Man With No Hands /// 534 | Forensic Files

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talk some true crime [Music] [Music] a 31-year-old murder case is getting fresh attention tonight Kentucky State
Police call at the case of the man with no hands now this is a rendering of what
the man might look like now detectives are turning to DNA experts in hopes that it will unearth some new leads Walter
Smith Rend off is here after talking to investigators Walter what did they say well Paul and Kyle technology has
changed immensely since this man was found dead in a barn back in 1989 invest tigators hope running his DNA through
genetic systems will give them the answers they've been searching for 31 years have come and gone with no answers
Kentucky State Police want to know who this man is he was found dead with his hands cut off in a Tobacco Barn near Dry
Ridge this is what police told us back in 2017 when the body was exhumed he deserved to go back home his family
deserved to to know where he was I mean he was buried in in Grant County in a Popper's grave with no no headstone back
in 2017 DNA was taken and entered into a federal database but since then genealogy sites like 23 and me and
ancestry have emerged that's why KSP is taking a closer look technology has come
so far um and it's it it makes our job a little bit easier and you know bottom of
the line is is we want to solve these cases and we want to um bring Justice where Justice is served the DNA do
project will now build a Family Tree in hopes of tracking down relatives of the John do it is a very uh peculiar and
just an odd case um you know just the whole circumstance surrounding it and it's why it's been so difficult for us
to to be able to uh make Headway police have previously thought this case may be
connected to the Mob besides this digitally enhanced picture police don't have much to go on since the hands were
removed that's why they're hoping new DNA technology will be the break they need in this case it seems like as we
get technological advances some of these old cases we may in fact uh solve more of
[Music] these on Sunday afternoon April 9th 1989 around 2:45 in the afternoon farmer
CW Adams known as Billy walked into his large barn Adams was a tobacco farmer in
Dry Ridge Kentucky in rural Grant County his farm was located on Route 22 this is
the main road through Dry Ridge called Main Street which runs north to south through the town of Williamstown to Dry
Ridge about four miles apart and in Dry Ridge it turns West and heads out of town into very rural pasture and
farmland and overhead view using Google Maps shows nothing but fields and farmland for miles and miles on either
side of this part of Route 22 this even today captain in 2021 it was out there that farmer Adams
Barn sat on the roadside in 1989 neither Dry Ridge nor Williamstown is exactly Cosmopolitan Dry Ridge is a rural town
with the population in 2010 of just 2100 people located in Grant County ironically although it's named Dry Ridge
the area is known for its mineral water wells which allegedly have healing powers Williamstown is a bit larger with
the population of nearly 4,000 in 2010 it serves as the County Seat but we are still talking about tiny towns that are
off of the beaten path however the Williamstown Dry Ridge downtown area areas are right off of a major
Interstate this is Interstate 75 one of the longest highways in the United States from this area Captain this
general area that we're talking about you could be in Cincinnati in approximately 40 minutes so here we have
farmer Adams who utilizes This Barn for his tobacco Harvest it's quite a large barn the kind made out of old gray
Barnwood boards unfortunately we do not know exactly what happened when he walked into this Barn at 2:45 p.m. on
April 9th and it's never been discussed at all how he found what he found we also don't know when was the last time
that he was inside of this barn and that is a question for obvious reasons that has significant implications given what
Adams was about to find now in the barn Adams found a stack of of items these would be typical items he expected to
find inside of this Barn in a pile but he did not expect to find them in this pile and it was extremely puzzling to
him so he starts removing these items from this pile pulling items from the pile returning them to their intended
locations and then he stopped because under this pile was the body of a large man the large man was naked with no
clothing nearby and Adams could tell that there was no rush to call the paramedics one look at him told him that
this man was beyond help he was dead and had been dead for quite some time the call to the Kentucky State Police came
in at 2:50 p.m. and officers arrived on the scene at 3:15 that afternoon well like you said this is roughly 40 45
minutes away from Cincinnati there's so so many rural areas around these parts it' be a perfect place to dump a victim
yes you're exactly right captain and for me that's what makes it even more confusing as to why the barn was
utilized in the first place but the people out there that are familiar with this story now this is one of our lesser
known stories that we're covering this week but there will be people in the greater Cincinnati area and in the state
of Kentucky that have probably heard of this case before again it's 30 years old
we are trying to identify this homicide victim and the Kentucky State Police have done a good job of keeping this
case in the news throughout the years it's never really made national news though so a lot of people will be
hearing this for the first time but those of you familiar with this case you're probably sitting at home or in
your car or in your garage going wait a second I thought that this guy when they
found him in that Tobacco Barn that he was hanging inside the barn and there are several news articles that
say that that in fact was what was going on but guess what it's simply not true the hanging part of this story is All a
fallacy it never happened at all here is what we know to be true the Kentucky State Police the agency in charge of
this case has released very little information about the whole situation they are honing in on this
case and have been for the last couple of years because new technology is making it a situation where they think
they can identify this guy sooner rather than later so this is very much an active case for the Kentucky State
Police and kudos to them for keeping it not just active in the news and media but also active on their desk right and
an active investigation as far as they're concerned yeah they are fully charged and fully invested in
identifying this homicide victim you can tell by the title of this case that it doesn't need any more hype but you see
that from time to time and different cases where the legend of the case becomes a little more grandiose yes and
this will be a case where we will learn some more information throughout the years today there's still not a lot
known about this case and early on that was certainly the case because the early
articles in state ments about the man found in the barn all say consistently at first that it was not apparent what
had killed this man later they would tell us what in fact killed the man that they found in the barn now early on
though Captain this is because the body itself was very badly decomposed his face was described as not recognizable
due to the level of breakdown of the facial tissues he was estimated to have been dead for at least a week probably
two but the medical examiner was able to determine that the cause of death was two gunshot wounds to the back of the
head his hands had been cut off the wounds to the lower arms at the wrist level indicated to the experienced
medical examiner that the man's hands had been deliberately severed and the hands weren't anywhere to be found in
fact to this very day they have never been located the Kentucky State Police has never revealed any information about
the investigation that took place at the location where the man was found meaning
they've investigated the barn the barn owner the property owners but we don't know what that all entailed and what
their findings were in regard to the barn the barn owner and such we do know that they executed a thorough search of
the barn and the surrounding areas as one would expect in fact we were able to get our hands on the incident report
that indicates that the barn was cleared after 7 hours or so hat to be Captain Obvious but they took the victim's hands
so it'd be harder to identify the victim yes and as we said captain no clothing was found the man in the barn was naked
no clothes no jewelry nothing the man's missing hands were nowhere to be seen well obviously the hands would have
fingerprints and so you could look into a database of those take the jewelry those would be
identifiers take the clothes that would be another identifier shoes even would be identifier and we've seen in some
cases too where people remove Cut skin to remove tattoos which would be identifiers as well according to the
Kentucky State Police and these are their words that Echo what you just said here Captain quote someone had
physically removed them from his arms talking about the hands continuing on they say fingerprints were a large part
of technology in that time we still utilize it today but they they were very limited the implication was that whoever
had cut off the man's hands did so in order to keep his identity a secret and so far here we sit all these years later
and it has worked well when you read the description of this man one thing that jumps out is he's
65 that means he's very tall so when I heard that it's very surprising that he has not been identified I agree captain
and that sets off some red flags for me because here we are more than 30 years later the man with no
hands no identifying personal possessions or marks and with no recognizable facial
features were sitting here going who the man in the barn was remains a mystery and all investigators had to go on to
identify him was that limited physical description of his remains which is as follows age they put his age
approximately in his 30s generally believed to be somewhere in the range of 25 to 35 years of age he's described as
a white male height 6' 5 in tall and they even break that down saying 77 in I've seen some descriptions captain that
have the victim listed at 64 uh but most generally say 65 220b and as you said that's a key factor
in this case here just let that sink in for a bit this guy was 6' 5 in that is an exceptionally large human being a
missing person's report of a missing man of that size would be fairly easy to connect to a victim right but we can
tell you that although this physical description of the Grant County John Doe as some have called him has been entered
into namus and the DNA do project databases and his case information is listed in vicap and NCC he has never
been identified and it is believed by the investigators and I share that opinion as well that there is
no missing persons report rep that was ever filed on him and if there was it's never been able to be a report that the
Kentucky State Police have been able to get their hands on or their eyeballs on because 6'5 there's not a ton of people
that meet that requirement a couple things one this individual could have no family members maybe was an only child
maybe his parents died younger or possibly he's from a very small town from a a lot further away than around
let's say the Kentucky SL Cincinnati area and so if he went missing in like Washington State or something in a very
small town maybe they're not connecting the dots that their son that maybe that their son ended up in a barn in Kentucky
let's see what else we know about this guy from a physical standpoint uh his head still had plenty of hair on it
enough to tell investigators that he wore short and tight basically his hair was in a crew cut with short
well-maintained sideburns as for ey color that is listed in every source that I've been able to
see States unknown this seems likely because after death circulation of oxygen to the eyes and frankly
everywhere else ceases so the pupils dilate and the cornea becomes opaque the eyes obtain a distinct blue white Haze
over their surf surface which can obscure the true eye color of the deceased individual in any event Grant
County John Doe his eyes are of unknown color so that does not help to identify him well this report says he's 65 white
man around 220 lbs with brown hair and brown eyes there is an FBI vicap alert poster relating to the Grant County John
Doe which contains more information about his appearance besides the estimated height and weight and brown
hair the poster notes that the Grant County John do also has a previously healed broken nose and if you go to
fbi.gov click on the vicap tab there you'll be able to find a list of unidentified remains that they have
listed on the FBI website the victim also had something that I'm not going to try to pronounce here not in the garage
I'm never going to try to pronounce a captain I'm going to spell it out it's p l a g i o c e p h a l y so this is also
known as Flathead syndrome per the Stanford Health Website this is not something that is
genetic but can be caused by a few different things one is a muscle tightness on one side of the neck so
when the person is a baby they prefer holding the head to one side or in one position while lying down which then
results in that side of the head flattening over time it could be a result of prematurity you know we have
skull bones that are softer than full term babies and they tend to move their heads less often again the head would
flatten while lying in the same position for long amounts of time it also could be a result of inudo crowding this can
occur when there are twins or multiples or if the mother has large FIB boids or an abnormally shaped uterus so it's not
super likely Captain but given that information there's a possibility that R John Doe may have a twin out there or
had a twin at one time yeah you can actually get a plastic surgery for this condition this is also when you hear
about doctors wanting to put a baby into a helmet that's normally because this condition is getting worse and they can
correct it by having the child wear a helmet for a certain period of time now there's two kind of versions of this one
where the back of the head is flat and where the head is misshaped it seems like his version is the one where your
head would be flat on an area but not on the back of the head so caused in his skull to be like misshaped but we're not
doctors we're just two dumb guys that sniff gasoline in the garage so of course we have no idea which of these
factors are the case here for our man with no hands but the key thing is to know that this would be an identifier
for somebody out there his skull was flattened enough to be noted on the physical description of him utilized by
law enforcement and missing persons organizations the Kentucky State Police have said quote he had a particularly
shaped head a flat head the back of his head was flat that's specific if someone
is trying to identify him end quote again I can't get over the fact that nobody's identified this individual when
he's 6' 5 in tall you have to wonder Captain if the person or person which I think is probably more likely
persons responsible for leaving him in this Barn if they knew that he would in fact be identified by fingerprints not
everybody out there walking around on this planet or in this country or even the state of Kentucky have been
fingerprinted right you have to have those fingerprints on file somewhere to have something to match them to now you
wonder would these would the perpetrator here know or have suspicion to believe that he would be would have been
fingerprinted at some point either because he was arrested or locked up or there are many jobs that require you to
go and get fingerprinted or a thorough background check to be able to work in that position or work with that company
I can't find it in the reports that I've looked at but was there a toxicology report done
my guess is yes um but we don't have that information they're keeping that information to themselves well hang on
just a minute here Captain because we have something else that could help with possibly identifying this individual so
we have what they State this is the final piece I would say of the physical description of our John Doe it's said he
had distinctive dental work so according to the FBI it was expensive and extensive specifically when our victim
was alive he had a quote Perfect Smile the dental work included a 10un porcelain fixed porcelain to Metal
Bridge with missing teeth replaced with porcelain pontics I believe is how you say that this is a word that I had not
heard before but thanks to uh an internet search I know that pontic is an artificial tooth attached to a fixed
Dental prosthesis basically it's a fake tooth that looks real and looks really good and it's permanently attached there
is something else that we know and you were dancing on this Captain is that we know how he died as we said that the
shots that killed this individual were two to the back of the head and one thing that they have leas is that it
came from a 22 caliber weapon so to recap real quick we have a John Doe that was found naked in a barn on Kentucky
Route 22 outside of Dry Ridge Kentucky John do was found shot in the back of the head capped twice execution Style
with a 22 his hands were cut off to evade identification he was hidden under a bunch of barn items or things that would
be stored in this Barn he had had a broken nose and his teeth had been replaced at some point with pricey fakes
he had a crew cut and he was a very large man 6' 5 in tall 220 lb [Music] [Music]
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Captain it makes you wonder when the when the dental surgery was done mhm because maybe again like I said this guy
has family members maybe they passed on maybe he had some dental issues and then had
them recently taken care of and and so he would have been the one responsible for this if it was done when he was a
little bit younger that makes you wonder if somebody cared so much about him to make sure that he had a perfect
smile you you would think somebody wouldd be coming out of the woodwork saying that's my son or or that's my
brother or whoever it is that's where we come in and we try to help the Kentucky
State Police because like I said said I couldn't find a situation where this is nationally known news or information
yeah it's on fbi.gov it's on some other websites and if you go search around the
internet you're going to find information on this case or little news Clips but this is not something that I
think everybody was aware of and when you have a situation where this guy very likely is not from anywhere near the
immediate area if the right information doesn't hit the right person's earballs or eyeballs then we have a situation
where they can't go well that was my son or that was my brother or whomever now the other thing too that's difficult is
we Circle back to a missing person's report right why don't we have a missing person's report of somebody that's this
height and this weight again it's it's not normal for people to be this large and my mind starts to go to the idea of
well maybe this guy did originate from this country and is there a chance that he wasn't here very long before whatever
happened to him happened right right this homicide for whatever reason went down is there a chance that he wasn't
here very long and Mom and Dad brother and sister or any of his close relatives are just simply not in this country to
to say that he's missing maybe they've told whomever someplace else we've not heard from him we've not heard from our
son or our brother or our cousin in all these years and so I'm sure they're worried about what has happened to him
and that's why the Kentucky State Police want so badly to identify him for a multitude of reasons one to tell his
family hey we found we got bad news but we found your loved one furthermore we want to seek some justice for this guy
we have no idea who the suspects can be when we don't even know who the victim is now one piece of information that has
been disclosed that I find to be very interesting is that the Kentucky State Police has stated publicly that the man
found in the barn was killed elsewhere we don't know because they've not given us the details of such how they
determined this but we can deduce that they were probably able to determine that he was not shot in the barn because
there was no gunshot spatter there was no shells there was no residue or large amounts of blood found in the barn
itself right so that seems pretty pretty simple but presumably if none of this is
found it's telling investigators that the murder and mutilation did not go down in the barn and again this is
interesting because remember he's a large man if he was already dead when he was placed in this Tobacco Barn as
opposed to being forced to walk into the barn and then being shot then it would almost certainly have required two
people to transport him in a vehicle and then move the body into the barn right it's
my opinion I think it's safe to say that this was likely a Twan job if not more I
don't see how look Captain you are a specimen you are a physical specimen Adonis uh and I do not see how one
person even of your strength could have possibly moved a 220 lb dead weight well
you have to lift with your legs that distance to the Bone well when they mentioned that it could possibly be mob
related I I'd also throw out the idea of maybe a cartel or something because now
go with me on this Theory it it might be a little far-fetched but if you look at
the distance between Williamstown and Portsmith Ohio Portsmith Ohio for a long time has been
a kind of a hub to have opioids and and other drugs and they channel from Portsmith to Cincinnati to Columbus for
example and so if you were heading from Portsmith to Cincinnati and something happened once you shoot off one of those
main roads you would find Williamstown it's interesting to me that they mention Mafia or mention the mob do you
think that's just because of the severed hands I think that the severed hands certainly has something to do with it
but I think that there's probably a lot of factors and I'm with you I don't I think that they're using the the term
mob related and again I want I want to be clear to everybody out there in listener land they're saying possibly
they're not locked in or married to this idea that it has to be mob related but I
feel like mob is a bit of a blanketed statement that could mean any cartel any kind of organization working on the down
low organized crime it could be related to that why again you got to go back to the fact that this guy does not appear
to have been reported missing at any time it looks like whoever is responsible for this they either a knew
what they were doing or B did a really good job doing it for the first time well this is definitely one of the cases
that we've covered and maybe top of the list where when I see the picture that they've done of this victim how lifelike
it is I believe if we can get enough listeners to share this story and to share his
picture all over the Internet somebody will come forward and identify this man after 30 years of not being identified
well and that's why I wanted to feature this case and feature it for the Kentucky State Police because again they
are very much invested in finding out who this individual was and I think that Captain maybe we can push this story a
little further than what they've been able to do in their years of hard work and effort but I think maybe we might
have the ability to reach some more people at a greater distance that they've been able to reach I will be
taking his image and put it on our Instagram Twitter Facebook at True Crime garage it will also be front and center
on our website at true Crim garage.com now it's never been published what the exact address or location of
the barn was all the reports simply say that it's located about 7 and 1 12 miles
west of Dry Ridge Kentucky and the police report that we were able to get our hands on which it's a very limited
report it's a single page says that the victim was found inside a Tobacco Barn on skill Croft Sheet Metal incorporated
Farm property located on Kentucky Route 22 72 Mi west of dryridge now we were able to do a little further digging and
confirm the exact location of the barn so it's located at 8100 Taft Highway if you follow Route 22 on the map West from
Dry Ridge you can see the rural nature of the location of this large out building it seems unlikely even almost
impossible that some someone from out of town would stumble on this location and
select this one Barn in the middle of nowhere at random as a reporter on local 12tv news station pointed out quote
whoever killed this John Doe went to a lot of trouble to hide his dead body he wasn't killed at the barn so someone
likely drove Interstate 75 south or Interstate 75 North took the Dry Ridge at exit and drove 7 miles out of town to
pick out the barn I directed horror films I would use tobacco Barns and all my movies I think they're absolutely creepy
looking they almost look like there's a like bats like big humanized bats or like the moth man is like hanging upside
down if you don't know what a Tobacco Barn looks like the first time you see one in person it it can shake you up
like what is that and once they explain it to you obviously it makes a lot more sense but it really looks like almost
these giant bats are hanging from the ceiling yeah tobacco leaves are large and nobody really likes bats but
you do not want to encounter a large group of really big ones right or moth men right and so yeah I've never been
person been inside of a real life Tobacco Barn but I've seen them on TV and seen the
tobacco leaves hanging from the rafters and I get a good idea of what you're talking about here Captain yeah the
first time I came across when I was going on to my buddy's farm land and I parked the car and it was it just became
dark and all you could see is these things in the barn kind of swaying back and forth and from a distance I was like
are those bats or birds or or maybe even like deer carcasses just hanging like I
I couldn't tell what they were uh from that distance and like I said in the dark here's the thing for me and while
we're on the subject of the barn TV images of This Barn show that it is a very large out building it's very close
to the road in fact I would say almost right next to the road yeah it's not far the road is a small two-lane roadway
winding through the countryside and pasture land if someone was looking for a structure to place the body in well
then this Barn would kind of just jump out at you gotcha because it's very visible but to me that begs the question
why inside of the barn and why this Barn there are plenty there's plenty of land
around there hundreds of thousands of Acres where a body might never be found and look take this an extra step here
clearly when they're removing the hands they don't want their victim to be identified why because identification of
this victim probably leads the authorities directly to the killer or Killers would be my guess and I'm
guessing captain that Kentucky State Police that's why they're holding back so much information in this case because
they know that or believe that to be true as well so why if you're so concerned about this
man the victim being identified why Place him in a barn and then pile up a bunch of barn [ __ ] on top
of this guy why wouldn't you take him out in the middle of nowhere and bury him you know what I mean it seems to me
like that would be more likely or do we have a situation where there is reason that he was in that Barn that it has
something to do with with persons close to the perpetrator or the perpetrators themselves again we know that the owner
Barn owner property owner everybody was looked at and investigated but we don't know what the finding or the results of
that in investigation was well a couple things here were they trying to frame somebody or cast suspicion on somebody
else I get what you know I'm picking up what you're putting down but we're also again there's they're saying 220 he
might have been a little heavier but he's a big boy like you said it's close to the road
if you have two individuals we can put him in this Barn try to conceal him that's going to give us a little extra
time taking his clothes severing the hands this is going to give us even more time but how far would they be able to
carry this individual MH from their car to this land I mean because if you just bury them in the middle of a a field the
farmer is going to see that he's going to say well what the hell happened here so maybe they thought by put him in the
barn that's close to the road we can conceal him because a lot of times when we we have these victims that can be
identified very quickly they're discarded on the side of the road like trash and in an open field for somebody
to come along and identify that it's even a body quickly well and I'm putting down what you're picking up here Captain
so after the autopsy was done on our John Doe he was buried in an UNM marked grave and dry Rich where he was say
buried for the next 28 years now in 2017 there was a renewed push to identify him
a sketch of his face was done by a forensic artist now this is not the the sketch that you're going to see when you
come to True Crim garage.com because there's been advancements on the sketch the original sketch was prepared in 2009
and this showed what his face was estimated to have look like before it was decomposed now that black and white
image showed a man with a smile very straight white teeth prominent cheekbones and a crew cut it's a
distinctive face in that sketch but it's a drawing it's so it it doesn't really look like anyone real to me it was in
2016 that a computer AED image the one that you will see when you go to True Crime
garage.com was prepared and this was based on bone structure of are John Doe so this is a digitally enhanced image
that looks much more like a black and white photograph right it shows a more menacing looking man some have said with
a very square jaw a broad face and broken nose notably reports accompanying the release of this sketch included that
the John Doe had brown eyes like you pointed out there captain and that was the first to my knowledge that they were
indicating what they beli the eye color of this man was so obviously when they find a man with no hands I mean that
perks the ears up right mhm what what about more of this urban legend of of him being him hanging from the barn yeah
that was kind of the story in the beginning and it seems like that story has survived a little bit over the
decades that have passed that when his body was located he was found hanging inside the barn which we pointed out at
the top of the show is just frankly not true and we know this based off of again
Kentucky State Police they're holding a lot of information close to the vest here and kudos to them because I think
they're going to identify this guy sooner rather than later so I don't blame them for doing so and they were
very helpful when we reached out to them they basically said look we can answer a
couple questions but we can't go into great detail on some of the things that we know
they did confirm however that he was not hanging in the barn they did confirm that the one report that we found that
said he was inside the barn found underneath a pile of barn type items right that that is in fact true that and
I don't know what these items were there's no description ever given I don't know if these are seed sacks or
hay bales or or what have you or Farming tools nut sacks could be any number of things including lots of nut sacks but
they were able to confirm that for us so thank you to the Kentucky State Police now well hold on a second because this
individual was shot twice in the head yes so if he was hanging to me you're trying to make a statement right but he
he wasn't he simply wasn't right he was which makes sense because you would not take that
individual's you would not sever his hands if you're trying to make a statement because you'd want people
to know that you did this to this individual uhhuh to me that that would make the most sense if if this
individual was shot and then they went through the trouble to hang him from the ra Rafters in a Tobacco Barn it's to
make a statement and so the fact that they try to cover up this individual to me it's again just another step to cover
up his identity and like you said that's probably going to lead them to his killer his identity is probably going to
lead him to somebody that is going to stick out like a sore thumb it's even I mean the the placement of the body makes
zero sense to me not that see it doesn't doesn't make zero sense to me not that it shouldn't not that it should make any
sense to me but the thing is like why Place him in the barn if you do why go to the extra effort of piling all these
items on top of him it's not like whoever's going entering the barn isn't just going to clear all those items and
find him now as back to your original question hold on the the other thing about the Tobacco Barn is there's a
definite smell from tobacco so maybe maybe they thought if we put him in this barn and we put some stuff over him look
we all know buddies that have like big Barns and they know every item in that barn and where it was moved in the last
time it was moved so I think maybe they thought okay the tobacco smell will help
cover C up the decaying body we we put some stuff onto him to con conceal him and maybe it's months before he's found
because I mean you did say his face was badly decomposed mhm so that makes me wonder what well was he killed somewhere
else and left somewhere else for a while and then they moved the body or was the
decomposition done with inside that Tobacco Barn that's a great question and that's why at the top of the show I
brought up the fact of we don't know the last time that this CW Adams went into the barn that would be really
interesting to know number one and again it would be interesting to know people were probably scratching their heads
going why does the colonel care so much it would be interesting to know what items were piled on top of this John do
because again I would think it would be it would just be even more obvious to the individual entering the barn that
hey there's something there these items have been moved where you could again we're kind of speculating and spinning
our tires here I just wonder if you could have delayed the discovery of John Doe even further by just placing him in
a dark corner somewhere in this barn but as you pointed out so astutely there we
don't know it could be the fact that this guy was placed in there relatively quickly after he was killed and just not
discovered for weeks or months and that the decaying process took place inside the barn but cing back to your your
original question here Captain is where I think that the folklore the local legend of the man in the barn being
found hanging in the barn I think it came from the original coroner who referenced John Doe as possibly being
hung because we have his comments that are to me reason to believe that the whole myth of the uh right man hanging
came from him so my best guess here again we don't have the autopsy to confirm this it's not available anywhere
but my best guess here is that there's a chance that they may have found some kind of ligature Mark or maybe even some
kind of ligature still on John Doe's neck their the original coroner earlier said quote they hung him which which we
know based off of the information from the police is not true so you wonder then was there an attempt to strangle
this man before he was eventually shot yeah or he could have got into a altercation with the individual he's
choking the individual he's being choked by the murderer the guy pulls out a gun
puts two in his head and goes well his hands were around my throat I need to sever his hands so they take the
whatever DNA off but back to like you said when would this farmer be in the barn last this is why I think it's not a
bad dumping part drying tobacco is is kind of a curing process which can take between three and 8 weeks to properly
prepare tobacco for use mhm so if you know that and maybe you know more about what tobacco looks like when it's
freshly hung that you would know hey if I put this individ ual here they might not come out and check on this tobacco
for 8 weeks that gives you quite a bit of Head Start exactly I'm just of the belief and I'm I could be very wrong
here I think if this guy was local if our joh do was local even remotely local yeah I agree that they would have they
would have been able to connect him to some kind of missing person or or otherwise we do have to point out some
of the more recent movement on this case and this comes back from uh 2017 when they decided to exume the body
of our John Doe and what they did here Captain was they severed his arms above the elbows and then sent the detached
limbs to the FBI's laboratory this is to serve a two-fold purpose one there are hopes that the FBI can determine what
type of implement was used to cut off his hands by examining the limbs for Tool marks and so on the other is for
the purpose of DNA extraction the arms sent to the FBI would contain DNA Rich material that will provide a genetic
profile of this victim and once the DNA profile of the jondo is isolated from his arm tissue it's then entered into
codus a database of criminal offenders and missing persons that did not exist in 1989 when his body was located they
might be able to pull DNA that's not his off off his Limbs and so far they've done their best but to this date no hits
have been obtained now the uh next step in this case was for the the state police to
arrange for John Doe's DNA profile to be provided to the DNA do project to commence the forensic genealogy
process so if we can't find a match directly to him in any of the databases using his DNA which we now have did not
have in 1989 they're hoping that now will maybe we can find a relative or a twin of this
individual or a family tree of AR John do and find out through contacting them and other scientific measures to figure
out who this guy was again I'm of the belief that once they identify AR John do it's going to lead you to probably a
very short list of suspects well have you ever heard of the Grateful dough The Grateful dough pretty interesting story
The Grateful doe the reason why he was called grateful do was he was found wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirt the man
was killed in a car accident on June 26 1995 in Greensville County Virginia now his body remained nameless until
December 9th 2015 and eventually his mom came forward because and and this is all stemmed from
computer generated images of Jason and so once they were able to put those out on Facebook his mother was able to come
forward and say that was my son he actually went missing he went missing because he went to follow the Grateful
Dead and then was killed in this car accident and then his body remained nameless like I said but it was all
solved through social media so as much as they're trying to do very good work on this case I think the best chance we
have look I really believe that the True Crime Community can get behind this case
share his image share his image on Facebook Instagram Twitter Tik Tock let's get this guy identified let's send
this guy home yes crowdsourcing can be a powerful and important tool in these types of Investigations and so can the
science as well and I'm glad to report to everyone that in June of 2021 the DNA do project post
in regard to this very case that the they have funded the case they were fundraising to raise funds to be able to
do some of the work on this case their goal was $3,000 major funding for this case was
provided by Patty solivan and they were able to reach that goal so a big thank you to Patty Sullivan and all of the
other donors that contributed to the DNA doe project for not just the Grant County John Doe case but all of the
others so what does this mean it means that they have secured sufficient funding to pay for the forensic
genealogy process in the Grant County John Doe case so now while they run their investigation and their forensic
genealogy process we can crowdsource His Image CR Outsource his information which that stuff is still
information that's needed anyway even if you even if we're able to link him to a
family tree or figure out who this guy was we need to know as much about him as possible again I think it's going to
lead to a short list of suspects once he is in fact positively identified one thing I want to point out though Captain
when we're talking about crowdsourcing and one thing that that you hit on right from Jump Street here is again the
height of this individual is very important that separates him from a lot of other potential unidentified
individuals or even missing persons that there were reports filed for so the vicap according to the FBI He's listed
at 6'5 in tall just to give everybody a bit of reference in the power of that little
piece of information I went on to the Charlie projects website to look at known individuals that have been
reported missing and with the simple search of typing in John Doe's height the return was Zero that there were zero
missing males according to the Charlie project that are listed at 6 foot 5 in tall now if we take that down right
let's say that maybe He's listed at 6'4 whoever reported and missing thinks that
he's 6'4 in tall there's 110 males that are missing that are 6'4 in tall some of
them the majority of them in fact the overwhelming majority of them have been reported missing after this guy's body
was found in that Barn so it cannot be them well it could be them because somebody goes missing and you reported
missing afterwards and then if you take that number and go up to six foot 6 inches tall there are just 14 males that
are listed on the Charlie projects website so again that's a powerful piece of information in this case a powerful
piece of information in this case will be what they believe he looked like his likeness that we now have that computer
image of and it's very detailed in my opinion the captain's going to put it on the website and you'll be able to check
that out at true Crim garage.com now the question is could be why bother with this at all right
there's a lot of work going on in this 30-year-old case there are plenty of recent homicides that are unsolved why
push this to solve this one from 1989 now some members of law enforcement involved in this case have commented
directly on that per Fox 19 News quote there's some family somewhere they're wondering where their Uncle their son
their brother where their and they deserve to have that peace of mind this is a quote from the Kentucky State
Police and it goes on to say we are very hopeful that we are going to get a match
we don't have any family to contact it's really sad the family they never had that peace of mind there's someone out
there who's missing a son or an uncle or a dad and as you pointed out Captain the
Kentucky State Police share and Echo your words exactly they say he deserves to go back home his family deserves to
know where he is he was buried in a Popper's grave with no headstone yeah so it's a pretty simple call to action if
you can share this image with friends and family if you can share it on social media I think we might be able to make a
difference in this case and I want to take this just a step further right because of course it's not just for
Humane or sentimental reasons that we want to identify the Grant County John Doe we True Crime garage want to
identify him and remind everybody out there that this guy was murdered someone murdered him and that murderer has
gotten away with it for decades now that we have the ability to use modern science to provide answers no matter how
old the crime is it's a worthwhile undertaking to try to bring closure to families and justice to the victims no
matter how old their cases may be well and I think we both agree with him being such a large individual there's probably
more than one individual responsible so it's two or more bags of [ __ ] that need
to be held responsible for this heinous crime so please take a minute to go to our website truecrime garage.com look at
this individual to see if you can help if anybody out there listening has any information on on this case or the
identity of this individual at all please contact the Kentucky State Police at 859
4281 1212 or FBI vicap at 800 6344 [Music] 97 thank you guys so much for joining us
here in the garage if you'd like to have an evening with me the captain you can do so in Champagne Illinois on December
11th the show starts at 6:30 and we'll be doing a Mee and greet afterwards at 8:00 it's at the Blind Pig company and
that's in Champagne Illinois get the tickets at Captain fat hands.com Colonel do we have any recommended reading this
week this week we got a little recommended listening check out the Beyond bizarre True Crime podcast this
is a weekly podcast with a different guest host or host each week coming from the world of True Crime podcast and the
guest select the case and tell you about this truly bizarre case in their own style and news flash here the old
captain and Colonel well we hosted last week so make sure you check out the Beyond bizarre True Crime podcast
wherever you get your podcast and join us back here in the garage next week until then be good be kind and don't
[Applause] litter you can start your day off right when you find a professional on Angie to get
your plumbing right first connect with skilled professionals to get all your home projects done well
visit angie.com you can do this when you Angie that

Man With No Hands /// Part 1 /// 534

Part 1 of 1

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This week we offer some assistance in an ongoing murder investigation and we are asking for your help. On Sunday, April 9, 1989 a farmer discovered the body a male murder victim inside a barn in rural Grant County, Kentucky. The man was shot and killed and his hands were removed. Kentucky State Police need our help to identify this victim. The male victim is described as caucasian, 6 foot 4 or 5 inches tall and approximately 230lbs. He has brown hair and extensive dental work. Computer enhanced photos of this man and what he MAY have looked like are available on our website www.TrueCrimeGarage.com (http://www.truecrimegarage.com/) and the Garage’s twitter and instagram. Anyone with information should contact Kentucky State Police at 859-428-1212 or FBI VICAP at 800-634-4097.

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Brief Summary

A 1989 murder case of an unidentified man in Kentucky is revisited, focusing on DNA technology and efforts to solve the mystery.

Key points

The Man with No Hands. A 31-year-old murder case is getting fresh attention as detectives turn to DNA technology for new leads.
New DNA Technology. Kentucky State Police are utilizing advanced DNA technology to solve a cold case from 1989.
The Mystery Deepens. Despite being 6' 5" and having distinctive features, the unidentified man remains a mystery.
The Dental Clue. The victim had expensive dental work, hinting at a life before his death.
The Mystery of John Doe. A man found dead in a barn raises questions about his identity and the circumstances of his death.
The Barn's Secrets. The location of the body in a barn raises suspicions about the killer's intentions.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It makes our job a little bit easier.

Detective discussing new DNA technology.

5:18WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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