A body found in a Fall River, Massachusetts landfill that has gone unnamed for 17 years has been identified as part of an ongoing push to look into cold cases by Bristol County prosecutors.
The victim has been identified as Leon Brown, who was 41-years-old when he died and from Boston, according to a news release from the Bristol County District Attorney's Office. He had been missing since Aug. of 2005.
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Bristol County District Attorney's OfficeLaw enforcement was able to make the identification using advanced fingerprint techniques, along with recent upgrades to fingerprint information on the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Brown's death is now the center of a renewed suspicious death investigation that multiple agencies are involved in.
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Fall River police found Brown's body at the BFI landfill site on Airport Road on Aug. 29, 2005. An autopsy performed at the time determined that his body showed signs of decomposition, and that he had died within around a week of being found. Authorities were unsuccessful, though, at identifying who he was in 2005. A DNA profile was developed and entered into databases, but that also did not result in an identification.
Brown was identified years later as part of District Attorney Tom Quinn's Unidentified Bodies Project, which uses renewed testing from agencies and labs that take advantage of the latest forensic technologies to identify remains.
"I am very pleased that we were able to identify Leon Brown, and that his previously unmarked grave will no longer just be an unidentified plot number in the cemetery," District Attorney Tom Quinn said in the release. "We are now focused on investigating the circumstances surrounding his suspicious death. But without the Unidentified Bodies Project, we never would have had a case to fully investigate. If we determine foul play was involved in Mr. Brown's disappearance, death or disposal, we will not stop until the individual responsible is brought to justice."
Brown had multiple sclerosis and had a difficult time walking. Prosecutors say the leg braces he used to walk were not found anywhere in the landfill, and that he was not initially reported missing. A search of the landfill at the time, prosecutors said, suggested that his body may have been taken there in a dump truck from Peabody or the North Shore area.
Anyone with information about Brown's case is asked to call the district attorney's office at 508-961-1918.
