Man With No Hands /// Part 1 /// 534 | Forensic Files

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murder case is getting fresh attention tonight Kentucky State Police call it 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 watch us with Randolph is here after talking to investigators Walter what do they say
well Paul and Kyle technology has changed immensely since this man was found dead in a barn back in 1989 an
investigators 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 know where he was I
mean he was buried 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 23andMe and
ancestry have emerged that's why KSP is taking a closer look ecology has come so far
um and it's it it it makes our job a little bit easier and you know bottom of the line is is that we want to solve
these cases and we want to bring Justice where Justice is served the DNA dough project will now build a family tree in
hopes of tracking down relatives of the John Doe it is a very 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 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 we get technological advances
some of these old cases will be May in fact uh solve more of these [Music] on Sunday afternoon April 9 1989 around
2 45 in the afternoon farmer C.W 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 an 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 a 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 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 barn wood boards unfortunately we do not know exactly
what happened when he walked into this Barn at 2 45 pm 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 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 many rural areas around these parts to
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 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 a 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 in 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 and statements 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 seven and the hands weren't anywhere to be
found in fact to this every 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 seven hours or so hate 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 choosing 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 they 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 six five that means he's very tall so when I heard that it's
very surprising that he has not been identified I agree three 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 we're 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 at proximately 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 six foot five inches tall and they even break that down saying 77 inches I've seen some
descriptions captain that have the victim listed at 6'4 uh but most generally say six five two
hundred and twenty pounds and as you said that's a key factor in this case here just let that sink in for a bit
this guy was six foot five inches 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 namis and the DNA doe project databases and his case information is listed in VI cap and ncic
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 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 six foot five there's not a ton of people that meet that requirement a couple things
one this individual could have no family members maybe was the only child maybe his parents died younger or possibly
he's from a very small town from a lot further away than around let's say the Kentucky slash
Cincinnati area and so if he went missing and 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 it short and tight basically his hair was in a crew cut with short
well-maintained sideburns as for eye 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 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
6'5 white man around 220 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes there is an FBI VI cap 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 Doe also has a previously healed broken nose and if you
go to fbi.gov click on the vi cap 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 it 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 flat head 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 In Utero crowding this can occur when there are twins or multiples or if the mother has large
fibroids or an abnormally shaped uterus so it's not super likely Captain but given
that information there's a possibility that our 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 causing 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 six foot five inches tall you have
to wonder Captain if the person or persons 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 you're right you have to have those fingerprints on file somewhere to have something to match
them to now you wonder would these with the perpetrators 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 that 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 10-unit 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 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 released 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 Doe 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 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 six foot five
inches tall 220 pounds approximately [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] we're back cheers mates
cheers captain it makes you wonder when the when the dental surgery was done 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'd be coming out of the woodwork saying that's my son
or that's my brother or or whoever it is that's where we come in and we try to help the Kentucky State Police because
like I 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 ear balls 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 didn't 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 who man ever 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 determine 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 two-man job if not more I don't see how look Captain you are a
specimen you are a physical specimen uh Adonis uh and I do not see how one person even of your strength could have
possibly moved a 220 pound dead weight well you have to lift with your legs that distance to the barn 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 Portsmouth Ohio Portsmouth Ohio for a long time has been
a kind of a hub to have opioids and and other drugs and they channel from Portsmouth to
Cincinnati to Columbus for example and so if you were heading from Portsmouth 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 mentioned
Mafia or mentioned the mob do you think that's just because of the severed hands
I think that the severed hand 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 truecrime 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 seven
and a half 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 skillcroft Sheet Metal incorporated Farm property located on Kentucky Route 22
seven and a half miles west of Dry Ridge 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 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 12 TV 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 exit and drove seven 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 uh like bats like big human-sized bats or like the Mothman 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 can shake you up like
what is that and then 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 Mothman right and so yeah I've never been personally
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 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 event 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 them
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 from their car to this
land I mean because if you just bury him in the middle of 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 putting 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 unmarked grave in Dry Ridge 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 sketch that you're going to see when you
come to truecrime 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 looked 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 doesn't really look
like anyone real to me it was in 2016 that a computer-aided 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 our 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 believed 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 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 exacts 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 to me that that would make
the most sense if this individual was shot and then they went through the trouble to hang him from the rap 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 to 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 them 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 entering the barn isn't just
going to clear all those items and find him now now as back to your original question hold on the other thing about
the Tobacco Barn is there's a definite smell from tobacco so maybe maybe they thought if we put them 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 and the last time it was moved so I think maybe they thought okay the tobacco smell will help
cover up the decaying body we we put some stuff onto them to conceal him and maybe it's months before
he's found because I mean you did say his face was badly decomposed 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 C.W 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 Doe 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 well 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 they're the original Corner earlier said quote they hung him 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 eight weeks to properly prepare tobacco for
use 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 individual here they might not come out and check on this tobacco for eight
weeks that gives you a 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 John Doe 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 exhume 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 dnao profile of the
John Doe is isolated from his arm tissue it's then entered into CODIS and 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 is not his of his Limbs and so far they've done their best but to this date
no hits have been obtained now the next step in this case was for the State Police to
arrange for John Doe's DNA profile to be provided to the DNA dough 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 well maybe we can find a relative or a twin of this
individual or a family tree of our John Doe and find out through contacting them
in other scientific measures to figure out who this guy was again I'm of the belief that once they identify our John
Doe it's going to lead you to probably a very short list of suspects one have you
ever heard of the Grateful dough The Grateful dough pretty interesting story The Grateful dough the reason why he was
called grateful dough was he was found wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirt the man was killed in a car accident on June 26
1995 and Greensville County Virginia now his body remained nameless until December 9 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
Tick 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 doe project posted 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 three thousand dollars major funding for this case was provided by
Patty Sullivan 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 dough 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 crowdsource 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 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 vi cap according to the FBI He's listed at six
foot five inches 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 a 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 six foot five inches tall
now if we take that down right let's say that maybe he's listed at six foot four
whoever reported him missing thinks that he's six foot four inches tall there's 110 males that are missing that are six
foot four inches 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 in your reported missing afterwards and then if you take that number and go up to six foot six
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 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 Crime 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 they're at 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 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 this case or the identity
of this individual at all please contact the Kentucky State Police at 859-428-1212 or FBI VI cap at
800-634-4097 foreign [Music] 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 Champaign Illinois on December 11th the show starts at 6 30 and we'll
be doing a meet and greet afterwards at eight o'clock it's at the Blind Pig company and that's in Champaign Illinois
get the tickets at captainfatheands.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 podcasts and the guests
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 enjoy join us back here in the garage next week until then be good be kind and don't let it
[Music] [Applause] foreign

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

Part 1 of 1 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

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 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

The episode discusses the unsolved murder of a man found without hands in Kentucky, focusing on DNA technology and community involvement in solving the case.

Key points

The Case of the Man with No Hands. A mysterious murder case from 1989 resurfaces as detectives seek new leads through DNA technology.
The Mystery of the Barn Discovery. Farmer C.W. Adams discovers a body in his barn, leading to a chilling investigation.
Unidentified Victim's Distinctive Features. The victim had unique dental work and a notably flat head, complicating identification efforts.
Uncovering the Truth. Investigators reveal that the homicide likely occurred elsewhere, not in the barn.
The Mysterious John Doe. A man was found dead in a barn, but his identity remains a mystery.
The Legend of the Barn. Local folklore suggests the victim was found hanging, but is this true?

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He deserved to go back home.

Discussing the unidentified victim's family and the need for closure.

3:53WatchNov 2, 2022

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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