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Police Release Sketch Following Discovery Of Head In Beaver Co

Whisper

Whisper

#byefelicia
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released a sketch of a woman in hopes of identifying the person whose remains were found earlier this month in Economy Borough.
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a woman’s head, which was “presumably embalmed,” was found by a teenager walking on Mason Road Dec. 12. The head was discovered in a wooded area on the side of the road.

"This case in particular is one that we've never seen. Once a person has been embalmed, their head would be embalmed as well,” s
[...]
Coroner Terri Tatalovich-Rossi. “We have all been consumed with this case from its inception and we’re hoping someone can identify her through the sketch.”
[...]
woman shown in the sketch is believed to be at least 50 years old. She had whitish-gray hair that was styled, and her teeth were intact and in good condition.
[...]
District Attorney Anthony Berosh said whoever removed the head has knowledge of anatomy.

Cadaver dogs have been used during searches of the area where the head was discovered, and police are hoping that an aerial search can be performed when the weather permits.
[...]
“So far we have not gotten any reports back from any law enforcement or any cemetery owners that have reported anything disturbed,” said Economy Boro Police Chief Mike O’Brien.
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http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/local...ollowing-discovery-head-bea/njYjF/?hpt=ju_bn1
 
I'm thinking maybe grave robbery on this one. The vast majority of embalmed noggins are located in the local boneyard, after all. Sure, it could be a killer's trophy, but that doesn't seem as likely.

Not that the laws of probability necessarily apply here, since "chemically preserved head in a ditch that appears to have been skilfully severed" has kind of already blown the odds out of the water.
 
She's apparently lost her head on this one! I wonder what she did with the rest of herself?
 
How bizarre. There is someone out there robbing graves and skillfully dismembering them. Scary too. Practicing perhaps??!!
 
Economy police release sketch of woman whose embalmed head was found in wooded area

Coroner Teri Tatalovich-Rossi said that investigators have contacted the University of Pittsburgh's Medical School, the Humanity Gifts Registry and all members of the Pennsylvania State Coroners Association.

Mercyhurst College forensic anthropologist Dennis Dirkmaat and Charles Beall, a forensic odontologist, examined the remains. The sketch was done by Michelle Vitali, an art professor and forensic artist at Edinboro University.

Vitali said she had to approximate some portions of the woman's features because the head had lain on its right side, so the nose and mouth were somewhat distorted.

The woman's eyes apparently had been donated to science, Vitali said, though she did not offer additional details.

“We have all been consumed with this case since its inception, and we're hoping that someone can help us identify her through the sketch,” Tatalovich-Rossi said.

Because the remains are embalmed, “obviously, there had to be a funeral home involved,” said Stephanie Doriguzzi, president of the Allegheny County Funeral Directors Association. “To me, the questions are, who the funeral director was and where does the family think this person is, whether they were buried or cremated?”
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Cameray said:
Are these two cases related? Distance from Beaver County, Pa to Eatonton, GA is...
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Doubtful, this head was embalmed and a woman's, the man was beheaded in the case you are referencing and not embalmed by the killer.
 
Cameray said:
The woman's eyes apparently had been donated to science, Vitali said, though she did not offer additional details.
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Maybe her head was being donated as well...
Scenario: Head is being transported in an open bed of truck. Truck hits a bump and head flies out and rolls off. I know that's not true but for some reason my mind is seeing this.
 
There's quite a few stories of funeral homes that dispose of bodies in a manner that will save them money. Wonder if that's what happened here. Odd only the head has shown up though.
 
Search for ID of woman's head found in Beaver County leads to organ donation groups

Investigators know a woman's head found alongside a rural Beaver County road was embalmed, which they say means a funeral home or mortuary was involved in preparing her body. They know at least part of her eyes were removed for transplantation or medical research.

But those clues haven't led to the most important piece of information: her name.

“We have to have the key to the door, and the key is identification,” Beaver County District Attorney Anthony Berosh said Tuesday. “All roads lead to the identification of that person.”

A DNA database of organ donors doesn't exist, according to several organ donation organizations. Those organizations say they can't help investigators freely because of privacy restrictions.

“Donor information is highly confidential,” said Susan Stuart, CEO of the Center for Organ Recovery & Education, the O'Hara-based organization serving Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and one county in New York. “Out of respect for the donor families, we don't release information without permission of the next of kin.”

Berosh said, “We haven't run into confidentiality problems because we haven't asked about a specific person.”

A pedestrian found the woman's head near Mason Road in Economy about 12:30 p.m. Dec. 12. A ground search two days later found no other body parts.

Police, Berosh's office and Beaver County Coroner Teri Tatalovich-Rossi released a sketch of the woman, saying that she was white and at least 50.

Michelle Vitali, an art professor and forensic artist at Edinboro University, who did the sketch, said the woman's eyes had been donated, but she didn't provide details.

Berosh said that whoever removed the woman's head had “anatomical knowledge.”

Of the 122,000 corneas recovered from donors in the past year, said Kevin Corcoran, president and CEO of the Eye Bank Association of America, 72,000 were used for transplants, 25,000 for education or research, and the rest were deemed unusable. Corneas are removed before a person is embalmed.

Agencies that take the corneas don't photograph the donor's face or perform DNA testing, Corcoran said. Blood is tested for diseases that would make a cornea unusable, he said.

The agency that recovered her corneas would be in a position to provide information to law enforcement but would need a name to track down the records, he said.

Berosh said police were following up on leads Economy police received after releasing the sketch. Economy police Chief Michael O'Brien couldn't be reached for comment.

Investigators have some information that could be helpful. The woman had a full head of curly, gray hair, which investigators suspect had been styled for viewing at a funeral home.

Rochelle Wells, administrator of Philadelphia-based Humanity Gifts Registry, which coordinates body donations for medical schools, said that when schools receive bodies, the heads are shaved.

Bodies embalmed for short-term viewing at a funeral home are preserved differently than those for long-term use by students and researchers at medical schools, she said.

Investigators have talked to agencies that recover tissue or organs for medical use, Berosh said. They haven't reported problems.

Authorities have not received reports of disturbed graves, Berosh said.

Former Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht said that the case is bizarre but that he has not been consulted.

“If no identification is forthcoming in the next day or two, with the additional information that's been released, my surmisal is that this is a head from some other geographical location,” Wecht said.

Officials shared the sketch with a police network stretching from Indiana to New Jersey, and Berosh hopes a law enforcement official knows something that could identify the woman.

Anyone involved in putting the woman's head in the woods could face charges of theft and abuse of a corpse, investigators said.

“We all feel here not only a legal obligation but a moral obligation” to solve the mystery, Berosh said.
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taintfutcha said:
and why cant he say "penguin"?
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Apparently, noone involved with the recording of that ill-starred documentary (which was not actually about those pesky "peng-wings" at all, as he hastened to point out when put on the spot during an interview later!) stopped him. They must all have been deaf or half asleep to let it pass......
 
Abroad said:
Apparently, noone involved with the recording of that ill-starred documentary (which was not actually about those pesky "peng-wings" at all, as he hastened to point out when put on the spot during an interview later!) stopped him. They must all have been deaf or half asleep to let it pass......
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or lulled by his dulcet tones
I didn't want to like him-but he's very, very good imo
 
I obviously need to either sleep, get off vacation or stop my wine consumption - I read the headline that the police sketch was of a beaver. Which was weird...so I read it.
 
embalming costs money and isn't required by law in the u.s. except in some cases. highly doubt a funeral home would dump an already embalmed body....seems more likely a grave lifter with some head issues in beaver...
 
I hope that she was decent while she was alive. I mean can you imagine having an evil mother in law, and you were kinda glad she's moved on, then next thing you know her formaldehyde preserved head is in the paper!?
 
ms.D said:
Maybe her head was being donated as well...
Scenario: Head is being transported in an open bed of truck. Truck hits a bump and head flies out and rolls off. I know that's not true but for some reason my mind is seeing this.
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that is frickin hilarious im seeing it too. LMFAO
 
It could have been grave robbing for profit- I was involved in the "goth" community as a youth, and there's people out there that will pay hundreds of $ for an authentic human skull! But as this one still had the flesh on it, maybe they got spooked and ditched it before they had a chance to boil it down... I just hope this wasn't some necrophilic type thing!
 
Whisper said:
District Attorney Anthony Berosh said whoever removed the head has knowledge of anatomy.
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This is the part that flummoxes me (beyond motivation for such an act). What sort of anatomical knowledge is necessary to remove a head? Isn't it just . . . saw through neck, cut between vertebrae, saw through other side of neck, done?
 
Oberle said:
This is the part that flummoxes me (beyond motivation for such an act). What sort of anatomical knowledge is necessary to remove a head? Isn't it just . . . saw through neck, cut between vertebrae, saw through other side of neck, done?
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I'm guessing they did it neatly, severing the individual muscles cleanly and probably using a Stryker saw or similar tool to cut through the vertebral column.
 
Embalmed head remains a mystery

ECONOMY -- Nearly a month has gone by, and investigators are no closer to identifying a woman whose head was found in a wooded area.

The embalmed head of a woman was found by someone walking in an area off Mason and Conway-Wallrose roads in Economy on Dec. 12. An extensive search of the area turned up no other remains.

An artist created a drawing of the woman’s face, which was released to the public Dec. 22 and distributed to police departments in multiple states surrounding Pennsylvania.

Beaver County District Attorney Anthony Berosh said Tuesday that authorities have gotten some contacts about the case, but so far they have no viable leads.

The remains have been examined by Beaver County Coroner Teri Tatalovich-Rossi, pathologist Dr. James Smith, forensic anthropologist Dr. Dennis Dirkmaat from Mercyhurst College and forensic odontologist Dr. Charles Beall. They believe the woman was older than 50. She had soft curls of grayish hair and a full set of teeth.

Until the woman can be identified, investigators are stymied. Berosh said the first step to finding out how the woman’s remains came to be where they were found is figuring out who she is.

Those working the case had previously reached out to places that handle cadavers, such as medical schools, the Human Gifts Registry and the Pennsylvania Coroners Association. Berosh said further research has expanded the list of places that use cadavers for research and testing, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which uses cadavers to test how the human body reacts to crashes.

Police are asking anyone who recognizes the woman or has any information about her remains to call 724-876-0380 or email police@economyboropd.com.
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More on cornea donations...

Cornea Donation | Donate Life America

In case of cornea donation, for which most deceased individuals are potential donors, an eye bank receives a call from a hospital, an organ recovery agency or another federally designated third party that an individual has died and has met preliminary criteria for donation. Cornea donation usually happens within 12 hours of death. The state donor registry is searched and if the potential donor is not found on the registry, the donor’s legally authorized representative (usually a spouse, relative or close friend) is given the opportunity to authorize the donation. In addition, they are asked for the donor’s medical and social history, which provides the eye bank with information to help determine donor eligibility. The donor profile is screened for physical signs of infectious disease or behavior that may have put them at risk, such as intravenous drug use. Corneas are evaluated for cell count and clarity of the tissue. That information, together with the donor’s age, is used to determine which patient will receive the cornea for transplant. Whenever possible, eye banks try to place the cornea with a patient that is close in age to the donor to help ensure that the cornea will last throughout the patient’s lifetime. Corneas are transplantable for up to 14 days after recovery (Eye Bank Association of America, 2010).
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Cameray said:
Rochelle Wells, administrator of Philadelphia-based Humanity Gifts Registry, which coordinates body donations for medical schools, said that when schools receive bodies, the heads are shaved.
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Hmmm, female elderly donor cadaver in an anatomy class i took years ago had long hair.
 
Police hope 3-D model will help identify embalmed head

embalmed-head-80c7f6dd8fed0fa0.jpg


PITTSBURGH -- Police in a tiny western Pennsylvania borough still can't identify the embalmed head of an older woman found discarded in the woods a month ago, so now they're releasing images of a three-dimensional model of it.

Economy Borough Chief Michael O'Brien said a police sketch of the dead woman's face released late last month hasn't helped. So police on Monday released two images of a 3-D model in hopes someone might recognize the woman.

The remains were found Dec. 12 about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

Police determined the head wasn't preserved in a manner used by medical schools, so they believe it came from a body embalmed by a funeral home. But they have no clue why someone would have severed the head from her remains and dumped it along a little-used road.

"We've gotten some leads in, but we've eliminated those persons through dental records," O'Brien said.

Police also believe whoever severed the head knew what he or she was doing, he said, "without going into too, too much more detail" in order to be sensitive.

The head appears to be that of woman in her late 60s or early 70s, but who could have died in her 50s.

Because the head was embalmed, police don't believe she was a homicide victim, but a crime still could have been committed depending on how and why the head wound up in the woods. Among other things, it's illegal to abuse a corpse in Pennsylvania.

The police have contacted the Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Association, entered information about the head into the National Crime Information Center and submitted DNA from it to the U.S. Justice Department's National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

The head appeared to be in good condition, leading police to believe it hadn't been there more than a week before it was found.
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