#r/gratefuldoe

[t0rschlusspan1k]

r/gratefuldoe | The Man of Somiedo: A psychically disabled and malformed man presumably locked away from the world until his death.

u/moondog151:

[...] On January 9, 2015, two hikers called the police after discovering a dead body outside the town of Puerto de Somiedo, Spain. The body was found wrapped in a blanket next to a narrow creek. Police unwrapped the body from the blanket and discovered that the decedent was naked and missing one leg which was determined to be the result of scavenging from animals. The decedent was 135 cm tall, had a beard, was 45-60 years of age, weighed 35 kg and was skinny with his ribs prominent against the skin.

The decedent had disproportionately long limbs and fingers and a disproportionately small head while his chest protruded outward indicating that he suffered from Pectus carinatum, his back was also hunched indicating that he suffered from Kyphosis. He also suffered from severe cataracts. An autopsy was performed on the man which revealed that despite his prominent ribs he had, in fact, received adequate nutrition and that his beard and facial hair were well shaved and his skin taken care of indicating that he was properly cared for in life. His DNA was sequenced which showed that the decedent was lacking in Marfan and suffered from a mild case of Cockayne syndrome. As sufferers of the decedent's various conditions also suffer from intellectual disabilities and are unable to live on their own. Since the decedent had good hygiene and no signs of malnutrition police reasoned that he likely had at least one caretaker in his life. No signs of violence were found on his body and a medical examiner ruled that the decedent's cause of death was a heart attack. As the condition is rare and due to his physical malformations police were initially confident that he'd be quickly identified. Police went to Puerto de Somiedo, the closest human settlement to the location the decedent was found. Unfortunately, none of the residents knew the man prompting the police to expand their search to the neighbouring towns. Despite the expanded search nobody recognized the decedent or anyone with his features. No one matching his description appeared in local hospital records and assisted living facilities had no residents matching his description. Police searched birth records of the entire municipality and Asturias province as well as created a list of women who could've worked as rural midwives around the time the decedent had been born. Due to a lack of results from any of these efforts, the police came to the conclusion that the decedent was either not a local or that his family kept his birth and existence a secret since at the time of the decedent's birth Spain would've been under the conservative dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Police believed that if he was hidden from society his body was placed where it was discovered to make sure the decedent was found and buried properly. Spanish authorities admit that this theory is just speculation based on a lack of leads on their part. Police examined the blanket the decedent was wrapped in and discovered that the blanket was manufactured in the 1950s in that only two stores in Spain produced this blanket located in Gijón and Burgos. Police visited both stores but their receipts and purchase records were not preserved. Police lastly submitted the decedent's DNA to every DNA database in Europe but no matches turned up. No further leads have surfaced and the decedent was buried in a local cemetery with a blank tombstone.

Sources: - https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/Man_of_Somiedo (I wrote this article) - https://www.diariodeleon.es/articulo/sociedad/misterio-hombre-babia/201704230600001678224.html - https://www.elcomercio.es/asturias/201501/14/cuerpo-como-holocausto-20150114001522-v.html - https://www.lne.es/sucesos/2015/01/14/fallecimiento-hombre-delgado-somiedo-produjo-19889310.html

[gratisdiamanten]

is it too late to request something from permanent havoc? very curious about that one!

Of course not! Inbox is open anytime.

Sebastian is still out on the porch when the car rolls up, a garish red streak of a Miata, some music pumping out bass lines that rattle the shell of the car like waspwings. Emily stumbles out, her shorts stained with something bright pink, some kind of drink, her face glazed, with a slow lumber that screams I'm so fucking wasted. Sebastian suddenly pities his own father, when he must have come back like this 25 years before. But before that, a hot-cold rush of frustration and relief.

"Who the hell are you?" He trudges down the lawn, grabs and opens the door before the kid can speed off. He looks 19, maybe, pimple-faced and babyish. "Are you drunk?" he says. The music, it's too loud, the car vibrates under his foot where he's put it half inside the car. The boy looks spooked, turns down the volume. "Are you deaf? I asked if you were fucking drunk, kid."

"Leave him alone, Dad," Emily tries. She pulls on his shoulder until he shakes her off.

"I only had a drink, sir, I—"

"What's your name?"

"I—"

"What's your name, I said!"

"Liam," he says, sheepishly, the music turned off now. He looks at his hands in his lap. His foot wedged firmly on the brake but his ankle twitching like he's itching for the gas.

"You're not from town. I know everyone from town. Go home. Now." Sebastian steps away from the car. His palms hot, damp in the creases. His heart clobbers his poor ribs and their softening cartilage. The kid, Liam, he wastes no time. He's up and gone. Watches his damn Miata round the bend into the lodgepole pines.

"Dad, I only just went to the party," she protests, "and then Liam was nice. He drove my friends home."

"You know I tell you not to let guys drive you home, especially ones you don't know. Jesus fucking Christ."

She's shivering, hands rubbing his bare arms. She forgot her jacket, the purple one she likes. "He's nice, dad!"

Something cold and sudden grips some lifeline inside of him. Squeezes. Squeezes. Of course he is, he manages to grit out. A lot of people are nice. You could have gotten killed, Sebastian thinks. You don't know what happens to kids out here, he thinks again. Thinks of that boy. Poor fucking kid. Probably didn't know what was gonna happen until it did, that's how these things go sometimes. Looked like—a fucking Halloween prop. You couldn't see the bones yet. All yellow, turning to mud at the hips, sunken face. Hardly a face. Barely sockets, full of something. Sixteen to twenty they told him. Sixteen to twenty. Emily's sixteen, out of that car, the boy came from the car. And the coroner, he said Chief, I don't know what to tell you. Don't know what to tell you. He's been dead six months maybe. He might have had brown hair. Slightly reddish. But not redhead don't get it twisted. Don't get it twisted we don't know his eye color but odds are they were dark or at least not green and his face was wide, sharp cheekbones and this was distinctive and he's been dead for six months and

"Dad?"

"Honey," he says, starting to cry. "Honey, don't do that again."

Emily's sweet, always has been so sensitive. More like him than her mother maybe, in that way. She's crying too, their tears reflecting starlight off each other. "I won't, I won't. I'm sorry."

"Too cold out here. Too dark. It's late, but get inside. You must be hungry. I'll get out the leftovers."

[hackoftheyear]

R/gratefuldoe is a really fascinating amazing little space because it reaches a decent portion of Reddit’s true crime readers meaning lots of varied knowledge inherent to a large group of people and also they’re on Reddit it’s their thing. You could have a team of fifty dedicated investigators but if none of them have read an article about dentistry in the Guatemalan highlands or met someone with that kind of dental work done then they’re probably not going to recognize the distinctive metalwork on a Does teeth. Give it 18 hours on there and someone will link the article, a new tip gets called in, identification efforts reach further.

[dnickels]

I do think unidentified bodies are the saddest thing. Mixed feelings about some of the 'community' around it but r/gratefuldoe and the like represents a really beautiful impulse. Like yes that's a stranger, but at some distant remove every doe is family. If only we could show them that much care when while they live.

[microcroft]

this is only vaguely related to ur adventures w purpose post but accidentally finding a subreddit dedicated to finding the identities of john/jane does made cry SO much... it’s been a while since i’ve been on there so idk if it’s still like this but at the time at least, it seemed like so many of the people on there were genuinely invested in finding closure for the unidentified person and their family, and they’ve actually been successful before, in cold cases that have been left alone for decades, instances where the police gave up.... fuck cops honestly but being reminded of how deeply people can care about someone they’ve never met makes me So emotional (the subreddit is r/gratefuldoe, named for the john doe it was originally made to identify—a grateful dead groupie whose identity was eventually found)

oh yeah i know about the grateful doe! yeah the online communities dedicated to solving missing persons and unidentified persons cases really restore my faith in the world. i follow a number of subreddits that talk about cold cases/ unsolved mysteries. those subreddits and places like websleuths where so many people are so dedicated to trying to solve these mysteries and bring families closure and peace are incredible, they make sure these people and cases that are just gathering dust aren’t forgotten and increase the number of people that hear the name, see the information and maybe theres a greater chance that one of those people might remember some information thats important to the case or might just know something that could help. seeing how thankful the families are, even though they have just found out their loved one really is dead, hits pretty hard. i cant imagine how much it hurts not knowing. it seems like a wound that isn’t allowed to heal, it just keeps opening up until either you accept one answer without conclusive evidence, or you get the evidence to move forward an heal. 

[arabellaflynn]

Advent Calendar

From Manx Fairy Tales, by Sophia Morrison. David Nutt, London, 1911. Humans are so very odd about names. I spend a fair amount of time on subreddits like r/UnresolvedMysteries and r/gratefuldoe, where the denizens can be laser-focused on finding who the unknown dead are, and giving them back to their families. The latter sub was founded, in fact, after reddit managed to crowdsource a solution for the identity of the Grateful Doe, a young man dubbed thus because he perished in a car accident after attending a Greatful Dead concert. They've ID'd several Does since, many of whom have had their names and stories released to the public by their thankful families. It was many and many a year ago that the heiress of Eary Cushlin Farm had a little child. Eary Cushlin is a terribly lonely place; it stands high up on the Eanin Mooar, the big precipice, close by the steep brow of Cronk-yn-Irree-Laa. You might live there for months without seeing the face of clay, and no person knew of the birth of the child. It was not welcome when it came, and as soon as it was born, it died. Then the mother carried it, at dead of night, along the narrow path over the rocks, past where the waters of Gob-yn-Ushtey leap into the bay, past Ooig-ny-Goayr, the Cave of the Goat, to Lag-ny-Keilley. She buried it in the ruins of the lonely little Keeill that has been there on the hill-side for fourteen hundred years and more. There she left it alone. A short while after some yawls were going to the haddock fishing from Dalby. There was the ‘Lucky Granny’ from the Lagg, the Muck Beg, or Little Pig, from Cubbon Aalish’s, Boid-y-Conney from Cleary’s, Glen Rushen, and others, ten in all. Then it began to be said that something strange was going on over at Lag-ny-Keilley. The men would be fishing close in to land under the black shadow of Cronk-yn-Irree-Laa, the Hill of the Rising Day. When little evening came, the yawls would be drifting south with the flood tide, north with the ebb, passing and repassing the strand of Lag-ny-Keilley. Then they would see a beautiful light and hear a lamentation and crying, as if from a little lost child. In the end the light would run up the steep brow to the old Keeill, and go out. The men got so frightened that at last they would not go on the bay after dark, but would make from the fishing-ground as soon as the sun was getting low. Things became so black for the women and children at home that one old, old man, Illiam Quirk, who had not gone to sea for many years, said he would go with one of the yawls to see for himself. They used to say of him: ‘Oul Illiam has the power at him in the prayer, and he is a middlin’ despard fella; he will dar’ most anything.’ It was so at this time—his yawl was the last of them coming in; the rest were frightened. It was a right fine, beautiful moonlight night when he was coming down from the mark, and when he was near to Gob-yn-Ushtey he heard crying and crying. He lay on his oars and listened, and he heard a little child wailing over and over again: ‘She lhiannoo beg dyn ennym mee!’ That is, ‘I am a little child without a name!’ ‘Pull nearer to the lan’,’ said Illiam when he heard it. They pulled close in, and he plainly saw a little child on the strand bearing a lighted candle in his hand. ‘God bless me, bogh, we mus’ give thee a name!’ said Illiam. And he took off his hat, and stood up in the boat, and threw a handful of water towards the child, crying out: ‘If thou are a boy, I chrizzen thee in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Juan! If thou are a girl I chrizzen thee in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Joanney!’ In an instant the crying stopped, and was never heard again, and the light went out and was seen no more. from Blogger https://ift.tt/35GwZjt via IFTTT -------------------- Enjoy my writing? Consider becoming a Patron, subscribing via Kindle, or just toss a little something in my tip jar. Thanks!