BY JEREMY G. BURTON (STAFF WRITER)
Published: January 23, 2011
The file on Albert Crazy Buffalo is sparse, but each scrap of paper in it conjures a mystery.
A tall, broad man who was about 55 years old but looked more like 70, Mr. Buffalo died on Sept. 26, 1992, at Community Medical Center. He was dropped off at the hospital after he had been seen hitchhiking near Binghamton, N.Y., from a bar called Davy’s Last Chance.
The cause of his death was heart failure, but nearly two decades later, the facts of his life remain obscure. Mr. Buffalo had no family, no next of kin that authorities could find.
Cases like his are the exception, but when they do arise, the Lackawanna County coroner’s office becomes something of a detective bureau. Together the coroner and clerk – with some outside help – scour for clues in wallets, medical records, phone books, photos and birthday cards. Usually, the mysteries are solved, but Mr. Buffalo’s file is just one in a collection of the unclaimed.
“It’s somebody’s family member, and you have to find where they belong,” said Ann Berardelli, the office’s longtime clerk.
The coroner annually receives seven to 10 cases of unclaimed people, and the next of kin is often found for all but one or two. Today, there are at least 16 still unsolved.
That includes four from 2010, an unusually high total:
-âJoseph Wycoff, 85, died at a city nursing home last January. Through a contact number at a Trenton, N.J., homeless shelter, it was discovered his name was actually Matthew Hogan.
-âPatrick Taylor, 57, told acquaintances he had family in Jessup or Stroudsburg. Died in April after years of battling seizures and alcoholism.
- Jesse Wilson, 80, worked at a newsstand before being hospitalized for acute dehydration in October. Authorities believe they found his sister, but she denied knowing him.
- John W. Smith, 70, a Navy veteran who died Dec. 30 and may have been from Allentown.
Mr. Buffalo’s story holds particular intrigue for retired Coroner Joseph Brennan, if only because it was his first and longest-standing unclaimed case. When Mr. Brennan opens Mr. Buffalo’s folder and flips through his old handwritten notes, memories of a search for answers slowly come back into focus.
Mr. Buffalo’s belongings were few. On him was a medical services card with an alias, one of at least eight names and stolen identities he went by, including “Edward Danforth” and “James Badhorse.” He bore the scars of a pair of knife wounds on his body, and the words “Indian Chief” were tattooed on his right arm.
A card for a motorcycle-painting business led Mr. Brennan to call Davy’s Last Chance in Chenango Forks, N.Y. Although Mr. Buffalo had been there, the bar was a dead end for information. A post office box in Mission, S.D., likewise proved to be a cold lead.
Mr. Brennan, who resigned as coroner earlier this month after more than 18 years, said the sleuthing was interesting but also matter-of-factly part of the job.
“It’s the investigative part of this office that has to be done,” he said.
Worth remembering
But a case like Mr. Buffalo’s cannot help but stir a little wonder.
“It’s none of my business, and I’ll never know, but you always wonder how they get from point A to point B,” Ms. Berardelli said.
Some of these mysteries arrive from apartments and nursing homes. Others from hospitals, or alleyways if they were homeless. Many are “out-of-town people who just come here to get lost,” Ms. Berardelli said.
For Megan Smolenyak, the idea that someone could be so entirely lost to society serves as gnawing motivation. A professional genealogist, Ms. Smolenyak has a saying: “Every life is worth remembering.”
Ms. Berardelli routinely enlists the help of Ms. Smolenyak, a researcher and author who founded a group dedicated to cracking these kinds of cases, with a website, Unclaimed persons.org. With her background in genealogy, she rounds out this unlikely team of detectives. Mr. Brennan was a funeral director. The new coroner, Tim Rowland, runs an ambulance company. Ms. Berardelli previously worked for the physician’s answering service at CMC.
Though her father grew up in Wilkes-Barre, Ms. SmolenÂyak became involved with the Lackawanna County coroner’s office through the chance discovery of some of its cases during an online search several years ago.
Bodies go unclaimed for many reasons, Ms. Smolenyak said. People disconnect because of fights and grudges, because of financial hardships, because of drug and alcohol abuse. Sometimes they simply outlive everybody they know.
Dignity in death
Josefina Woods was 66 years old when she died on Dec. 13, 2009. She lived at the Trotter’s Motel in Moosic, where she had no car, no visitors and always paid the rent in cash.
Authorities found a California ID, and her passport – expired and never used – said she was born in Mexico.
With plenty to go on, a former address of hers was tracked to San Diego, but the phone numbers there were disconnected. Ms. Smolenyak turned to her databases and found Ms. Woods’ maiden name was Alvarado, and that she might have relatives in Texas. Ms. Berardelli called number after number to no avail.
She did get through to a sister of Ms. Woods’ third husband, but they had only been married a short time, and Ms. Woods never spoke of family or children.
“We give it our best,” Mr. Brennan said.
For most of the unclaimed, after all leads are exhausted, the coroner obtains a court order to cremate the body. Funeral homes are asked to sign and file the death certificates, and either they hold onto the ashes, or the remains are kept in a cemetery vault.
A few of the unclaimed are buried in a section of Cathedral Cemetery for the indigent and unknown. Those that were veterans receive military burials.
“Everybody deserves dignity in death, and that’s the challenge,” said Mr. Rowland, who took over as coroner Jan. 1.
Lives disappeared
In cases where the next of kin is found, some people are indifferent or wary, but it is the thankful ones who stand out.
Mr. Brennan recalled a man found dead in a cardboard box in a Scranton alley. There was a number in his wallet, and when Mr. Brennan called it, the man’s mother picked up.
“She was the only person who ever said to me, ‘Oh, thank God.’ I said, ‘Excuse me?’ She said, ‘I’ve waited 15 years for this phone call.’”
Then there was Robert Haase, 80. A World War II veteran, he died July 2007 living in an apartment on Green Place, where authorities found his mail from the VA, a stamp collection, paperwork for a property he no longer owned, health cards and $4.50 in quarters.
Looking for more clues, Ms. Berardelli checked Mr. Haase’s bank accounts and discovered he had $82,449.58.
He also left a letter that looked like a will and indicated he had a son. It was written 15 years earlier, and Ms. Berardelli was sure it was a suicide note. Its last line read: “I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
It took some time, but Ms. Berardelli found the son living in northern New Jersey. Mr. Haase had adopted him as a boy but left the family when his wife became mentally ill, she said. The son ended up in foster care.
That really struck Ms. Berardelli. Mr. Haase abandoned his son but never forgot him. The love was still there, in its own way, she said.
Ms. Smolenyak said she realizes some unclaimed people did not necessarily lead the most admirable lives, but she believes one measure of a society is how it cares for its deceased.
“Where are we as a people if we just let them disappear?” she asked.
Contact the writer: jburton@timesshamrock.com
