Alan Morris - Missing & Murdered

Published by Zebra Press
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First published 2011

Publication Zebra Press 2011
Cover image and text Alan G. Morris

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ISBN 978 1 77022 361 5 (print)

ISBN 978 1 77022 362 2 (ePub)

ISBN 978 1 77022 363 9 (PDF)

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To Liz, for being both the anchor and inspiration in my life

There are so many people to thank, as there always is in a project of this scope. The key people are those I work with on a regular basis: Vince Phillips and Sean Davison of the University of the Western Cape, Maryna Steyn of the University of Pretoria, Madeleine Fullard of the Missing Persons Task Team, Mary Patrick of the Cape Archaeological Survey, Coen Nienaber of the Forensic Unit at the University of Pretoria, and Tim Hart and Dave Halkett of the Archaeological Contracts Office at UCT.

I need to give special thanks to Maryna Steyn, Vince Phillips and Madeleine Fullard for allowing me to happily steal from their research and publications on specific cases. I also could not have done any of the forensic work over the years without the forensic pathologists and their support team in the Western Cape: Diedr Abrahams, Sindisa Potelwa, Mariette Hurst, Yolanda van der Heyde, Linda Liebenberg, Lorna Martin, Shabbir Wadee, Omar Galant and June Mehl.

I mustnt forget the current crew of pathologists in training at UCT Itumeleng Molefe, Steven Afonzo, Sipho Mfolozi, Sairita Maistry, Akmal Khan and Lekram Alli. I also need to acknowledge my own colleagues and students who have worked with me on forensic and archaeological cases over the past few years: Jacqui Friedling, Thabang Manyaapelo, Kundi Dembetembe, Belinda Speed, Lach Rossouw, Kavita Chibba, Nhlanhla Dlamini.

Many of these friends, students and colleagues have kindly offered to comment on sections of chapters that I have sent them. Names I havent mentioned so far include Morongwa Mosothwane, Jatti Bredekamp, Jay Aronson, and Goran trkalj. Hendrik Swanepoel helped with some difficult Afrikaans translations from handwritten police records, and Steve Ousley and Ericka LAbb put up with my dissensions and arguments about the use of FORDISC.

The staff at the Hout Bay Medical Centre let me rent an office in their suite so that I could hide from the telephone and email while I put this book together. And of course I mustnt forget Bridget Elizabeth Shevlin-Morris, my long-suffering wife who drew the short straw and ended up reading the whole manuscript before anyone else. She not only told me where my writing style had bogged down to a state of boring, but also suggested a title that was way better than anything I had thought of.

ALAN G. MORRIS
SEPTEMBER 2011

AAFS: American Academy of Forensic Sciences

AFAT: African Forensic Anthropology Team

AFIP: Armed Forces Institute of Pathology

AI: Amnesty International

ANC: African National Congress

ASSA: Anatomical Society of Southern Africa

BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation

CO2: carbon dioxide

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

CSU: Crime Scene Unit

CT: Computed Tomography

DJD: degenerative joint disease

DNA: deoxyribonucleic acid

DSO: Directorate of Special Operations

EAAF: Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (Equipo Argentino de Antropologa Forense)

FARC: Forensic Anthropology Research Centre

FBI: Federal Bureau of Investigation

FORDISC: Forensic Discriminant Analysis Program

FPS: Forensic Pathology Services

GNC: Griqua National Conference

IDASA: Institute for Democracy in South Africa

LODOX: low dose digital X-ray

LSA: Later Stone Age

MK: Umkhonto we Sizwe

MPTT: Missing Persons Task Team

mtDNA: mitochondrial DNA

NMB: National Museum Bloemfontein

NMC: National Monuments Council

NMHM: National Museum of Health and Medicine

NPA: National Prosecuting Authority

PAC: Pan Africanist Congress

Pebco: Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation

PCLU: Priority Crimes Litigation Unit

PCR: Polymerase Chain Reaction

PMI: postmortem interval

SAHRA: South African Heritage Resources Agency

SAP: South African Police

SAPS: South African Police Service

STR: short tandem repeat

SWAPO: South West African Peoples Organisation

TB: tuberculosis

TMJ: temporomandibular joint

TRC: Truth and Reconciliation Commission

UCT: University of Cape Town

UN: United Nations

UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation

USSR: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

UWC: University of the Western Cape

Wits: University of the Witwatersrand

This book is not a textbook on forensic anthropology. While I discuss some anthropological techniques, I have avoided technical jargon as far as possible, as I would like the forensically uninitiated to understand and enjoy it. There is some anatomical and medical discussion from time to time, but I promise not to bury anyone in detail prematurely.

There are, in fact, relatively few textbooks on forensic anthropology. The bible, Krogman and cans The Human Skeleton in Forensic Medicine, is still the best technical book on the subject, but it is dense with detail, outdated in some areas and too rigid in interpretation in others. Other books, such as White and Folkens The Human Bone Manual and Blau and Ubelakers Handbook of Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology, are more accessible but tend to be very anthropological.