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.)