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7A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 2017 Mystery dead man now has a face WINGS: ‘Don’t be afraid to do it’ A forensic artist’s work could generate solid leads Continued from Page 1A By NATALIE ST. JOHN EO Media Group CATHLAMET, Wash. — The dead man at Pillar Rock had two intriguing items in his pocket. For the last seven months, Wahkiakum County Prosecutor and Coroner Dan Bigelow has been keeping that fact hidden away like an extra ace in his sleeve. Despite Bigelow’s best efforts, the identity of the skel- etal remains, discovered on the bank of the Columbia River near Altoona in May, has remained a mystery. So now, Bigelow is revealing new details and a Texas forensic art- ist’s new rendering in hopes of generating new leads. “I had been keeping this information private, both because it may have been use- ful in eliminating false claims, which happens sometimes, and because by releasing it, I might be revealing the name of a rel- ative of the deceased. But after six months with almost no movement in the case, I think it’s time to lay all my cards on the table,” Bigelow said in a statement. Bigelow’s glass slipper When Bigelow first sought help from the public last spring, he described the middle-aged man’s height, clothing and shoes, and revealed only that he carried a lens cloth from a west Seattle optometrist in his pocket. Bigelow knew from previous experience that his fairly broad description would generate dozens of calls from detectives, other coroners and medical examiners, and regu- lar people who were searching for their missing loved ones. He also knew it would be hard to give all those people hope, only to disappoint them later on. “All these people are calling in, and I know that at most, I can give closure to one of them,” Bigelow said in an interview. Bigelow’s press campaign did generate a flood of new possibilities, but gradually, they all dried up. By December, he knew he needed to somehow generate a whole new set of leads, so he could start the win- nowing process all over again. If Bigelow is the Prince Charming in this sad story, the new forensic drawing is the Wahkiakum County Coroner’s Office This keychain fob may be a valuable clue to the identi- ty of a man whose remains washed ashore near Pillar Rock last spring. GOT A TIP? Wahkiakum County Coroner’s Office Wahkiakum County authorities are seeking the public’s help in identifying this man, whose remains were found along the Columbia River. This is a facial reconstruction based on his skull. announcement for the ball, and the dead man’s tarnished key- chain and ring are Bigelow’s version of a glass slipper. Drawing the dead A portrait on her website shows Austin forensic artist Natalie Murry sitting alone at a table in a black room, using a bleached skull to create a draw- ing of a fully-fleshed man. A for- mer dispatcher and police offi- cer, Murry developed the skills of a beat cop and investigator — interviewing, evidence-han- dling — before turning to the evolving field of forensic art. Now certified by the Interna- tional Association for Identifi- cation, Murry has trained with the FBI, as well as a variety of experts in her field. Forensic artists have traditionally used standard artists’ mediums, like clay and charcoal pencils to reconstruct faces from remains and create time-progressions of missing persons, but Murry now specializes in using digital media — especially a tablet that allows her to turn drawings into computer files. Murry freelances for law enforcement agencies all over the U.S., often using technol- ogy to interview witnesses and victims and complete her com- posites from a distance. She fre- quently works with the Seattle Police and King County Med- ical Examiner’s Office, and it was through this connection that she was asked to create a likeness of the Pillar Rock man. Nameless in Seattle Late last year, Washing- ton State Forensic Anthro- pologist Dr. Kathy Taylor — who is working with Bigelow on the identification effort — asked Murry to help with five unresolved Washington cases. In December, Murry went to Seattle, where she photo- graphed the remains of each person. “As always, each had their individual challenges and interesting details,” Murry wrote in a blog post. In addi- tion to the Wahkiakum County case, Murry’s Washington cases included a mixed-race woman found recently near Highway 18 in King County, and a middle-aged white man found in a sleeping bag under a tree in Pend Oreille County, whose bone abnormalities indi- cated that “he had lived with a great deal of pain for some time.” It was not the first time Murry had worked on a local case — in 2014, she created a rendering of a Native Ameri- can woman who was killed in a fiery Cowlitz County crash while hitchhiking with a truck driver more than 20 years ago. Secrets behind the smile Murry’s rendering shows a man with wide-set solemn eyes, a broad forehead, and a slightly asymmetrical oval- shaped face. In an email to Bigelow, Murry explained that for some reason, the right side of the man’s jaw was larger than the left side, giv- ing his face its slightly crooked appearance. “The other thing that she said was interesting — and Oregon man dead from exposure struggled with mental illness Heartbreak for his family By MOLLY HARBARGER The Oregonian PORTLAND — A man who died of exposure in the woods near Southwest Bar- bur Boulevard has been iden- tified as Zachary A. Young, a 29-year-old from McMinnville who was likely living there before he died of hypothermia. Young’s father, Vance Young, said Thursday his son dealt with mental illness that fueled extreme paranoia for most of his life. He hadn’t seen or heard from his son for about a year and a half before he was notified of the death. Zachary Young’s body was discovered Tuesday on a steep hillside, the fourth person to die of exposure in Portland this year. His father said Zachary Young had fallen off his skate- board at 15 when he wasn’t wearing a helmet. He under- went brain surgery. He was never the same, his father said. “For me this was a heart- break,” Vance Young said. “Zach was a great kid. He had all the other aspirations that a kid would have — just a really lot of promise.” For years, Young was angry at the world. He was fiercely intelligent and could have in-depth conversations about all sorts of topics, his father said, but he couldn’t quite put words to what he was feeling. ‘For me this was a heartbreak. Zach was a great kid.’ Vance Young father of Zachary A. Young, who died of exposure in the woods His paranoia and fear alien- ated him from other students at McMinnville High School, and he spent time in a special home for boys. Young’s parents were divorced, and his father said that Young’s mother spent hundreds of hours working with him, trying to get him help with his mental health. But once Young turned 18, they couldn’t force him to get assessed to get the social ser- vices he qualified for. Young refused, saying he didn’t think it was right to apply for free programs or get government help, his father said. But he couldn’t hold down a job to provide for himself. Eventually, he stopped trusting his parents and chose to live on the street. Vance Young said he and his ex-wife deposited money into a bank account that Zach could access. They kept tabs on him that way, by tracking when money was withdrawn. They also paid for a storage unit in Tigard for his belong- ings. He lived in it off and on for years. Occasionally, they changed the locks to force him to contact them. That backfired when he got so mad more than a year ago that he stopped visiting and withdrawing money. Since then, Vance Young said his son’s life was a mys- tery to them. Now, he said he wishes he had looked into having his son committed for mental treat- ment. He didn’t try before because Zach was an adult and he didn’t seem like some- one who couldn’t take care of himself. Young said it seemed like an unreasonable step and would have hurt his relation- ship with his son, but wonders if it would have kept him alive. “I wish we had done some- thing beyond what we did. You can sit there and say I’ve done enough,” Young said. “Yet, he is an adult and once he hits that point, he has to ask for them.” AB6114 Safekeeping Storage Centers 3045 Hwy 101 N Gearhart, OR 97138 503-738-6731 Intends to hold for public sale at oral bid the following personal property pursuant to its lien rights for non-payment. Bradshaw: # 160G Neil: # 172G Morse: # 156G The sale will take place on Saturday, January 28, 2017 at 10:00 AM. Cash only. Published: January 13th and 27th, 2017. Anyone with information should contact Wahkiakum County Prosecutor and Coroner Dan Bigelow at 360-795-3652, or by email at dbigelow@waprosecu- tors.org. Dr. Taylor confirmed this — was that some of his dental work, which was quite good, had additional cavities, some- times on the same tooth right next to it,” Bigelow said. The newer cavities seem like a pos- sible indication that during the final years of his life, the man stopped going to the dentist. “Maybe he lost his job. Maybe he stopped caring,” Bigelow conjectured. Who is Debbie? It’s both tempting, and dan- gerous, for an investigator to imagine a narrative about their subject, but it’s hard not to think that this man somehow fell on hard times, or became a stranger in his own life before he died — and the two items he kept in his pocket seem to play right into that theory. The first is a small, rectangular key- chain with a tarnished brass finish. Engraved on its surface is a simple cartoon drawing of a smiling girl with pigtails, and one word: “DEBBIE”. The second is a ring with a cheap black stone set in it that appears to have belonged to either a small woman or a child. The snapped-off top of the key- chain and the scratches on the ring’s stone suggest that the man carried the items for sen- timental reasons, and had been doing so for a long time. “It’s important not to read too much into things,” Bige- low said in his statement, “But it doesn’t seem like a giant leap to imagine the decedent knew and cared for someone named Debbie, maybe a daughter.” A crucial step in her jour- ney, she said, was a one- day event she attended last year: The annual WINGS (Women Interested in Going to School) conference, designed for women look- ing to get their GED, attend college, acquire job skills or find a career. It is for women, like Hartman, who want to tear down barriers prevent- ing them from pursuing their education and taking control of their lives. This year’s conference will be held 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Feb. 11, at the commu- nity college’s Columbia Hall. “Going back to school is basically, in this day and age, the answer, I think,” Hart- man said. “If you don’t know what you’re doing, you don’t really know where you’re going, and you have kids, and you want to have a bet- ter future, go back to school — that’s it.” WINGS — which is free and open to the public — offers breakfast, lunch and child care. Attendees hear stories from past partici- pants and take part in work- shops on the community col- lege’s degree and certificate programs, securing financial aid and scholarships, over- coming math anxiety, career planning and more. State Sen. Betsy Johnson is scheduled to kick off the conference with a motiva- tional speech. Getting unstuck Before she escaped a dan- gerous relationship and relo- cated to the North Coast, Hartman aspired to become a preschool teacher and stud- ied early childhood educa- tion at Clark College in Van- couver, Washington. Through her experiences, she discovered that Colum- bia-Pacific communities have a shortage of organizations — outside the state Depart- ment of Human Services — that can arrange supervised visits between children and family members. Last summer, she served at a VOCA (Victory Over Child Abuse) camp, which provides support for chil- dren who have been sexually abused. Combining her back- ground and expertise, Hart- man’s goal is to start a busi- ness that provides supervised visitations in an early child- hood education-type envi- ronment. “That’s where I’m hoping to be able to make a difference,” she said. This chapter of her life, in which her dreams seem achievable, is the product of persistence, of little personal victories leading to bigger ones. “Each quarter is a new achievement,” she said. The largest barrier for many women who want to go back to school, Hartman said, is child care. She recalls a friend, another mother, who attended WINGS and had not made it past eighth grade. “Once you get a kid, and you don’t have your high school diploma, you’re stuck,” Hartman said. WINGS — a partner- ship among the commu- nity college and the Sea- side and Astoria branches of the American Association of University Women — is set up for women like that mother, empowering them to get unstuck. “These women that are running the WINGS confer- ence, it’s good to know that we have them,” Hartman said. Part of something big It has been a year since Hartman attended WINGS, which helped her secure a $4,000 entrepreneurial schol- arship at Clatsop Commu- nity College. She takes one to three classes per quarter, and is finishing the nuts-and- bolts classes, like math and English. She has noticed some- thing interesting about self-confidence: It tends to build on itself, until a person who previously felt hopeless realizes she has succeeded in turning her life around — and a fear of failure is no lon- ger operative. “It’s a snowball effect, for sure,” she said. “Each class, and I get another A, I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m doing good!’” And an event like WINGS, she said, makes people feel as if they are part of something big, whether going to college or otherwise authoring their own destiny. “Don’t be afraid to do it,” Hartman said, “because once you’re in there, you’ll feel so much better, just knowing that people care.” Lottery: Decision could be appealed Continued from Page 1A Commissioner Terry Graff said he had not voted for the brew pub in May. “It was obvious you didn’t have a business plan,” Graff said. “Now what you’re doing is coming up with gambling to make this fly. To prop up your whole business, and I can’t support that. It’s not a bar. It’s not a tavern. It’s not a place you can gamble.” Commissioner Russ Taggard suggested that video lottery could open the door for gambling machines in other down- town locations. “I don’t believe it’s any- body’s business to tell me I AB6115 Skipanon Water Control District Board of Directors Meeting Noon, January 25, 2017 Pacific Grange Hwy 101 and Cullaby Lk Ln Proposed Agenda Call to order, welcome & Introductions Agenda review Minutes review Public Comment, for items NOT on the agenda, (3 min limit please) New Business: Ownership of District structures Response to Request for Records (CoW) Report of Skipanon Water Level Log District Elections Old business: 8th St Dam concerns and response Treasurers Report: (Gail) Open forum/Member Reports Public Always Welcome For info contact: Tessa Scheller 503-861-3669 Published: January 13th, 2017 should sell or anything else,” Lowenberg said in rebuttal. “I cannot afford to keep money pumping into this. If we can’t keep it alive we have to close it.” Commissioners Virginia Dideum and Jeremy Davis supported the video lottery proposal. “You’re trying to make a business in a small seasonal community,” Davis said. “I feel there’s a need there, and still consistent with the use we’ve already approved.” Dideum praised the brew pub’s design and said potential profits from video lottery could help the restaurant survive. AB6113 PUBLIC NOTICE CITY OF SEASIDE CITY COUNCIL POSITION - 2017 THE FOLLOWING ARE QUALIFI- CATIONS AND GENERAL IN- FORMATION: A position is available for Councilor - Ward 1, Precinct 37 Deadline: Last date to submit filing for City Council Ward 1 is February 3, 2017, 5:00 PM Qualifications: A City Councilor shall be a regis- tered voter in Seaside and shall have resided in the City during the 12 months immediately before being appointed to office. (this is a volunteer position, there is no pay) To qualify for Council office, the candidate must reside in Coun- cil Position Ward 1, and must continue to reside there through the term of office for which the Councilor is appointed. To apply: City Council Position Ward 1, packets can be picked up from Seaside City Hall, 989 Broadway, Seaside, Monday - Fri- day, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. If you have questions, contact Kim Jordan, (503) 738-5511. Published: January 13th, 2017. Acting on a recommenda- tion from City Planner Carole Connell, commissioners Graff, Taggard, Carl Anderson, David Smith and Richard Owsley voted to deny the application. Dideum and Davis opposed the denial. Lowenberg could appeal the decision to the City Coun- cil. Approval for the brew pub remains unchanged. AB6104 Notice to Interested Persons (No. P09069) In the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon for the County of Clatsop, Probate Department. In the Matter of the Estate of Patricia M. Weirup, Deceased. Notice is hereby given that Ste- phen D. Weirup has been ap- pointed as the personal repre- sentative of the above estate. All persons having claims against the estate are required to present them to the under- signed personal representative in care of the undersigned attor- ney at: 851 SW Sixth Avenue, Suite 1500, Portland, OR 97204-1352, within four months after the date of first publication of this notice, as stated below, or such claims may be barred. All persons whose rights may be affected by the proceedings in this estate may obtain additional information from the records of the Court, the personal repre- sentative or the attorney for the personal representative. Dated and first published January 6, 2017 Stephen D. Weirup Personal Representative Melissa F. Busley, OSB# 040266 Dunn Carney Allen Higgins & Tongue LLP Attorney for Personal Representative 851 SW Sixth Avenue, Suite 1500 Portland, OR 97204-1352 Published: January 6th, 13th, and 20th, 2017
