Key West's dead raised to learn their secrets

KEY WEST, Florida (CNN) -- At the historic Key West Cemetery, the remains of seven unknown souls were exhumed recently from a pauper's crypt.

No one said cutting through 20 years of concrete and silence would be easy. But it was a necessary step toward some day, possibly, giving names to the dead.

Members of the Monroe County Sheriff's Office in Florida collected DNA samples to be entered into the FBI's National Missing Persons DNA database.

The hope is that a family member might have voluntarily submitted DNA to the database, looking for a long-lost loved one. If so, an identification could be made, bringing peace to a family.

In all, there are 28 unidentified bodies buried in the Florida Keys. Watch authorities crack open vault »

Some of the bodies have been buried for more than a quarter of a century. Investigators already have determined that none of the deceased originally lived in the Florida Keys. Beyond that, it's anyone's guess.

"We have no starting place. We don't know who they are. We don't know who they were associated with," Sheriff Rick Roth said.

Medical examiner's officials took careful measures to insure the privacy of the deceased. At times, they raised blue tarps to prevent news organizations from photographing the remains as they were removed from the disintegrating caskets.

Once exhumed, the skeletal remains were taken to a private area where the DNA samples were collected.

"We're removing the skull, we're removing portions of the pelvis," explained Monroe County Medical Examiner Michael Hunter. "The skull is helpful in determining age, sex, and race; the pelvis is helpful in determining age."

Forensic investigators also are hoping to retrieve mitochondrial DNA, known as mtDNA, which is inherited from the mother. This type of DNA allows a sample to be compared with that of a mother, a brother or a sister, because all have the same mtDNA.

The skulls will be shipped to anthropologists in Florida and in the midwest for analysis and facial reconstruction.

One of the unidentified bodies was an infant's. Another belonged to a female suicide victim. "She was known around town as Cinnamon, but nobody knew her real name," said Det. Sgt. Patricia Dally, who's in charge of cold cases.

"A lot of the Keys people use nicknames or street names and you could know someone for 20 years and never really know their full name," she said.

The first body removed was that of a murder victim. His head and torso were found on different beaches during the summer of 1987.

Investigators call him "Barnacle Bill" after the barnacles found on his shoes. The medical examiner believed he was about 6 feet tall, possibly African-American, and was in his late 20s or early 30s.

Solving a murder case that old would be difficult at best, Roth said, especially in a transient area like the Florida Keys. "Very difficult. Twenty years old. The witnesses are gone. The people are gone," he said.

Mercedes Cruz has been looking for her daughter, Teresa, since 1974. She submitted her DNA to the FBI database in hopes of one day finding her. Watch a mother's fight for answers »

Teresa's body was not among the remains, but it was her case that prompted the Key West authorities to exhume the seven people and get their DNA into the system.

"There's hope. Without the DNA, I don't think anything can be done, to be honest," Cruz said.

Cruz last saw her 12-year-old daughter, Teresa Alfonso, on a Saturday in September, 33 years ago. She dropped Teresa and a friend, Cindy Gooding, off at the movies in Marathon, Florida.

It was the first time she'd let them go by themselves, she said. They were last seen leaving the theater, which today is used as a storage facility.

Cruz doesn't think her daughter is alive.

"I don't know what else to do," she said as tears brimmed. "I left it in God's hands. I've just got a feeling that I'm going to find her and I pray every single day, 'God, please, if she's with you, let me know, and if she's here, please let me find her before I leave," she said, wiping the tears from her eyes.

Nationwide, the FBI estimates that more than 60,000 remains are unidentified in the United States.

The FBI began the missing persons database in 2001. But it stores only 1,500 unidentified remains, and only about 3,600 relatives of missing persons have submitted DNA.

"I just simply think it's under-utilized because there's a lack of knowledge of the program," said Eric Pokorak, an FBI forensic examiner and the Missing Persons Program manager.

"We're trying to reach out to both family members and the local law enforcement community to make them [aware] of the service that's available to them."

The FBI says this lack of knowledge about the program is one of the main reasons why the database has had only three positive hits since its inception.

Mercedes Cruz says more families need to do this so they can put their own lives to rest.

"It was a cotton swab in the mouth, and they did it in my cheek ... No hurting. No nothing," she said.

After several hours of work, cemetery workers, police investigators and forensic examiners bowed their heads as they prepared to re-bury the dead.

Chaplain Steven Torrence of the Key West Police Department kneeled down and placed his hand on top of one of the caskets in the open crypt.

"We thank you for the generosity of those who are here," he said.

"We pray, oh God, that closure would be brought and that loved ones would be notified and people would be at peace." E-mail to a friend