Home > Crime > Milwaukee Using Real Images Of Unidentified Dead To Help Solve Cold Cases

Milwaukee Using Real Images Of Unidentified Dead To Help Solve Cold Cases

January 5, 2012 at 12:22 pm by Morbid

Milwaukee, WI – Milwaukee has joined Las Vegas as the only two U.S. cities who have a website featuring the real pictures of their unidentified dead.

They hope this will help them solve some of their cold cases instead of just relying on sketches and those creepy clay models that leave you standing in the furthest depths of uncanny valley.

If the site of dead adults, infants and fetuses in varying states of decay are your thing, then head on over to the Milwaukee medical examiner’s unidentified persons site and take a gander. For those of you with weak stomachs, let me warn you as these are the real deal and some of it is fascinasty™.

But no worries if you accidentally click the link, as your desktop won’t immediately be flooded with images of bloated corpses. Forensic investigator Michael Simley is aware of the sensitive nature of the photographs and places more than enough warnings on the site before you actually get to the meat.

Smiley is also aware of how desperate this seems, but says that in the 17 cases featured, they have simply run out of options. Since sketches and clay composites can be inaccurate (and creepy as hell), he decided the actual photos were a necessity.

“Nothing quite describes a face like a picture of a face,” he said. Even if the face belonged to someone who had been floating face-down in the Milwaukee River for three months.

“They were born with a name, and they deserve to have that name in death,” Simley said.

Tags: Cold Case, Crime, Jane Doe, John Doe, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

76 Comments

Comments

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Anonymous

So this “die young and leave a good-looking corpse” stuff is bullshit, right?

Fascinasty™… You’re so lucky you tm’ed that, man.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XKMAEMPVJ5T2Y35HKYTNG7I6SY Cedric

““They were born with a name, and they deserve to have that name in death,” Simley said.”

Simley is correct.
Prominent Prozac

“Before you actually get to the meat”…Breakfast down, I’m good to not eat..for the rest of the week.

Thanks for helping with my diet Morbid.
Prominent Prozac

Yeah true, I’ll go look just incase…OH GOD, SIMLEY WAS WRONG, HE WAS WRONG, DON’T CLICK THE LINK…Just kiddin’, go ahead.

(Edit; Okay now that I’m on there looking through it..Really don’t do it)
Anonymous

I’ve seen that clay composite on the food network talking about EVOO .
Anonymous

interesting. not to be morbid – since i clearly am not - but it’s like the state-run unclaimed property sites. …in a way.

also, i expected a simple photo gallery. the supporting information was a surprise. if they tied a reward or some accolade to identifying those folks, they might get some added traction from third parties.
LeaveMeBe

“…before you actually get to the meat.”

I spewed iced coffe out of my nose! LOL!

And I’ll be having a veggie sandwich for lunch now, if you please.
Anonymous

I’m gonna wait until I get home. No need for the IT folks here at work that monitor my computer activity to think I’m some kind of weirdo.
http://www.dreamindemon.com Morbid

I even Googled to make sure Fascinasty™ wasn’t taken.
Anonymous

When I was younger, my dad told me that necrophilia runs in our family and while looking at those pictures I felt it twitch.
Gee

Oh stop it LeaveMeBe… Your a damn meat lover and you know it. By noon you will be craving the meat
LeaveMeBe

You’re right. I’m starving so I’m headed out for a California club from Thundercloud Subs. Turkey, bacon, guacamole and provolone! Woot!
dirty byrdie

i saw this yesterday on yahoo, of course i had to look, wasnt nearly as bad as i thought i would be..but then again i got to see what my inlaws bedroom looked like after then decided to take their lives with a gun so yeah…
Anonymous

your comment made me realize that one distinct advantage of using forensic clay models is that it would be possible to use them to reenact the last moments of the person’s life for the purposes of identification by potential witnesses. mr. bill meets csi…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k78TVkbrHHM
Prominent Prozac

You’re on DD..it’s way to late.
Prominent Prozac

If that was true, it’d explain so much about you
http://www.facebook.com/people/Shannon-Bennett/1803988499 Shannon Bennett

I’m not sure if anyone can identify the person in some of those pictures … Hopefully the site can help bring closure to people.
Anonymous

I was hoping to see my ex-wife in the line up, damm !
Anonymous

Me too!
Anonymous

I really think it might be my favorite word ever. Morbid wins the Sniglet award.
Anonymous

Your IT folks actually monitor your activity? Suck.
Anonymous

That needs to be a web site. It would be far better than Stick Figure Theater and that had a following.
Anonymous

I bet that was a fucked up vultures and flys conversation.
Anonymous

I don’t think they do, and like PP pointed out if they did I’d already be up a creek for my activity on DD. But they reserve the right to, and I have no reasonable expectation of privacy (which ironically is the exact wording in the forms I’ve had to sign at the last three companies I have worked for).
Anonymous

my IT folks monitor my stuff because I find cool things, like the DD. You simply can’t get too bizarre or perverse around here. as a matter of a fact, I may trot in there and share the new Fascinasty site with them. cool, I used it in a sentence.
http://profiles.google.com/ericagieras Erica Gieras

hmm surprisingly this wasn’t disturbing to me. I looked at it while eating lunch. I didn’t look at the kids though. I’m not completely dead on the inside What is up with all these bodies found floating in the river? I don’t get that.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_XKMAEMPVJ5T2Y35HKYTNG7I6SY Cedric

“it” ? What exactly are we talking about here ? And don’t tell us that you pulled your penis out and started madly fapping.
Anonymous

I used to have a girl friend who just would lay there during sex,
So I told her it was Ok, she could play dead and I would play funeral director !
http://www.dreamindemon.com Morbid

Funny… I used to have a girl who would just lay there during sex too,but it was because I knocked her out her wheelchair. Oh, and the Rohypnol.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Shannon-Bennett/1803988499 Shannon Bennett

I’m thinking it’s a fairly new site … Give it some time lol!
http://twitter.com/natashaleigh natashaleigh

I just don’t get how people can disappear and not be missed, like the guy at the AA meeting. He died in a public place, from a seizure but no one knew who he was and no one has looked for him for over 10 years? Makes me sad.
Anonymous

Guess I should put her in that river.
LeaveMeBe

Accidental trips off the riverbank or bridge? *shrugs*

I would not make a good CSI.
Anonymous

Ya me too here, they have a software that records any keystroke, and they can access it from anywhere.They have the right and I accept that, but I take my chances cause
” I needs my DD”
Anonymous

So true, so true. I’m like a crack addict.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Shannon-Bennett/1803988499 Shannon Bennett

That bad eh?!
Anonymous

They are IT guys and can be bought with gifts of junk food and Bawls.
Anonymous

Well aren’t you a fun date? At least you don’t have to worry about your performance on Rohypnol, if the sex sucks it’s really the guys fault.
Anonymous

“Pack it up boys, looks like another accidental fall.”

“But… there are stab wounds, and…”

“I said accident!. Now go get me a cappa-fucking-chino.”
LeaveMeBe

Wanna be my partner? We can have a male lab assistant.
Anonymous

Will he be shirtless and open to borderline psychotic, but harmless sexual harassment?
Anonymous

Yeah me too. I’d put on some organ music, put a rosary in her hands and spritz some formaldehyde behind her ears.
Anonymous

I tried to kill my ex by tossing her in the Mississippi but the stubborn bitch refused to die. She sprouted fins and gills, flipped me off and swam away.
Gee

That’s an easy one. More than likely that gentleman was probably estranged from his family from the Alcoholism and they were used to him disappearing. I see people in AA meetings have seizures all the time, it’s part of the withdrawal. AA is the last house on the block for most. They have usually burned most bridges with family and friends.
Anonymous

Na, not any more, my son is 32, but her dad was rich and had a law firm on a monthly retainer, all she had to do is call the firm, they put the new junior lawyer on my ass, its been decades and I still remember his name, Mike O’Brien, his name was always up in the left hand corner of the envelope, she fucked with me until our son was 18. So I take a swipe every time I get at the ” evil ex-wife”. She really isn’t a bad person if you can look past her horns and tail, fucking she devil!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=736546181 Michael Heldman

Yes, I am.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=736546181 Michael Heldman

What I got from that website, stay the fuck away from the Milwaukee river.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Shannon-Bennett/1803988499 Shannon Bennett

Understandable! Amicable divorces are extremely rare … Everyone usually goes for the jugular unfortunately!
Anonymous

I don’t know what it says about me, but I actually handled the pictures of the adults pretty well. You know, looked and moved on. But the “children and fetuses”….. I got stupid and looked. Only saw one pic of a baby. Most had “no profile pic available” but then most of those were fetuses of less than full gestation. Not sure if I wanted to see those, but the face of the one baby that was there…. omg. All I could think about was Baby Brianna Lopez, for some reason. She wasn’t found in a river or an abandoned building or a construction site, but the pic just reminded me of her.

Maybe showing the actual people might help, but if you’re looking for someone who went missing, you’d have to actually look in Milwaukee County site. What if your missing person was never there?
Anonymous

Your disapproving tone transcends the invisible confines of the internet. Fine, I’ll reel it in *zip*.
Anonymous

The stories of the dead fetuses and babies were chilling…the way these babies were found, OMG! The one that totally freaked me was the one that was accidentally reeled in by people fishing…could you fucking imagine?!?!?!
Gee

Yeah… That Milwaukee River is a deadly one
Anonymous

Yeah, it was the Adult vs Fetus option that made me realize that I didn’t need to browse. I am apparently more squeamish than I thought. I really want to read the case files, but I don’t know that I can handle “the meat.”

I’m going soft in my old age, I guess. I stopped eating pork a few months ago, and I’d probably go vegetarian if I didn’t hate vegetables so much. And if I didn’t hate chickens. Evil, t-rex cousin-ass motherfuckers.
http://twitter.com/LaylaLolly LaylaLolly

Apparently I am a sick fuck, because I browsed all of the available photos and thought, “Really?” It wasn’t really that graphic….but then again, I do love to hit up bestgore.com so I guess I’m a demented bitch. Even the infant really didn’t look bad at all, just like it was sleeping. I hope this website helps these folks find their family, although I’m thinking the infant/fetus one is a waste of time because the people who should be the ones who care to find them don’t because they are the reason they are on that website in the first place.
Anonymous

What, your family reunions don’t take place near the dumpster of your city’s rendering plant? Preeeety pretentious, girl.
Anonymous

*perk* Can I be the Abby of this little lab?
Anonymous

That just made me sad. Didn’t gross me out at all.

You couldn’t pay me to look at the kids, though. Not gonna happen.
Anonymous

I know I’m a horrible, spoiled, snot. I wouldn’t go to a family reunion if they held it at the Ritz. I’m currently planning on moving across the country to get away from them. When I say across I’m mean it too, from FL to WA.
LeaveMeBe

Hell yeah! I’m not looking for some to take dictation and write reports.
LeaveMeBe

Sure! It wouldn’t be the same with out you. Wanna help us view… I mean, interview our guys for admin asst? They’re taking their shirts off now.
LeaveMeBe

I don’t see your application in our inbox…and there is no backside report either.
Anonymous

We got plenty room here in Cali for you!!!!!
Anonymous

I want to go to Seattle. We’re planning on flying up in Oct to meet with a few real estate agents.
Jemimabean

I’m with you there- the cases must be interesting but I can’t force myself to look at photos of little, dead people.
LeaveMeBe

I meant background…
Anonymous

I lived North of there in Bellingham for a year, loved it!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002515740585 Nova Lee

I looked at all of them . . . they didn’t have too many pictures of the kids, just descriptions of what happened . . . And like, two of them were 6 month old fetuses that were put in dumpsters in the 70′s . . . Think anyone is gonna claim those NOW??? wth?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=736546181 Michael Heldman

Show me your inbox and I’ll show you the application.
Anonymous

Sure! Anything to help.
http://twitter.com/LaylaLolly LaylaLolly

Hrmmmmm……I posted a comment here yesterday, where did it go?!?
http://twitter.com/LaylaLolly LaylaLolly

ok i found it ^dipshit
Anonymous

I don’t see having fetus pictures are going to help.They would not be in the river if anyone wanted them.This is milwaukee we talking about here.Some of those people are so fucking bloated you can’t recognize them.Unfortunately in alot of cases the people are not being looked for because they are not missed.
Anonymous

I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of them ended up in the river for badmouthin’ the Packers.. Packers fans are NUTS!!

(Yes, I’m from MN.. Vikings territory)..
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YNI5RQEBPVZAO34MRQJZPGUGKI Vicki

Oh this is a hard one for me. I so badly want to look and really want to read the case files (I have a morbid curiousity..of course why else am I on this site) but at the same time I know I have limits as to what I want to see. I wouldn’t even view my husband after he passed (he was in a helicopter crash) until my SIL went and saw him first and reported back to me that he appeared normal. I guess when the military wouldn’t tell me what he looked like and I had to wait 2 days before I would be told if he was considered “viewable” I got all kinds of images in my head via my imagination. So I made her go first before I would even go in the room. I wish I could get my SIL to look at these photos first….I need someone to check the gore factor and let me know if it’s in my realm of tolerance.
Anonymous

Great idea …..
http://karebu.myopenid.com/ Karebu

It is called Alcoholics ANONYMOUS. For those who have been lucky enough to have never been to a meeting, they only use first names there and some people don’t even use their real name. When I looked at the guy’s pic, it is obvious he had been an alcoholic for a long time. It doesn’t surprise me at all his family isn’t missing him….it wasn’t uncommon for families to completely disown a family member with an alcohol problem in the not-so-distant past. It wasn’t until the late 70′s, early 80′s that alcoholism was starting to be viewed more as a disease instead of a choice.

Several years ago, I had a neighbor who was an acoholic. His oldest daughter lived next door to him and wouldn’t even give him the time of day when his second daughter, the one he was close to, was killed in a car accident. If Woodchuck would have disappeared, his family wouldn’t have noticed or cared for that matter.