Dental Clues Lead to ID of a Mystery Drowning Victim

A 42‑year‑old man was found dead after drowning. Police could not match him to any missing persons report. Because fingerprints and DNA were missing, investigators turned to his teeth. The dental features that are not measured with numbers were examined to guess his ethnic background.

The team used the ASUDAS system from Arizona State University to score the tooth traits. Scores were entered into the rASUDAS2 software. The program returned two possible origins: a western Eurasian profile at 46 % and a Southeast Asian profile at 21 %. Those percentages guided the forensic sketch artists, who built a face using a soft‑tissue depth database. The resulting drawing was shared with the public.