WARNING: this post contains photography that some might find disturbing!
One of my readers alerted me to a case of an unidentified man with zero media attention. I have not plowed through all newspaper archives yet as I’d normally do, however, I am posting it in hopes that others can start sharing it.
What do we know?
From the Canadian Government’s Missing Persons Page comes the following.
“On July 18, 1989 a Caucasian male collapsed on the sidewalk on Yonge Street south of Front Street and was taken to St. Michael’s Hospital, where he died without regaining consciousness.” The cause of death could not be established.
Identifiers
Our victim is a white male, approx. 50-60 years old, and he was 5’4″ tall weighing 152 lbs. His short hair was greying, the colour of his eyes was brown, dark bushy eyebrows, and his beard was several days old.
He still had his appendix but there was a scar on his lower abdomen, not sure of the exact location.
There was evidence of brain surgery on the right-sided frontal craniotomy. This means that a part of the bone was removed from the skull to access the brain. “Craniotomies are performed for brain lesions or traumatic brain injury, to implant deep brain stimulators for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy and cerebellar tremor.” How old this scar is was not listed on the website.
The man did not have lower teeth but did wear dentures on the upper jaw. I’d like to know if any dentures were found in the area where this man collapsed.
It is unknown whether there are fingerprints and DNA isn’t listed but as we had his remains, there might be DNA on file somewhere.
There is no information listed about the clothes the man was wearing, his shoes, whether he was appropriately dressed for the season, whether he carried anything in his pockets, no mention of jewelry or anything else.
So, who found this man, who called for an ambulance, how much time passed from the collapse to the arrival time of the ambulance, who remained with the victim until the ambulance arrived, did the man say anything at all, etc.
Contact Information
If you have any information that can help the authorities identify this man, please call the OPP Missing Persons and Unidentified Bodies Unit at 1-877-934-6363. His file number is MPUB-20060002.
Rest in peace, Toronto John Doe 1989.