Nov. 18, 2005
LOST IN THE MORGUE
Family is 'mad as hell' that missing woman's body lay unidentified for more than 2 years
EVER SINCE Unisha "Niecey" Jefferson vanished from a North Philly corner 2 1/2 years ago, her kid sister, Katrina Johnson, has repeatedly called police, hung "Missing" posters and prayed for help.
This week, Johnson found her sister in the medical examiner's office, where her body had been lying, unidentified, for more than two years.

Dec. 5, 2005
BODIES WITH NO NAMES
THE ANONYMOUS AND THEIR CHAMPION AT THE CITY MORGUE
ON AUG. 12, 2004, a police marine unit pulled a woman's body from the Schuylkill, near 61st and Passyunk, not far from the South Philadelphia refinery complex.
She apparently had drowned. Investigators at the city Medical Examiner's Office found no evidence of foul play or unusual injuries.
She was about 5-feet-5, 133 pounds, maybe 30 years old, authorities estimated, but that was mostly a guess.

Dec. 12, 2005
ANGUISH, BUT NO ANSWERS
THE MORGUE HAD HIS BODY - WHY COULDN'T FAMILY AND FRIENDS FIND THAT OUT?
OVER THE past four months, family and friends posted thousands of fliers throughout the city, trying to locate Billy Borschell, a 40-year-old Juniata Park man who disappeared in mid-August.
For most of that time, his corpse was lying unidentified inside a body bag at the city morgue.
In spite of repeated calls since August by family members to police and the city Medical Examiner's Office, the body was not identified until last week, after the Daily News published descriptions of 12 corpses that the medical examiner had been unable to identify.

Dec. 12, 2005
City moving to improve the situation
The city is taking preliminary steps to improve communication between the Police Department and the city Medical Examiner's Office, hoping to reduce time lags in the identification of anonymous bodies brought to the city morgue.
Acting city health commissioner Joanne Godley said that personnel from the Police Department's missing-persons unit and the medical examiner's forensic staff will meet at least once a week to compare notes.

Dec. 27, 2005
LESSONS OF A COLD CASE
How ID'ing Texas remains could aid Phila.
IN MAY 1993, a work crew was clearing land for a new fence at a Halliburton research facility, just south of Alvarado, Texas, when one of the men noticed something out of place.
In a brushy, wooded area just off a service road for Interstate 35W, he saw what appeared to be a human skull, and next to it, some other bones, a faded blouse and jewelry. The remains had been there so long, a brierwood bush was growing through the blouse.

Jan. 6, 2006
Solving missing-persons problem
Police, medical examiner describe steps to help identify bodies in morgue
TWO RECENT instances of long delays in identifying bodies at the medical examiner's office were mostly the result of biology, city officials say - advanced decomposition, sometimes so bad that investigators had trouble determining a corpse's age, race or even sex.
Nevertheless, officials agreed yesterday, the cases point to a need for better use of new technology and better communication - with the public and between the two city agencies that deal with dead bodies, the Police Department and the M.E.'s office.