of that conference, the following Sunday, there was a newspaper report, the Sunday paper report, on the conference, and there the reporter described the situation of missing people as described by families at the Missing Persons Conference and one of the families that was there was the Johnson/Jefferson family and relatives of Unisha Jefferson. And the reporter wrote about that case and other cases, and as a result of that, someone at the Medical Examiner's Office got some interest in the description and the time of the disappearance of Unisha Jefferson and looked in the morgue and, in fact, it turned out that Unisha Jefferson was, in fact, in the morgue. She had been there for over two years. It was closure for the family. It was, I felt, a bit of relief, but then it brought up why did it take two years to find Niecey Jefferson. 7 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 So this morning we're going to start the hearings, if Madam Chair permits me to call -- if the Clerk would call to the stand the relatives of Unisha Jefferson. How about if the first panel will be the family of Unisha Jefferson, Katrina Johnson and Evelyn Bookhart.
Please come up to the witness table here. And if there's anyone else from the family that wants to -- here's the table right here. Now, what you'll have to do is just have a seat in any one of those chairs, and pull up another chair if you need to, identify yourself for the record before you speak and then proceed with your testimony. Pull the mike closer to you, and you can then begin to proceed. Just state your name.
My name is Louise Bookhart. I'm the mother of Unisha Jefferson. 8 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162
Good morning. Thank you for coming. Does anyone have testimony or is there anything you'd like to say?
I'm her sister. I'm glad that we found her, that we have closure, but we're very upset that we suffered for two years searching for my sister. We never got any help in looking for my sister until we went to the conference and the article 21 came up in the newspaper and someone read it. And I always called the Medical Examiner's Office. I think his name was Michael Hall. He told me when he met me, he said, I feel like I know you. I talk 9 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 to you so much. But he was the same person that took my sister out of that building. So why couldn't he put it together two blocks away where he found this body, but I always called and talked to him about my sister that was missing? I'm very angry about that. We never got any media attention, putting my sister's face out there. She went missing April the 14th. They didn't put an article in the paper until December the 10th of 2003 in the Metro Paper. It never went in the Daily News, the Inquirer. I had to lie and say my sister was suicidal before they would even take a police report. It was just very hard for my family.
That's really unfortunate that you and other families in Philadelphia would have to endure pain for so long. I think one of the purposes, and Councilman Ramos would state this for himself, but one of the 10 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 purposes of having these hearings and now that there is a lot of attention to this problem is that at the end of the day, we want to see what we can do to help fix it so people won't have to go through this.
I think when families are missing their loved ones and they're in close contact and they know their loved ones, when they go to the police and say something is wrong, the police just says, Well, this person is over 21, maybe they left on their own. You know, we know our family. We talk so much, and we know that they didn't just walk off and just leave, but the police, they just dismiss your case, you know. You have to lie and say that your family is suicidal just to take a police report. Unfortunately, my sister was found two blocks from where she went missing. Nobody looked for her.
I think when the body was found, why they didn't -- 11 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162
Sherri Jackson. When they found the body in this building, they never once put it on the news that they found a body. That should have been aired, too.
Well, we do have someone from the Police Department here today to testify, and hopefully they'll address some of these issues. Now, the media is a whole different story. We have plenty of press here, if anybody from the press maybe wants to explain. Maybe no one told them. I have no idea. But we're happy you're here today. And, Councilman, this is one of the reasons why I believe you wanted to have these hearings, because of these kind of issues.
12 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 Mrs. Bookhart, would you tell us about the disappearance of Niecey, when did it occur, when did you first report Niecey missing? And I'm using her nickname because when I was told about her, everyone called her Niecey. So please forgive me if I continue to call her by her family's nickname of her. Can you describe what happened and when did you first report it? Tell us the story.
We talked to Niecey every day, two, three, four times a day. So on the 14th of -- I believe the 14th of April, she said she had to go to the doctor, she had a doctor appointment. So the 15th, we didn't hear anything from her. So we called Niecey's dad, and he said that Niecey didn't come home that night. So the next day, me and Katrina talked. We went to the police station, because we knew that wasn't Niecey just to disappear like that. And she's a 13 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 great talker and didn't even call anybody. So we went to the police station, I think --
-- Tuesday. Because I live in the 14th district. They said she had to be reported from the district she was missing from, and that was the 35th district. So we went down to the 35th -- no; the 39th district.
39th district, Huntingdon Park, and they told us that Niecey was an adult, so she could go and come as she pleased. But we knew that wasn't true.
No. No. 25 When we went, they never took a report. 14 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 It took two weeks before -- I had to keep constantly going back.
And two weeks later, they took a report when I lied and said that my sister was suicidal. I spoke to a policewoman. She was the only one that would take a report. And then she called me back the next day and asked me could I give her the police report back because she wasn't supposed to take it, and I told her no, I wouldn't give it back.
Would the members of the Police Department that are here today -- I know my friend, Inspector Fox, is here, if you please can take note and answer some of these questions when you come up to testify, please. And then what happened after two weeks went by? Did you call anyone else? Did you call the police again? Did you go back to the police? 15 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162
The detectives called me, and I went ahead and met at Broad and Champlost at the police station, and I spoke to them and they took -- they wrote down some things, and they said, Well, we'll look into it. Nobody never really went out and questioned anybody. The last person that saw my sister, he said he dropped her off at 22nd and Lehigh. They never went out to talk to him. They interviewed him over the phone. He said he really didn't know my sister that well, and I told the detective, I said, He's known my sister for over 30 years. He knows her quite well. But nobody ever went to figure out why -- to talk to him to figure out, Why did you say you really didn't know her. If you was the last person that saw her, why didn't you show any concern about she was missing? He never asked our family after that did we ever find her, did we hear 16 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 anything. And I had questions. I said, you know, Something is not right with him, but nobody never investigated him anymore.
What happened after six months? What did you do when Niecey was not around six months later?
I kept calling the Police Department, the detective that I was dealing with. I would call the morgue.
Was she at the Missing Persons Conference? 17 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162
Yes, she was. I kept calling the morgue asking them did they have -- I would give them my sister's description. They would ask me did she have any cuts, tattoos or scars and stuff. I gave them everything, the description, and then they said, Well, no, we don't have anybody. We'll put your name on file. If a body comes in, we'll give you a call, and they took my name and number. And then I said, Well, do you have any unclaimed bodies? Oh, no, we don't have any unclaimed bodies. And they told me over and over, We don't have any unclaimed bodies. So I trusted that they didn't.
Can I ask a question here? Your sister was missing. You contacted the police. When did they find the body after she was missing? How long had it been?
Six 18 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 months, five and a half, six months later.
They found her body in September of 2003. She was reported missing April of 2003. They found the body September 2003, and never once did they contact anybody to let them know, Well, we found a body, could this be her? There was nothing.
And then I received a phone call after they found my sister's body, and the article printed from a woman, she told me she was out there when the kids found my sister's body, and she says, I always called the morgue. And I said, Well, did you find out who this woman is, and they said -- the Medical Examiner told her, you know, Don't concern yourself with this. You know, you can go in these places and find five and six different bodies when you walk down the street. And when she told me that, I 19 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 was disturbed that the Medical Examiner's Office would tell somebody that.
As a follow-up to the question that Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller asked, when did you find out that she had been -- did you ever find out before November that --
No. We didn't know anything. We was just depending on the Police Department to help us.
Just making phone calls, putting out flyers. 20 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162
Did you as a family continue to call the Police Department?
And you continued to call the Medical Examiner's Office?
The Detective Ortiz, if we didn't call her, she would call us and she would say, Well, did you hear anything? And we would say, No. Did you? And she said, Well, I put your sister's Social Security back in the system and nothing came up. So we just kept in contact with her.
But my mom had to go and -- I took my mom to have her DNA taken just in case they found a body, that they can match the genetics.
So the Police Department, correct me if I'm wrong, what I'm hearing is that the Police Department, the Missing Persons Unit, did stay in touch with you. Sometimes they would call you.
Detective Ortiz from the Missing Persons Unit would call you and ask you have you heard?
Yeah. 22 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 She would call and ask did we hear anything maybe every three or four months.
Would you tell this officer about what the Medical Examiner's Office was telling you? Because you say you were calling the Medical Examiner's Office.
Well, she told me that she would contact the Medical Examiner's Office, and they told her as well that they didn't have any unidentified bodies.
At some point, though, you were asked to do a DNA test, correct?
No. She contacted my mother and said that the FBI, my sister's name came up and they wanted my mom to come in to have her DNA taken, that they could probably match it 23 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 if they found a dead body.
No. It was over a year later. Maybe a year and a half.
So basically it was the Philadelphia Police, then the Missing Persons Department of the Philadelphia Police?
And the Medical Examiner's Office. And then once the DNA test was taken, then what? Nothing. 24 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162
So basically that was a waste, because no 7 DNA was ever taken from my sister's body when they found it, so they would never have matched it.
Okay. And, in fact, the Medical Examiner's Office does have unclaimed bodies.
So I would like that when the Medical Examiner comes to testify, that they can address that issue of telling family members that there was no unclaimed bodies.
They told the family and they told the police detectives that there was no unclaimed bodies there.
So on 25 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 November the 5th is the Missing Persons Conference at West Philly High.
November the 6th, the Inquirer writes a story about the conference and described and writes about the families that were there, which included you and your family. I remember you very distinctly being at the conference. What happens? November the 6th is Sunday. When did you find out that Unisha was at the morgue? Who called? When did it happen?
The Medical Examiner's Office called my mother the following Sunday.
November the 10th -- no; November the 12th. I believe it was the 12th.
It would 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 have been the 13th, November 13th.
I believe it was Detective Michael Hall. He called and he wanted to speak to Louise Bookhart, and I said, This is she. And he said that -- he asked me did I have any of Niecey's pictures with her smiling. I said, All Niecey's pictures are smiling. So he wanted to know could he come out to my home within an hour, and I told him sure he can come out. 27 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 So when he came out, I took two pictures in the living room for him to look at, and he looked at the pictures and he kind of frowned. So I said, What's the matter? I said, Is that Niecey's picture -- I mean, is the picture the one that you have? And he said, Well, I can't say. I have to take it back to the morgue. And then Trina came over, and Trina looked at the picture that he had. So now she got to finish telling you that part.
So he asked me would I look at a picture of a skull that I could kind of look at the teeth and compare it to my sister's picture with the teeth, and when I saw it, I told my mother, I said, This is her, but he said we can't be sure until we do like dental x-rays or something like that. So he asked me for my sister's Social Security number, and I told him I didn't have it on me, that I 28 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 would go to my dad's house and look through her things and get her Social. So when I went there, I found some x-rays that my sister had there and it had her jaw line on it. So I called him and I told him what I found. He said that would be helpful. So the next day, that Monday, I took it to him, and they gave us a call on Tuesday and positively identified it as being my sister. And then when I read in the newspaper the police had said that they had asked me previously for dental records, no one has ever asked us for dental records. They haven't asked us for anything of my sister's, because if we could produce it in hours, we could 19 have gave it to them within two years. 20
Did the 21 Medical Examiner call you at all? You 22 described a call from the Police 23 Department to you asking you for dental 24 records, Social Security. Did you ever get a call from the Medical Examiner's 29 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 Office?
That was the Medical Examiner's Office. He asked me --
So it was the Medical Examiner's Office that called you that Sunday, the 13th?
Yeah. I met with him at my mom's house and he asked for her Social.
Did you go to the morgue to take a look at the remains of Niecey?
Well, when I went there, he showed me on the computer screen the body that they found. So I got a chance to see how they found her. And from the looks of it, my sister's body looked like it was placed there. So I asked him, I said, She looks 30 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 like she's been placed here, and he kind of brushed it off. He was like, Oh, well, you know, your sister died of a drug overdose. And I said, A drug overdose? I said, Well, I don't know my sister to use drugs. I said, Well, looking around, was there drugs found there? And he says, No. 11 I said, Well, how do you know she died from a drug overdose? So he said they tested her hair and it showed traces of cocaine in her body. But from what I understand, cocaine can stay in your system for three to six months. So that doesn't mean that's why my sister died. It just means that it was in her system. They found my sister's body partially nude with a pair of panties and socks on, and no one ever questioned why they found a woman partially naked dead in a warehouse. They just brushed it off, because I think because she was a 31 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 minority.
What was the last part of what you said? I didn't hear you.
Because my sister is a minority. And the area that she was found in, the community.
Are you saying that apart from the issue of looking into why Unisha Jefferson showed up at the morgue a little bit over two years after she died, that you have questions about the circumstances surrounding her death?
Although the Medical Examiner's Office has told you that, according to their autopsy or their medical examination, that they determined it was due to a drug overdose?
So you're saying you're not buying that; is that what you're saying? 32 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162
I mean, my sister went missing. She was missing for two and a half years, which they found her body five and a half months later two blocks from where she was found. They never looked into the story with this guy saying he dropped her off at 22nd and Lehigh. The detective said, Well, which way did she go? Oh, I don't know. I really wasn't -- I didn't pay attention. Then he said he really didn't know her. My sister's body shows up in the warehouse on the fourth floor, and how she got into this building, we don't know, because they say it's like a hole in the ground that you got to go in to get in this building because the fire escape has no steps, and you find a woman's dead body laying across a desk. 33 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 And the way she was placed, you could tell somebody laid her there. So he said it's not a crime if you dump a body. This is what the Medical Examiners told me. The Medical Examiner, Michael Hall, told me that if my sister was somewhere and she had a drug overdose and somebody dumped her body in that building, that's not a crime. You know, it was just cruel. Do you remember him telling us that in the dining room? So I asked him, I said, Well, my sister was found with panties on and socks. I said, Was she raped? He said, Well, we don't know. Her body was decomposed and there was no 19 fluids in her. I said, Well, you don't know if she was raped, anything happened to her, but you know she died of a drug overdose? I don't buy it.
I know that our Police Department that are here today 34 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 are listening to you very carefully, and we sure hope that they can answer some of these questions. I know that by talking with the family a few times, I know that one of the things that you share with me was a concern of mine. La'Toyia Figueroa turned out to be a distant cousin after I had inquired about her, and her father calls me up and says, Cuz, the girl that's missing is my baby. So she turned out to be a distant cousin. I had only met her twice in my life, so it's not like I had a close relationship with her. It's that extended family of so many in many families like mine. But you also showed that you wanted to come here and make sure that this doesn't happen to someone else out there that has a missing loved one. Is there anything else -- I know that when you started, you started to talk about some of the things that concerned you and 35 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 the response from the police and particularly the Medical Examiner's Office. Is there anything else that you would want to suggest that can be improved upon so a family won't have to go through what your family has gone through in regards to the death of Unisha Jefferson? KATRINA JOHNSON: To take people more serious. When they come in or call in and say that they have a loved one that's missing, you know, just take it serious. Look for the person, you know. It doesn't make any sense that you go in the police station and you don't know the detective that you're talking to, you just meet him, and they're telling you, Well, that person is 21, don't worry about it, you know, couple days they might turn up. But you know your loved one. You know their ways, their patterns, and if you see something happen different, you want somebody to help you. But then the police when you 36 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 look at the media on the news and they're saying that, Oh, we need the public's help, well, how does the public feel when we need the police help? You know, we're supposed to trust in the police, but the police are not paying the families no 8 attention.
Well, it sounds like the suggestion of having the police take you more serious when you're reporting a missing person is important. You know the family members. I talk to my daughter probably six times a day, if not more. She's 21. If I don't talk to her, then I know something is wrong. In fact, because we have such violence in the City and so many crimes, it scares me actually if I don't talk to her by half the next day. I'm ready to call the police myself to say, What is going on, or I'm ready to go over to her apartment to see where is she. So I understand completely when 37 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 you're in constant contact with relatives, and I have a large family and most of us communicate with each other all the time, if not every week. And these kind of situations are -- I think most of Philadelphia feels your pain, and I think you're brave to come in today to testify and relive such a painful and emotional experience, and I just, as one Councilmember, would like to thank you for coming in.
I just have just one more question. I see the emotion everyone is going through as you discuss this. Did anyone in the Police Department, the Medical Examiner's Office suggest any support groups that would help you with the grief you were going through and going through now? When you called a year later, did they tell you, 38 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 We have this program here or --
-- you can go somewhere where -- support groups are very important --
One of the things that I discovered as we prepared for the Missing Persons Conference was that the Medical Examiner's Office does in fact have a Grief Assistance Program, and I had invited that program to set up at the Missing Persons Conference. As you well know, we had about 15 or so different support groups there for us to meet for the first time and for you in particular to go to and see if they could be of help to you, and I was disappointed 39 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 that the Grief Assistance Program people, who had told me they were definitely going to come to the conference, never showed up and never called to say they weren't going to show up. But the Medical Examiner's Office does have, as far as we know, I can be corrected if I'm wrong when the Medical Examiner comes before us, that they do in fact have a Grief Assistance Program. So I'm surprised that they did not offer you grief assistance over a two-year period to help you at least cope with the disappearance of Unisha. Is there anything else that the family wants to add?
I just wanted to address like the media. When you go and try to get your loved ones, the story put on the news or something that your loved ones are missing, we really didn't have any help with that. The Police Department, Detective Ortiz, she says, Well, I sent them the stuff, 40 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 but they won't put it on there. It's up to them to pick up the stories. But I can be home and I'm sitting there and I saw where they ran for two days a life-size snow globe that was stolen off a lawn, and they can run that for two days, but you can't run a missing person. So they need to take stories more serious what they put on.
Is there anything you think the Medical Examiner's Office could have done different?
There's a lot of things they could have done different. You know what I mean? I think they need to be in -- the Police Department and the Medical Examiner, they need to be in better contact with the things that they have, the bodies that they have. The Police Department needs to be in better contact with the bodies 41 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 that they have. I don't know how to put it, what words to put it in there, but it shouldn't have been where my sister's body was there for two years and the detectives are calling there asking for an unclaimed body from two blocks away where that body was found.
Thank you. I would suggest that you stay for the rest of the hearing. We might be able to get some answers from the Police Department and the Medical Examiner's Office. And this is about as tragic as it is and as painful as it is, more so to you than it is for any one of us, to do whatever we can as citizens, as public servants, in the case of Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller and I and Councilwoman Blackwell that now has joined us and all the members of City Council, that we all do whatever we can to make sure that this 42 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 system is improved upon so that a family like yours does not have to go through this anguish of two-plus years your loved ones being at the morgue, you didn't know about it, the morgue might not have known about who this person was, no one was communicating or at least there was not good communication going on. So we hope that if you can stick around, we might be able to finish up these hearings today and have some answers. And thank you so much for coming this morning.
So the next panel is Orlanda Smith and Alison Mosley. Please come up to the witness table and have a seat. We'll have Orlanda Smith testify first. Have a seat, Ms. Smith, and pull the mike up to you and identify yourself for the record and proceed with 43 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 your testimony.
My name is Orlanda Smith. I'm a resident of the City of Philadelphia and a City employee with the Clerk of Quarter Session as a Court Service Manager.
Good morning, City Council. My name is Orlanda Smith, a resident of the City of Philadelphia and a City employee with the office of the Clerk of Quarter Sessions as a Court Service Manager. My involvement in today's hearing came as a result of the discovery of a female body in a warehouse in September 2003 and identified two years and two months later as that of Unisha Jefferson. On that day that the body was found, I was a passenger in my vehicle 44 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 stopped at a stop sign at 20th and Sedgley when I saw children climbing up from a tree and weed-infested lot and climbing up through a hole in a Cyclone fence asking for help. They had just discovered a woman's body in the warehouse. While attempting to calm the children and placing a call to 9-1-1, I asked them if they were sure it was a lady. They said yes. She only had on panties and white socks and she was on the fourth floor of the warehouse. Two police officers arrived on foot and asked the older children to show them where the body was. They went through the Cyclone fence and through the trees with the children. Paramedics arrived and went the same way, as I directed them. Additional police officers arrived and the Fire Department arrived to assist with the ladder so that the coroner and the police officers could gain access to this large warehouse. 45 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 Later I contacted the Homicide Division of the Police Department inquiring about this case a couple days later. I was informed that they knew nothing about this case. I asked the detective to check to see if there was a report of a woman's body found in a warehouse at 20th and Sedgley. He checked and said there was no report -- there was a report of a body found on a highway at 19th and Sedgley. I asked, How long does it take for your department to be notified, and he said that the Medical Examiner's Office would have to send them a report in order to have them investigate. They had not received one. He referred me to the Medical Examiner's Office. I contacted the Medical Examiner's Office and spoke to an investigator and inquired about the body found in the warehouse and was it being investigated. He stated that he could drive down that street and pick up five 46 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 to six bodies. He said, People go into these warehouses to use drugs. He stated that he was present at the dirty, nasty, stinky, smelly warehouse as an employee from the Medical Examiner's Office and basically I should not concern myself with this. I tried to put this behind me, but I could not. I called the Medical Examiner's Office a few weeks later, and this time I spoke with a professional investigator, who assured me that everything was being done to identify the body. Missing person reports would be checked. I asked that I be contacted if she was identified, and if she was not identified and her family not found, I would see to it that she received a proper burial. My name and phone number was to be put in her file. She weighed pounds when she 23 arrived at the morgue due to 24 decomposition. I was not contacted by the Medical Examiner's Office. I 47 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 contacted them after seeing the article 3 in the newspaper, and upon giving my name, which was on her file, I was informed the body was that of Unisha Jefferson. As a result of this incident and my experience from over 30 years as a City employee, of which years was 10 working with the Health Department, and 11 at the time of the incident, I was a 12 Court Clerk working in homicide and major 13 courtrooms at the Criminal Justice Center 14 and I'm currently a Court Service Manager, I feel that the office of the Medical Examiner, a component of the Health Department, should set standards for when bodies are discovered that they are treated with the same respect as any other deceased person.
In addition, to stop the isolation and share with the public when bodies remain unidentified and that missing persons reports -- that the current system we have be evaluated and 48 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 could compare to maybe other large cities with a low rate of unidentified bodies. Finally, whenever children are involved in the discovery of a body, that the support and counseling be available if needed.
That's quite a story. I know the area very well. I'm proud to be a graduate of Dobbins Tech High School right up the street from the warehouse, and I've gone by that warehouse a number of times since I find out that's where the body of Niecey was found. So you were driving --
I was a passenger in my vehicle. I was a passenger. I was in the passenger side.
And what happened again? You were driving. You saw -- 49 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162
We were at a stop sign at 20th and Sedgley when I heard a rustling, and I turned. And as I turned, coming up out of an incline and coming up through a hole in a Cyclone fence was child after child. They had like -- some had sticks. They were in like a panic. I didn't know what was happening. I was afraid at first because I didn't understand, and I could see that they were scared. And we pulled over, and they told me the story. They had the sticks because at the time, there was a lot of trees, a lot of weeds, a lot of bush and they said they were looking for turtles and frogs in the grass, in the grassy area, because it's real big. I asked them why did they go into the warehouse, and they said they didn't know, but they went in. And I asked them did they stop -- you know, like it's a real huge warehouse, how did they manage to find a body, and they said 50 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 they just went up to the fourth floor, they just found her. And they were very upset.
No, I didn't. You can't just walk into this warehouse. It sits up on an incline. And this area that the children came from, you had to go down and then through all this grass and weeds and you had to go almost a block to get in from where they went in at. The side that we were on where the Cyclone fence is, at one time they had steps, but the door entry is at the second floor level, so the steps don't exist anymore. So that's why the Fire Department had to put the ladder up, so that the coroner and police officers could go that way. But the first officers were foot cops. They were on foot. They were not in a car. So they went down with the children, as well as the paramedics. 51 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162
I stayed about a little over an hour. I spent a lot of time trying to comfort the children. I spoke with the police officers. They were in there for a while, and by this time, you know, I was like -- I was upset and I needed to -- I didn't want to see her body when it came out.
So then some days later, you called Homicide and you called the Medical Examiner's Office. I mean, this count of the response you got from -- was this the Medical Examiner's Office that stated he was present at the dirty, nasty, stinky, smelly warehouse?
Yes. That was when I called the Medical Examiner's Office after the Homicide Division said that they did not have a report. When I spoke with the investigator, I asked him -- I couldn't understand why I didn't 52 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 hear anything, and when I spoke with him, after he said it wasn't being investigated, I asked how could that be possible, and then I said what the children had told me, and he said, Well, that's not true, because I was in the dirty, nasty, stinky, smelly warehouse and her body was laying down. And I says, Well, maybe the children was very upset and didn't realize that she was laying down instead of sitting down, as they had told me. And then I didn't realize at the time that she was decomposed. I didn't know that. The way the children described her was that she had a hole in her stomach, and I didn't understand because I didn't know she was decomposed. I didn't know that until later. And he said to me that he could drive down that street and pick up bodies, because like that's a drug area, people go in the warehouses to shoot up. And I said, Well, you can't 53 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 even get in this one without a ladder or go the way the children went, and nobody really do that. And he says, Well, that's what they do in this area. And, you know, I had made some more comments. I didn't think that was fair what he said, and he was basically, Well, don't worry about this, you have other things you can worry about besides like a drug addict or a prostitute or something in a warehouse dead. So I tried to put it behind me for a few weeks and I couldn't, and I made another call, and this time I spoke with another investigator, and I told him what had been --
No; at the Medical Examiner's Office. I said, Well, you know, since I can't do any more and I don't work for the Police Department and I don't work for Missing Persons and I've 54 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 never been involved with anything like this before, I said my training with being a Court Clerk and working Homicide, seeing the pictures, hearing the Medical Examiners' testimony in courtrooms, through all the courtroom experience I had and all the dead bodies I seen pictures of, I was not prepared for when this happened and I didn't know what I could do, but I did know that whatever happened in that warehouse, that she had suffered enough and I was going to see to it that she had a proper burial. And so they took my name and my phone number. And she weighed pounds. 17 And I had her ID number for her body, and 18 every six months, I would check to see if 19 she had been identified. 20
At least 23 every six months I would call to see if 24 she had been identified.
So from 55 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 September of 2003, every six months you would call?
Up until -- like for this year, it may have been around May, May of this year that I called, the last that I had called, and she still had not been identified.
She's not identified. She's still not identified. She wasn't identified the last time that I spoke with them.
Did they use the phrase that the Johnson/Jefferson family used, I believe Katrina, that they had no "unclaimed bodies"? Did they use that expression?
No. See, I had her body ID number and I would give 56 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 that and I would ask if she had been identified, and I was told no. 4
Did you talk to the same person? Do you remember who you talked to?
Well, it's always a man, just like when I called at -- I had just come back from North Carolina the day before from a funeral for my cousin, and the next day was the day that I saw the picture on the front of the Daily News. And when I saw it, I just knew it was her. So I called the morgue, and the investigator that I talked to, I asked him, By any chance, could this be the lady that was found in the warehouse at 20th and near Lehigh? And he says, What is your name? And I told him, and he said, Yes, it's her. I couldn't believe it. I said, 57 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 Are you sure? He said, Yes. I said, How? How can you be sure? And he said, Because your name is here. And I knew then that the closure was there.
When did you make that call to the Medical Examiner's Office?
It was Friday the day that the Daily News -- I was out of town until Thursday morning. Thursday about 3:00 a.m. I got back from North Carolina, and on Friday I saw that paper. I saw the newspaper that had Niecey's pictures on the front.
Did they mention to you they had called a family member, anything like that?
No. What was said was -- I said, It's finally a closure for the family, and I said, Well, 58 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 I am glad that they did put my name down. I didn't know for certain if they had. I said, But at least I know that she's been found by her family. And I said, I'm glad that they did put my name down like I requested. And he says, See, we do do our job. And he says something to the effect about the City Medical Examiner's Office being blamed, and I said, Well, I don't know anything about this. I said, I just came back in town. I just wanted to see if it was her. And then he said -- and then this person repeated the same words, Because I was there in the dirty, stinky, smelly warehouse. And I said at that point, I said, What is your name? And he says he was Mr. Hall. I said, Well, you were the first investigator that I talked to that day when I called when she first was found, and I said, And you said things that wasn't right. And I said, Have a 59 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 nice day.
So the person that you called right after the discovery of the body at the warehouse is the same person you ended up talking to around November 15th or 16th, right?
And the person repeats the same old -- he repeats the same thing over again, right?
And I said, Oh, it was you. And then I called your office to see if you could tell me -- I seen in the paper that her funeral would be the next day, and I called your office to see if you all could find out where it was so that I could also have closure and meet the family, because I had carried this for two years and two months also.
Ms. Smith, you've been very sincere, from what I can gather and talk and hearing you this 60 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 morning and a little bit that we talked at the viewing for Niecey. What went wrong here? I mean, we're here to find out how we can see if there's something we can fix, because something -- I'm not sure what exactly it was, or it's a number of things. The testimony of the Medical Examiner, we might have some answers, and from the Police Department. But what do you think went wrong and what would you recommend? I know that you made some recommendations here, better communications between the Police Department and the Medical Examiner's Office, also support and counseling for those children that discovered the body. What do you think went wrong and what would you fix?
Well, it's hard to change people's behavior or their sensitivity level, but -- and everybody that works do not have the same level of sensitivity, and sometimes we may do jobs 61 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 too long and everything becomes a routine. And in the case of the first response that I received when I called the Medical Examiner's Office, it's one that there was already a pre-conceived thing that if you're found in a warehouse or found anywhere in the area that is considered to have drugs in it or prostitution or anything like that, then you're not basically treated as the same as if you had been found somewhere else. And it's like a pre-mind set. Because another thing that was in the conversation that I had with him, I said, So you're saying to me that if my daughter is found in a warehouse in an area that people use drugs and you consider it to be a drug area, that if she's found in a warehouse, then she's supposed to be a drug addict? I really took offense to what he said that day, because this is not fair. I said, This person has to have a family, and I said, you know, That's 62 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 something that I would like to be looked at. Like I had said earlier, that anyone, anybody that's found, whether they be in Chestnut Hill, Mt. Airy, Northeast or whatever, that they're treated with the same respect and dignity as any other deceased person, and that when it's a female or a male or whatever and you are in a warehouse and you're in a big one that has no means of access from the street and you find a female lady with just socks and panties and no 14 other clothes and no shoes or nothing, that it's at least treated as suspicious, if nothing else. And for it not to be investigated, it hurt me. So there's some things that need to be looked at.
Thank you, Ms. Smith, for taking time from your work to join us this morning. If you care to stay, we'd sure like you to stay. I know that you're probably taking some time off from work to be here. Thank you so much 63 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 for your testimony.
Thank you so much for caring for other people. It says a lot about you. I don't know you personally, but you are a wonderful human being to have cared so much to jump out of a car and see what these children were excited and worried about that evening on Lehigh Avenue. So I respect you and I commend you for your humanity.
Alison, will you please state your name for the record, please, and proceed with your testimony.
Sure. My name is Alison Mosley. My story is not one that's gotten any publicity and it's somewhat of an inverse, I think, as we'll 64 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 go along. There is a difference between an unidentified body and an unclaimed body. A couple of years ago my family suffered a pretty painful experience that I think demonstrates some of the problems in both the Philadelphia Police Department and the Medical Examiner's Office. I should probably preface it, it's about my brother's death. My brother's name was Christopher Mosley. He was a recluse. He had few, if any, friends. He lived in an apartment at 36th and Spring Garden Street. He didn't work. He was supported by my mother, who direct-deposited money into his account twice monthly. This is the story as best I can construct it: March 27th, 2003 the management of the apartment building where my brother lived called the police because of a foul-smelling odor coming out of my brother's apartment. When they 65 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 came, they found his decomposing body slumped over the bed. From his records, we believe he had actually been dead for nearly a month at that point, from looking at his bank records. The officer who took the report had him listed as a 65-year-old black male. My brother was a 50-year-old white male. He had been living in that apartment for ten years. Certainly the officer taking the report could have gotten his race and approximate age from the management at the apartment building who let him in. The Medical Examiner's Office was called to come and pick up the body, which they did. I believe that within a day or two, they were given my brother's Social Security card. The management at the apartment building found it. So at that point, they knew my brother's name. I believe from his Social Security card they -- I believe they also knew my parents' names and his last residence as 66 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 listed on the Social Security card. We were never notified. I believe the bank somehow found out he was dead. They had him in his records as deceased, although they didn't notify the person sending the handwritten checks twice monthly. He was listed in the Social Security Death Index as dead. We still didn't know. My mother was still sending checks. About six months later, September 19th, 2003, we realized that my brother's phone had been disconnected. We first called the police and asked them whether there had been any reports, any deaths. We gave them my brother's name. We gave them the address. They told us no, that there had been nothing. We called the bank, found out there had been no activity in his account for months. So in desperation, we finally got the police to go to his apartment building. I met the officer there, at which point a maintenance 67 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 person there told the story of finding my brother's decomposing body. So we went back to the Police Department, where they started fishing through a file cabinet and paper records looking for the incident report, and after about a half hour finally dug it up. Why it wasn't accessible from a computer search given his name or address is beyond me. I called the Medical Examiner's Office, and my brother's body was still there. They apparently batch up the unclaimed bodies as opposed to the unidentified bodies and then sort of bid out the cremation work, and my brother was still there. The coroner's office, I don't believe, had done an autopsy. At least that's what it says on the death certificate. They had determined that he had died of coronary artery disease. I guess it was a good guess and, in this case, probably accurate, given our 68 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 history and his history. Unfortunately -- I mean, interestingly, they failed to notice that he was Caucasian. They apparently just took what the incident report said at face value.
So needless to say, it made us wonder was that really my brother that was found in that apartment or was that a 65-year-old black man. When I spoke to a coroner, they apparently have some kind of picture or image that they can look up on the computer, and he looked it up and said, Well, yes, actually now that I look at it, I can tell that this is a white man. It was your -- I'm sure it was your brother. I've thought about this a whole lot in the last couple of years. Right after it happened, I just went searching on the web, trying to find out -- trying to see if I could identify his next of kin based upon the information that I thought the coroner's office had with his 69 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 Social Security card, and I found it in minutes. My parents still own the 4 house that was listed as his last 5 residence. They still had -- it was a 6 listed number. They had a phone. They 7 had an answering machine. 8 There was absolutely no 9 reason -- the coroner told me that it's 10 very difficult to find in this day of 11 data privacy, it's difficult to find this 12 information. Now, I knew what to look 13 for. I mean, I knew when I spotted them, 14 but I found them in 15 minutes on the web 15 just poking around, and I'm not experienced. So obviously not knowing has added -- not knowing for six months added enormously to the pain. It was horrible enough how my brother died and the fact that nobody noticed. I guess my take on it, for whatever it's worth, is, first of all, I think my brother was somebody who didn't matter. He died in a modest apartment in 70 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 West Philly. Nobody noticed him until the odor became overwhelming. I think had he died in a fancy Rittenhouse Square apartment, somebody would have made more effort to find it. I think there's probably a race piece here. I think they thought he was black, and that perhaps might have made the Medical Examiner's Office give less attention. I don't know. It's certainly worth looking at. You know, had people really wanted to find his next of kin, he had an apartment full of stuff. He had address books. They could have found his contact numbers to call, but instead, they let the apartment building just clear out his stuff, end of story. So while it's not exactly the same issue that I think precipitated this, I certainly think it demonstrates some ongoing issues.
Thank you, Ms. Mosley, for your testimony. 71 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 After he is missing, when do you go to the apartment to see, or anyone in the family, to see if he was there?
He wasn't missing per se for us. I mean, we had no 7 contact with him. My brother really refused any contact with the family. So we thought he was alive. After we found out that his phone had been turned off and realized that something was wrong, it was the next day that we made it to the apartment building and met the police there and found out that he had been dead for six months.
Your brother is a recluse, he's not speaking to the family, you said there's something wrong here, you go to the police. When you go to the apartment, was the body still there?
No. The body had been found. The body was found March 27th, 2003. It was decomposing at that point. We recognized that he was 72 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 missing September 19th, 2003. The body had been in the morgue that entire time. They had known who my brother was. They had his Social Security number. They had his name. They just never located and identified next of kin.
Time of death was just put the point at which he was found. We know because my brother always paid his rent on time, et cetera, et cetera, and his March rent wasn't paid, so we know that he was dead by the very beginning of March, but the official death certificate has him dying March 27th because that's when they found his body.
Now I follow you. So when you go there and you take the police, you find out that he had in fact, when you go in September, that he had in fact been found, his body had been 73 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 decomposed. At that point when the smell intensifies, he's there, they turn the body over to the police, to the Medical Examiner's Office. And you're saying that he had a lot of information in his room?
I mean, I would assume that my brother had the basic kinds of things that people have, like an address book. I mean, he knew how to send mail to people. He had addresses. You know, he had been living in that apartment for over ten years. I'm sure that had people really been interested in finding out who he was or next of kin, somebody would have gone through the apartment and tried to find some evidence, but apparently that was not done. I gather the management of the apartment building while cleaning out his apartment found his Social Security number and turned that over to the police, found his Social Security card, but other than that, I don't believe 74 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 there was any effort made.
I have a question. In September, you went to the apartment, correct?
In September, we met an officer at the apartment building, correct.
No. It had been long cleared out. Everything was gone. I mean, there wasn't a picture. There was nothing.
Did you ask the people that he rented from, the owners of the apartment -- was it an apartment building?
-- (continued) why they hadn't contacted you or the police, the medical --
They did 75 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 call the police, and the police right when they realized that -- they called the police and the police -- I mean, I've got the incident report here. It lists it as a sudden death, and the police turned it over to the Coroner's Office. They didn't know about next of kin. I mean, they were not aware of my brother's family. That was the end of it. The police came. The Coroner's Office picked up the body, end of story, and they were left with a smelly mess to clean up, which is what they did.
This happened in 2003. This is around the same time that Unisha Jefferson was missing, right?
I mean, this is around the same time. Do you remember who you spoke to at the Coroner's Office?
You know, I thought you might ask me that. It was a 76 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 very difficult time. I have a little scribbled note that says David Quain on there, but I don't know if that's actually the person I spoke to.
Okay. I know that you're here because you want to tell your story, as painful as your story is, but I know you care about other Philadelphians and I know you've talked, or at least I've interpreted, that upgrading the technology, the Medical Examiner's Office --
And the Police Department. If there's anything else you want to add to ideas that you might have on how to make this system a better system, speak your mind. That's why we've asked people to come here. This is a place where you can tell us how you feel. It's the only way that we'll find out. Right, Councilwoman Miller? 77 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 It's the only way we'll find out if there's something that we can be of help to you, but we have to hear from you.
I think the problems are just very big. I think that the previous person testifying made a statement that rang very true to me, that maybe some people have been doing their jobs for too long. Because a dead body is not a missing piece of luggage. It's a dead body and there are people around who care. And the whole process seems to be a little bit disjointed and cavalier. I think there's a certain apathy that's reflected here. So, I mean, I think my story kind of speaks for itself. And my assumption is, for whatever it's worth, there are probably more unclaimed bodies than unidentified bodies. So I would think this is probably something that happens often. I mean, I don't know. I don't work in the Coroner's Office, but 78 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 I'm sure there are lonely people who die in apartments that just get hauled away.
Clearly, there needs to be some improvements based on what we've heard this morning. I think because we all watch TV and all those crime shows that are on TV, you automatically assume that when something like a death occurs such as your brother's, that there is someone that's responsible for trying to figure out who is the next of kin. And, of course, we do have people here today from the Philadelphia Police Department and Medical Examiner's Office and I'm sure that those issues will be addressed. It's unfortunate that families have to go through what they've gone through. It's painful enough when you have a person, a relative, that's missing and you can't find them and you're worked up emotionally and just don't seem to be getting the kind of support and assistance that you need from a variety 79 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 of agencies. This whole situation has been a very rude awakening for me and Councilman Ramos and other people here in Philadelphia, and I just personally think you guys are brave for coming in today to relive it, because it's not easy to do what you're doing, and I personally want to thank you for coming in.
Are there any other family members or friends of missing loved ones that want to testify before we move on to the Medical Examiner's Office? (No response.)
Is there anyone else here in the Chambers? (No response.)
Seeing none -- anybody else? Hi. Come on up to the witness table, please, and identify yourself for the record. 80 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162
My name is Gail Daniels. I have a daughter, Taneke Daniels, that's been missing since May 12th.
Yes. Yes, ma'am. And my story is, my daughter had to go to court for domestic abuse, and she went to visit her boyfriend that abused her, and that was the last time we had seen her. And the Police Department says that this young man is not a suspect. But he's the only suspect. And we also had called the Coroner's Office, and they told us that there was no dead bodies there, and the police -- I asked them could they go get her dental records. Well, they did go finally after her story was in the paper, 81 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 they went to the dental's office. And the dental's office was around the corner from the Police Department. And they told me they called. We called and no 6 one answered the phone. We called, and they couldn't get an answer. I said, Well, all you had to do was get in the car and ride to the dentist's office and get the dental records. You're the police. All you had to do was announce yourself and you could have got the dental records. But they never did that, until this article was written. Then they went the next day to get her dental records to take to the Coroner's Office. So listening to these stories, I have no idea if my daughter is in there, in the Coroner's Office, or not.
No. And my take on that is that I don't think she's here no more. I think he disposed of her 82 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 body, but the police keep saying that he's not a suspect, he's cooperative, he answered questions. But the lie detector test was inconclusive. They was supposed to give him another one and they didn't. And he has told so many lies and stories, where he was so obsessed with her before she went missing, that when she went missing, he didn't even help us give out a flyer of her or anything.
So he was actually the abuser? You said she was in domestic violence court.
She was 27. And basically they were saying that by her age, that she might not be missing, she might have just walked off. But like that's my child. I know her. She never goes off without keeping in contact with me, because she has three little boys. And it was like you couldn't get that 83 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 through their heads. Basically that's it. I've told this story to the news, to the media, and there's still nothing. They just put her case in Special Victims Unit for long-term missing people, and I just talked to Detective -- was it Johnson? And I still haven't heard back from her. Robinson. I'm sorry. Detective Robinson. So basically that's it.
And you also joined us at least on a number of days in the search for La'Toyia Figueroa.
And we appreciate so much you being with us, and you gave us and gave me an opportunity to listen to your story. I'm so glad you came here today and told your story. The media since we started the search for La'Toyia Figueroa in July, the media -- I must give credit where credit is due. The media since then has picked up their coverage of the report. I know that Commissioner Johnson has met with the media executives about getting this information out to the public. So Taneke Daniels case has gotten since then, particularly since the Missing Persons Conference that you spoke at and you spoke to police at at that conference as well, that you need closure in your case. So today you again have here in this City Council Chamber, you have police, you have medical examiners. Please make sure you talk to them. If you haven't gone to the Medical Examiner's Office recently -- 85 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162
-- go with them today. They're here today. The big boss of the Medical Examiner's Office, Dr. Mirchandani, is here, and he has some other people from his office here. So you fight for getting closure or trying to find, God willing, Taneke alive. Just as you're talking about someone that you suspect out there that might have had something to do with her disappearance, just stay on top of it. Don't give up. You see all the families here that didn't give up. So don't give up your quest in finding out what happened to your daughter.
Thank you. Anyone else? Any family members of missing people that's here in 86 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 the Chambers that want to testify? (No response.)
Seeing none, Dr. Mirchandani and David Quain and also Chief Inspector Joe Fox and anyone from the Police Department. We just might as well have you all come up at the same time. Councilman Ramos, unfortunately, I have to leave the Chambers to attend another previously scheduled meeting. So if you need me, just give me a call.
Thank you so much, Madam Vice-Chair of Public Health Committee, for being here and being so concerned about the people of Philadelphia, particularly on this issue of missing people. Thank you, Donna Reed Miller, for being with us here this morning and making sure that these hearings take place.
How about if we start with the testimony of Mr. Haresh Mirchandani, the Medical Examiner of the City of Philadelphia. Mr. Mirchandani, please state your name for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Good morning. My name is Dr. Haresh Mirchandani. I'm the Medical Examiner of the City of Philadelphia.
Please proceed with your testimony. You can introduce the rest of the panel. INSPECTOR JARDINE: I'm Inspector David Jardine from Detective Field Divisions.
And from your office, you have someone else from your office?
I'm David Quain from the Medical Examiner's Office, 88 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 Investigative Supervisor.
Yes. INSPECTOR FOX: Joseph Fox, Chief of Detectives, Philadelphia Police Department.
Good morning, Councilman Ramos and Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller. I'd like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to give testimony this morning. Speaking on behalf of the Commissioner, Dr. Joanne Godley, I will provide you with a brief overview of the Office of the Medical Examiner, including current procedures in place for identifying decedents.
As a component of the Department of Public 89 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 Health, the Office of the Medical Examiner has the primary responsibility of determining the cause and manner of death on all violent, suspicious and unknown deaths in the City of Philadelphia. And in any given year, about 5,500 cases are reported to my office. Approximately 45 to 50 percent receive a post-mortem examination at the office. The bodies are brought to the office, and cause and manner of death is determined and identification is attempted to be obtained from various sources. About 90 percent of the cases that are brought to the office, the identification is established within 19 hours. Most of the cases, identification 20 is established within 24 hours. However, 21 there are some cases that remain 22 unidentified for even up to a year or 23 even longer, and the positive 24 identification may take sometimes even longer than that. 90 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 Currently, there are about unidentified decedents in the office, and they are kept there until they can be identified. The majority of the identification of the deceased person are made by time-honored and traditional medicine and visual identification, fingerprinting, dental x-rays, anthropology and sometimes DNA. A few cases require examination by expert forensic anthropologists, which look at the bones of the body and make a determination as to the age, race and sex of the individual. Most of the time, as I said, we do visual identification, x-rays and dental records and fingerprinting. The problem comes with the cases that bodies are brought to the office of the decomposed bodies where the visual identification is not possible. Even if you receive a telephone call about a description of an individual, missing individual, it is difficult to match that 91 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 with what we have in the office. The decomposition destroys the facial architecture. And somebody testified here a little while ago, a person cannot -- even sex cannot be determined -- or rather the race cannot be determined because certain changes take place in the body that will completely obliterate the facial architecture, making visual identification impossible. So we take the help of things available, such as dental x-rays, fingerprinting. But fingerprinting can also be difficult with a decomposed body. It cannot be done very often because of the state of decomposition. We then look at the x-rays and dental records. But one thing that's important to realize, that one must have a tentative ID. We must know who that person may be. We can approach the family or the friends or hospitals to get a set of dental records, x-rays, bone 92 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 x-rays and structure. So this can be a problem in decomposing or decomposed bodies and skeletonized remains, which gives even more problem to the office, because there is no way of knowing age, race or sometimes sex of the individual from the body itself. As a result of these issues, we have reviewed the policy and revised the policy about missing persons and identification of individuals. We are now -- I have now nominated an investigator. His only job would be identification, notification -- forensic investigator. That's his title. Identification and notification investigator, and his sole job is to keep track of how many unidentified bodies we have, how many unknown individuals we have, how many individuals that are identified but not notified we have. And this investigator would work with the Police Department office. Also must have contact with the 93 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 leadership of the Philadelphia Police Department in strengthening the identification, notification process, and contact with the Missing Persons Unit. We would meet on a regular basis.
And the Police Department, leadership of the Police Department, has been very cooperative about strengthening this process of identification and notification and our communication with the Missing Persons Unit. So as we speak, it is established now, the procedures. I have next to me sitting people from the Police Department, and they will further enlighten you on what we have done so far. gov Internet, and we have now up and running a website of the Philadelphia Health Department which has all the bodies, a description of the cases that we have not had a positive ID or notified the next of kin, including 94 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 the bodies not identified. There's no 3 way we can notify the next of kin, because we don't know who the person that is deceased. So, number one, we have done that. We have established lines of communication between the office and the Philadelphia Police Department. There's also been a website, not done by my office but by some citizens. com, and they have also a brief description of the cases that are in the office. We are also trying to incorporate a digital scanning fingerprint technology for existing fingerprinting procedures. So we are going to have -- hopefully we're going to have soon a fingerprinting scanning digital equipment, which will also work in the case of dental identification. So this is what we have done so far. Number one, we have set up contact 95 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 with the Police Department. We have developed a website to publicize this unknown and unclaimed individuals, and also we are talking about getting other equipment, such as the digital technology, for dental charts and dental x-rays and for fingerprinting. The DNA is state-of-the-art nowadays, but we have utilized DNA even about ten years ago about a case where a young lady was found, completely decomposed body, and we didn't know who she was. She was a victim of a homicide. This was back in 1995. Then when the DNA technology came into existence, we had a tentative ID. We knew who she might be, but no positive ID was made. We took one of her two molar tooth, that DNA was extracted from the tooth, and the DNA was compared with the mother, who was still alive. We took the blood of the mother and compared the DNA. However, we also needed the blood of the father, and instead of the father, we found out he 96 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 expired, and we went to the local hospital, got the slide of the tumor that he was treated -- he was treated for cancer. We took that tissue slide for the cancer of this young lady's father and we had a positive ID match based on the DNA analysis of the mother's blood, who was still alive, and the father's tumor, even though the father was deceased. We're also attempting to -- the FBI is in the process of establishing a national DNA database for the families and relatives of the deceased individual. Up until now they were only doing DNA profiles of convicted felons, but they are also going to do now for us and for other ME offices a DNA profile of missing individuals. We're also attempting to hook you directly to gain access to NCIC, National Crime Information Center. They have some information about fingerprint and dental information that can be used 97 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 for investigating a missing person. I know how difficult it can be for the families not to know whether their loved one is alive or deceased and where the body is, if he's deceased, and this cannot bring closure to the families. We realize that. And we have about, as I said, any given year, about three to five too many -- number three is too many for me, where we have unidentified individuals. So we do have -- we have to -- we do have a problem about certain cases, and one of the problems that we have, as I said, is the decomposition of the deceased individual. That occurs more rapidly in the summertime. So we want to keep track on those cases.
And I am sure we will work with the Police Department to resolve that issue completely, so there will be hopefully no, not even one, identified remains will be at the office. I'd be happy to answer any questions, or David Quain can answer the 98 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 questions.
Thank you, Dr. Mirchandani. I was trying to follow you. You were jumping all over your testimony that you submitted to us yesterday afternoon. The Health Commissioner sent me a note that she will not be able to be here and that you were speaking in her behalf; is that correct?
Right. We do have the Medical Director, Chief of Staff is here. She's sitting right there. And so she's representing the Health Department. Dr. Beckwith is here if you need anything.
The Health Commissioner, shortly after the discovery of the body of Unisha Jefferson at the Medical Examiner's Office, extended an apology to the family and she has expressed, to my satisfaction, because she's a wonderful Health Commissioner, that there was going to be improvements 99 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 made. That implies that she recognized that there were some things that needed to be corrected. Do you share that viewpoint?
What went wrong? What went wrong here? What went wrong with the Unisha Jefferson situation?
I think the problem was, there was no communication or lack of communication as it should have been between my office and the Missing Persons Unit. I mean, at any given time, we do have bodies that are unclaimed and unidentified, and somehow we should have gotten together more frequently, as we are going to do now and see this doesn't happen again. We know we have a body of a young lady at the office. Sometimes, as I said, age cannot be estimated because of the decomposition. It can be 100 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 difficult. So I think there was indeed lack of communication between the Medical Examiner's Office as there should have been and the Missing Persons Unit of the Philadelphia Police Department. That's where the problem occurred really. Had we known who she might be, tentative ID, and we did that after the article was published in the local newspapers, we knew that there was a person we have here and this may be -- in fact, Mr. Quain sitting next to me was the first person to see that there may be a description of a young lady and that maybe we have her in the office, and it turned out to be that was the case. The family was contacted and access was brought and a positive ID was made. That could have been done two years ago.
What I have a hard time understanding is -- and please forgive me if it comes out wrong -- I would think it would only be common sense that even if this was the 101 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 year 1950 and you run a Medical Examiner's Office and the Police Department has a Missing Persons Unit, that common sense would tell you that you would need to communicate probably daily or at least as the bodies come in. I mean, why did it take for us to hear the tragedy of Unisha Jefferson laying in your place for over two years for you guys to start talking?
Excuse me, if I may respond to that. Again, Dave Quain. I'm the Chief Investigator for the Medical Examiner's Office. First of all, I want to extend my condolences to the families that are here today. I'm in the business of trying to identify everyone that we have. And we have, as you can see from the numbers, 5,500 cases a year. Unfortunately, in this business, every single one of those cases is -- it's a family member, it's a loved one, it's very, very important. And, 102 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 unfortunately, in this business, it's not enough to say that you did 5,599 -- or 499. We're looking for 100 percent all the time, perfection, in this line of work. With Unisha Jefferson and the -- we have regular contact. We always had regular contact with the Missing Persons Unit. The breakdown here -- and I don't know why, and I don't know if we'll ever know exactly why. There wasn't a connection between Unisha and this decedent that was in this warehouse. It's not that there was no 16 communication. It was on an as-needed basis. So the communication that -- what has changed here is regular communication weekly to discuss every case that we have, every body that we have that does not have a name.
Do you think that this is, based on the testimony of people that preceded you this morning, 103 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 and it's not my words but the words of people that have testified here before, could it have been that because the person was in a depressed area, that maybe the mind set -- this was a phrase used by someone that testified before you -- was that the mind set or the attitude that because the person was found on 21st and Sedgley, that it means that the person was probably doing drugs? It's like a devaluation of the human being because of where the person was found. We heard this from African-Americans, we heard this from a non-African-American, an Anglo lady just a little while ago, Ms. Alison Mosley, and she stated that maybe it was because her brother was identified as an African-American, because he lived in an African-American community, that less attention -- what are your thoughts about that? Because you're searching for answers yourself, and I respect your 104 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 profession, what you do, and now I'll gamble and say your sincerity as well. Do you think that has something to do with it? Maybe better training of your people over there to make sure that all human beings deceased that go before you and where they were found are treated equally?
I don't believe that that is the issue. Most of the work that involves the Medical Examiner's Office, we're mostly involved in deaths that occur in lower economic, minority neighborhoods. Homicide rate is high, especially in the African-American community. I don't think that that was an issue. It's certainly not an issue for me. We're presented with a case and it's our job to find out who that person is. I do want to say and I want to throw out there that right now I have a staff of seven investigators. That's it. That's what I have to work with. There's 105 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 another investigator who has the title but handles strictly infants. So of those seven investigators, that's a 24-hour-a-day/seven-day-a-week operation, that has bodies a day, 16 decedents 7 that need -- deaths need to be 8 investigated, relatives need to be 9 notified, the unidentified need to be 10 identified. That's more than 100 cases a 11 week. 12 And like I said, it's not good 13 enough to say that, Well, we did this 90 14 percent of time, we did a good job, or 99 15 percent of the time, because really it 16 comes down to one percent of the cases that -- less, actually much less than one percent of the cases where there is a problem. In order for us to be more effective, we need to have a bigger staff. We are constantly, constantly under the gun in terms of -- when I left today, I had two people in the office and one person had to go out on a murder 106 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 suicide scene. That means there's five lines that come in, five phone lines. One person is answering five phone lines right now.
It's a 24/7 operation. And I think also we answered a question, some of the staff are minorities. Even a pathologist is an African-American. One of the pathologists is an African-American gentleman. We have also investigators and technicians from all races and all nationalities work there. So I don't think -- that issue is not even in the back of my mind about did we treat this individual differently because they were from a different race or a different color.
I might want to bring him back to answer questions. Is he available now?
I'm going to need for him to -- we'll contact you to bring him here. Because I know what you're saying, Doctor, but according to one of the witnesses before you, his comments were contrary to what you just said. His comments were describing maybe the place, maybe an abandoned building is in fact stinky, smelly and so forth, but he goes on to make reference that these are things that happen in that community or in that area often. It's like why don't you worry about something else, is what he told Ms. Smith. That is very disturbing for me, and much more so for a person looking for their missing loved one to be talked to in that manner. So you might need to take a look at your staff and listen in on how 108 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 they talk to people that are desperate, anxious. Their missing loved one might be the wretched of the earth. It's still their loved one. It is still my brother and it's still my sister and it's still my daughter. I might not feel that emotional feeling because I'm not related, don't know the person from the man on the moon, but that person means a lot regardless of their condition. It means a lot to them. So I think it's important on the other side that people are sensitive. And these are things that I'm repeating or I'm just repeating of things that I have heard, statements that I have heard this morning. Now I'm hearing that you're probably understaffed. Did you just realize this now because of all the publicity surrounding your office or have you been understaffed for a while?
We've been understaffed since I arrived there 17 109 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 years ago. We have less staff now than we did then. I have to work with what I have. I asked for more people.
Okay. I'm going to take that up, the business of staffing. We'll take a closer look at your staffing and your staffing need, but what we heard here today and what I hear from you, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that is it your opinion then that this was an aberration, the Unisha Jefferson case, the Billy Borschell case? The family members wanted to be here this morning, but could not. They cannot get away from their obligations to be here, but we'll bring them in at another time. Billy Borschell was found a few months after his disappearance at the morgue because there was a newspaper story. Are you saying that in both of those cases and also in Ms. Alison Mosley's case that these are just cases that fell through the cracks? There's 110 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 three of them that we know of. We had families that showed up at the Missing Persons Conference. Are you saying that these are just aberrations?
Well, like I said 8 earlier, I mean, even one is too many if 9 it's your family member. 10
We do a lot. 13 There's a lot of identifications. Every 14 identification that goes successfully, no 15 one is going to be calling you to say 16 that things went well, especially in this 17 business that even when things do go 18 well, you're still talking about a very tragic situation for a family. The issue really that's the common denominator is the publicity, and once the publicity got out there, then we were able to make the connection. And when you mentioned race earlier, I want to clarify one point. My 111 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 linking Unisha Jefferson or making the connection that we possibly had her body at the Medical Examiner's Office came from a Daily News article that was on November 11th, and that Daily News article featured a white woman who was from New Jersey. This is a Philadelphia newspaper featuring on the front page a white woman from New Jersey. Unisha Jefferson's, it was a blurb really that was just at the bottom of the third page. I checked every one of those cases. But you could blame the news media for ignoring this and picking a white woman from New Jersey to feature.
We have addressed at the Missing Persons Conference, if your unit that said they were going to be there would have showed up, you would have witnessed a media panel that talked about the involvement of media in this. Here, I am concerned at this time with the response and how the Medical Examiner's Office works and 112 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 to make sure that it works in the way where we can have -- certain things are just inevitable, I agree with you, but to see that in 2003, there were two cases that fell through the cracks last year, the Billy Borschell case fell through the cracks, I'm not sure I'm convinced that these cases fell through the cracks. What I am convinced is that by the testimony of Mr. Mirchandani, that I want to be able to give you the transcript to do fairness to the good doctor, make sure that we get the whole transcript, because he skipped over parts of the transcript and he did not do himself a -- I think he did himself a disservice by not reading the whole transcript, because he has here a plan. And I want to say this for the families that are back there. The Medical Examiner's testimony is actually a pretty good plan of improvements that they will make. Dr. Mirchandani mentioned a few of them briefly, but I want for the 113 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 record -- and we can make available to the families and to the public copies of the testimony that are right here by this table to my left so you have them. In all fairness to them, the Health Commissioner assured me that there would be changes. She assured the public, not to me directly, she assured the public through an apology that there will be some changes made, and I believe that some of these changes will in fact help answer some of the concerns that we've heard here this morning. I know we have other witnesses, but let me -- in your testimony, Dr. Mirchandani, you say that you put together a Medical Examiner's Advisory Committee. Is this something you did or the Health Commissioner did?
It was done about close to ten years ago. We have chaired -- the Medical Examiner Advisory Committee consists of Dr. England, who is a Chairman of the Department of Pathology 114 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 at Drexel and Hahnemann University, and we have a forensic pathologist from St. Luke, Missouri, and we have other people there and funeral directors there that are on the committee. And I think this was -- the changes that we are planning to make or already been made were given to the Chairman of the Advisory Committee, and he's going to give his opinion as to what further we need to do. So we have an outside review of experts in this issue, which will -- I'm sure we'll discuss this case and other cases at a later date, and we'll see whether we can do anything different or better than what we've already done. So we do have an Advisory Committee, and I think it's very useful to have that kind of committee oversee, an outsider, as to what we're doing.
Would you consider having a public person, someone who is not a doctor or an expert or 115 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 trained in the forensic field or medical field, to be on that committee?
Like a public interest person. Maybe one of the families that have gone through this tragic experience to be on that committee.
Absolutely. I would love that. I would be looking forward to that participation of that individual to see if we can get -- that person may have -- an outsider and a layperson sometimes better comes up with better idea than experts itself. I'd like to have that opportunity to have that person on the committee.
David, what's the communication like now that this has become public, particularly due to the cases we've heard from this 116 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 morning? How many times did you communicate with the Missing Persons Unit yesterday with the Police Department? You said this is going to get better. How has it gotten better in the last few weeks or the last few months?
Well, there's a scheduled meeting on Wednesday with our assigned investigator that handles unidentifieds and people where we don't have relatives.
Is this something that you and the Police Department have agreed on?
I also want to add, 117 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 if I may.
You mentioned that there are meetings, neighborhood meetings, where families of missing persons meet. I would like to attend any of those meetings where people have -- or if anyone has someone who is missing, if they can contact me at the office. But if I know when those meetings are going to be, I would certainly be there and get as much information as I can to see, by any chance, if that person is at the Medical Examiner's Office.
Okay. We will continue to pursue it. As I stated before, I was very disappointed. You have this Grief Assistance Program?
I'm sorry about that. The Grief Assistance Program is a separate entity and not directly -- they're associated with the Medical Examiner's Office, but they're not 118 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 really --
Okay. We'll continue to invite you. Because of the way this has taken such a big public interest, that we know that everyone realizes that something has to be improved upon so that this system works for the people that need it. It's such a very difficult time. Dr. Mirchandani, the federal data system, there was a big write-up -- I think it was this one here, this case here, of this database, this DNA database out of Texas. There's a story that is a front-page story of December the 27th and they say that Texas, when it comes to missing persons, is doing a whole lot of different things that other jurisdictions are not doing, but a case that had gone on for over ten years they were able to 119 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 resolve because of this federal DNA database. Are you guys plugged into that? It also mentioned in that article that Pennsylvania had no missing persons in that database. In other words, there was no search going on through this national network. I know you mention in your statement, Doctor, that this is something that you're going to be doing. Can you talk to us a little bit about how this database where there was a feature story in the Daily News can help us make this a better system for us in Philadelphia?
I think that up until now, FBI was keeping a database only of convicted felons, as I said. I think now they're beginning to see the usefulness of having a database on missing persons. I think what we will do -- we have three cases we are talking about, Dave -- that we are going to send them material from my office of the 120 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 portion of the body, if you will, for an analysis of DNA. And any time -- but it is still -- the gold standard would be the plain, simple, not so high tech, which we do, fingerprinting, x-rays and dental records. That is the most -- that's going to be the one that is going to be the most useful. And I think if those fail and we have a tentative identity of a person and we cannot have the medical x-rays or other material from the medical record, then I think DNA would be very useful to do that, to send that material to the FBI and they can do a DNA analysis and match it with the known data that they have. So this will be an additional. If we used it in '94 about DNA -- because we had nothing else to go by. The only thing we had to go by was the DNA, and we did that. And I think we will continue to do that. Absolutely.
If you tell us what you need, if you tell the City 121 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 Council and the executive branch of the government, the Administration, of things that you need additionally, what I want to tell you, to keep an open mind and see if in fact you can go and be able to do some of the things that other places are doing, like in Texas, where you can -- you have a ten-year-old case but because of the Medical Examiner's Office and the personnel still knew about the Alvarado case, that they went and got this system working, that ten years later, although the person had been cremated, they went to the family and said, Yes, the person we cremated is in fact your son, and this brings closure to you. Are you willing to go that extra mile? Because I know what you're saying. There's a basic system, but what's happening in other places that you very much are aware of -- and I want to also include this in the record. Dr. Mirchandani is one of the most respected persons in this field and he's 122 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 highly qualified and he's highly regarded. And the search for La'Toyia Figueroa, this was something that I had no -- and I still have very little knowledge of, but I know of your good reputation. But there's other things that we should be able to expand and do more so that we have fewer cases fall through the cracks, as you have mentioned here today.
Absolutely. I think as you correctly said, one case is too many. I don't even want one case that is unknown and unidentified. And I think as Mr. Quain said, that we will need some -- I think investigators would be a big help, the more people and qualified people, and we can make sure that this never happens again. And I think the Police Department -- I might add, the Police Department have been very gracious and very cooperative in extending the communication between us 123 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 and them so that the Missing Persons Unit is concerned. So we could keep on top of it. Absolutely.
Doctor, in your testimony, you mention that the remains of unidentified persons are 8 currently being held in the morgue. Is 9 an unidentified person the same as an 10 unclaimed body? 11
Identification is the one that we have positive ID who this person is. And the next thing then we can go -- if you know who the person is, was a positive ID, it is Ms. Jane Doe, age, sex, race, then we can go -- only then we can find out who the next of kin is, and then the person would be known person and notified person.
Doctor, do you have another category that are 124 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 unclaimed bodies?
We have, on any given year, about 120 bodies who are either unclaimed, because we've notified the family but the family is not interested -- and that's the vast majority. And of that, there's a subset of people that we haven't been able to find the family.
That's the unidentified. Those are the 12 that you refer to in your testimony?
That out of 100, there's 12 that's unidentified, or is that still a separate category?
There's 120 unclaimed bodies. In that roughly 120 number, there may in one year be three to five that are unidentified.
But you have 12 right now, according to your statement.
That number goes 125 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 back to the year 2000. So in other words, we're incorporating -- we're going back to 2000 and we're going to submit samples for DNA testing back to 2000. And maybe we might even go further back than that.
I'm sorry. I'm giving you yearly numbers. So 120 bodies per year which are unclaimed.
How many unclaimed bodies do you have from 2000, since you used 2000?
100 times six. Have some of these bodies been cremated?
Well, the unclaimed bodies that I'm referring to are the -- 126 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 that 120 is the cremated remains number. So we do 120 city cremations a year.
And you have for this year how many unidentified persons, for this past year? There's 10 here in the testimony, but the 12 goes 11 back to -- 12
The 12 is more than that. There's a Health Department website that has --
So you have from 2002 to 2005 12 unidentified 127 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 persons, right?
Okay. And then there's 120 that were unclaimed that are cremated?
That's all you have in your inventory, right? Those are all the --
Well, we have cremated remains. The ashes, once they're cremated, they come back to us.
We have, going back for years, we have the cremated remains here, or at the Medical Examiner's.
We'll get into that some other time. I think I have enough information before I really get lost here. Give me one second, please. (Pause.) Just a couple more questions, 128 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 then I want to switch over to the Police Department for a few minutes. In the case of the testimony of Alison Mosley, there was a deceased that was discovered in March of '03. The family, because of the nature of the person, did not become aware or got suspicious of his whereabouts until September. So it was only when the family got to work on it that they discovered that Chris Mosley had in fact been found in his room in a decomposed manner in March of '03. Is that a case that also you will classify as falling through the cracks?
I don't recall that case offhand and, quite frankly, I didn't know that that case was going to be discussed today, so I don't recall that, the circumstances offhand, and I can't really comment without looking into the file and seeing what happened in that case. 129 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162
Okay. Thank you so much. At this time, I'll call on Chief Inspector Fox for a statement or testimony. Do you have a prepared statement? INSPECTOR FOX: No. I don't have anything. I was here to answer questions, Councilman.
Please give your name. INSPECTOR FOX: Chief Inspector Joseph Fox, Chief of Detectives, Philadelphia Police Department.
Do you care to make a statement? INSPECTOR FOX: I guess I would like to concur with Dr. Mirchandani in that we've taken what I believe are significant steps forward in trying to fill in the gaps that came to light, especially with the Niecey Jefferson case and a lack of communication. It wasn't so much a lack of communication as it was 130 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 a lack of the correct type of communication and having it formalized and a protocol established, and that has been subsequently done. We met shortly after that case made the news. It was in mid November, I believe, was our first meeting, and the results of that meeting, we've established a protocol where they will send us a list on a monthly basis of all of their unidentified bodies. On a weekly basis, one of their senior investigators will meet with our Long-Term Missing Persons Unit to discuss any cases that may have come in in the meantime before we will get that next report 30 days later. We then take that 30-day report that we get, disseminate that to our Long-Term Missing Persons Unit and to all six of our detective divisions across the City, and that list is then compared against any of their active missing persons cases. And what we're looking 131 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 for there is nothing more than a "it could be," and that would be what we're looking for. And I think that David when he read the story about Niecey Jefferson, it was a "could be" in his mind, and then that led to further efforts to do the forensic testing that needed to be to match and identify that body. And I think that the process that we have set up now will lead us to an opportunity to have that "could be" more often so that further steps can be taken. And then the only other thing that I would like to add to that is the DNA testing. It's my understanding that we have been submitting over the course of the last year or so familial DNA on a limited number of missing persons cases to the FBI's database. The FBI has now set aside a portion of their database for missing persons cases, and we're in the process now -- that's part of our discussions with the Medical Examiner's 132 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 Office as to the best way to go about handling that so that we're actually supplying our input into the same database in hopes to get the results. We don't want duplication of effort. Our piece of that is relatively simple and cheap, because as it stands right now, it's my understanding that an FBI agent physically comes to our Missing Persons Unit, picks up a swab that we've taken from a family member and sealed and submits that right to the FBI lab. So in terms of cost, manpower, time, et cetera, it's limited on our part. I think the time, effort and expense is really going to fall on the Medical Examiner's Office for the submission in their cases. But that's an ongoing discussion between the two departments, and hopefully we'll come to a successful end to that also.
Inspector, how many people work in your Missing Persons Unit? INSPECTOR FOX: Currently, the 133 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 only way I can -- let me put it to you this way: The original missing --
You know why I'm smiling, because I think I heard at the conference, you were there, that you might have only had one person. INSPECTOR FOX: Right. We have had one working on adult cases and one working on juvenile cases, but let me put that in perspective. The original missing persons report is taken by a patrol officer and turned over to the geographical Detective Division where that person lives, and we have six divisions. So while our Long-Term Missing Persons Unit is limited in size, the original cases are assigned to a detective in the Detective Division of occurrence. For snapshot purposes, as of December 29th of '05, we had handled 7,506 missing persons reports. The vast, vast, vast majority -- as a matter of fact, all but 566 of those -- have 134 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 returned, have been returned, been located one way, shape or form. Of those 566, what we do is, we take what we classify as a long-term missing person, which would be greater than 30 days. If somebody is still in that status after a 30-day period, the case is then turned over to the Missing Persons Unit, the Long-Term Missing Persons Unit at Special Victims. So that is the unit that had two officers working, one was working adults and one was working juveniles. That unit, Detective Ortiz's caseload was in the area of 40 to 45 cases at any one time. I personally spoke to her, and she assured me that that was not an unbearable workload on her part. She had much more room that she could handle other cases. A number of the cases are in transit. It's not like on the 31st day they end up on the Long-Term Missing Persons desk. A lot of those cases are in transit, and some of the cases are 135 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 held by the original division for various reasons. A good example would be the Imbo case in South Philadelphia. That's still held by the South Detective Division, Special Investigations Unit. I believe that one of the witnesses who testified here earlier, Mrs. Daniels, that case just got sent to Long-Term Missing Persons because there was still active investigation being done by the original detective division. So the long and the short of it is that we intend to increase the number of people in the Long-Term Missing Persons Unit and continue to work with the Medical Examiner's Office in strengthening the lines of communication there, and I think the combination of those two -- no guarantees. We looked at the Jefferson case. Had we had that list in front of us, had the assigned detective had that list of unidentified bodies in front of her, she may or may not have made that connection. My gut 136 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 tells me she may have -- it would have been a "this could be," much as David Quain did. The other case that you've referred to, the fellow who was -- the family is not here today.
Billy Borschell. I was getting ready to ask you about that, because the report here is that although he had disappeared, I think, in May of last year, some months went by, I guess, four, five months or more. What happened there? INSPECTOR FOX: Well, when you see the description, my understanding of it is is that the description of those remains, in no way, shape or form would a detective have made even a "it could be" out of that kind of a match. I mean, it was just so far gone from what information the detective had in terms of the missing person.
But the report I got, correct me if I'm wrong, was that Billy Borschell was not even 137 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 reported in the Missing Persons Unit. INSPECTOR FOX: He was reported in the Missing Persons Unit. The problem with it is that --
Someone responded that no, I believe. I think someone in the department. INSPECTOR FOX: Well -- and I didn't know what the circumstances were for that. There is a -- you can't enter a missing person into the National Crime Information Center, NCIC, if that person has a warrant or a bench warrant on them. I guess the theory is that if I stop Joe Fox on the street and run him, he's going to come up as "wanted." It doesn't make any difference whether he comes up as "wanted" or a missing person. So to say that the report wasn't there, I think they're alluding to the fact that he wasn't in the computer system, but there was a detective in East Division who was actively pursuing that case. 138 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162
These are things that both in what I hear from you and from the Medical Examiner and David Quain is that these things are being improved upon or being corrected as we speak, that these are things that both on your end, on the Police Department end, and you -- and the Commissioner Johnson reassured us at the Missing Persons Conference that these were things that you were definitely going to address. As a matter of fact, the Commissioner talked about talks with the media, and then I had been doing the same thing, and the media is a bit more involved nowadays on getting this information out there, getting it from you, getting it from you and putting it out there to the public, and I think that's a very positive step. So you don't need any more help in the Missing Persons Unit? You're okay with staffing in the Missing Persons Unit? INSPECTOR FOX: Well, I'm never 139 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 going to say that I'm okay with staffing.
This is your chance now for me to include this in your budget, but you have to prove to me that this is -- if Ms. Ortiz can handle 40 cases -- INSPECTOR FOX: We can always use more detectives, but we did just get a recent round of promotions and --
She's out there, right? INSPECTOR FOX: And we're in the process now of trying to determine the number that we're going to assign to that Long-Term Unit, and that should be done within the next couple weeks.
Okay. I have other questions, but I have kept you here long this morning and into this afternoon. I want the families that are here -- I said this at the Missing Persons Conference -- take advantage that these gentlemen and the lady, the Deputy 140 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 Health Commissioner, is here. Please talk. Continue to communicate. Communication seems to have been a big problem here. And we see that there is an effort from Mr. Mirchandani's office, from Mr. Fox's office. These are public servants that are committed to serve the public and particularly in this area of missing people. They need to hear from you. They're open. They know we all have -- we all are in professions or whatever we do for a living. There's always room for improvement. It is not to destroy or put down the Medical Examiner's Office or the Police Department, but it's to find a way to improve on our public service systems, and that's why I thought that it would be very important for us to come here today and talk about this in an open forum. A lot has come out. I've taken a lot of notes. I'm going to render a report. I still want to speak to Mr. Hall. Mr. Mirchandani, we'll make 141 1/5/06 - PUBLIC HEALTH - RES. 051162 plans. I think I still have to do a public notice before I can bring Mr. Hall in and get the other families that wanted to come here today but could not. But we'll continue to stay in touch with you. If there's anything on your end that City Council, through me or through the Chair or Vice-Chair, can be of assistance to you, please know that you can call on us. So thank you. Thank you all for coming here today. This Committee of Public Health will recess at the call of the Chair. Have a good day. (Committee on Public Health and Human Services adjourned at 12:40 p.m.) - - - 142 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on January 5, 2006, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)