The skeletal remains of a woman were found in a black plastic trash bag in Kensington on Dec. 8.
The bones were mixed with soil, leading investigators to suspect that they had been dug up elsewhere and dumped in a lot near Tusculum Street.
Six months later, the woman's identity remains unknown. One clue, a sorority key with the name E. Mathis on it, might provide an answer - but only if someone can recognize it and if, in fact, it belonged to the woman.
For the investigators at the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office, this is one of the rare situations in which they have not yet put a name to one of the city's dead.
Many cases are straightforward. Some a bit harder. A few - including this one, perhaps - impossible.
The morgue detectives will tell you that seldom, if ever, do their cases play out as they do on TV, where CSI programs mix science with fiction to produce entertaining mysteries with neatly packaged endings.
"On TV there is an element of truth . . . but they take an element of truth and make it fantastic," said David Quain, forensic-services manager at the Medical Examiner's Office. "But it really isn't the way it works."
In the real world, investigators carry photos of the dead or of tattoos on discolored flesh and show them around. They seek out dental records and X-rays and even photographs of smiling faces that can be used to see whether the teeth match those of the deceased.
Most often, they take fingerprints - if the dead still have flesh - and wait for a match.
Even that, Quain said, might not yield a proper identification, because criminals don't always give their real names when arrested, making it harder to find next of kin.
Of course, there's DNA, but if detectives have no idea who the person is, DNA is of little use because it must be compared to that of a blood relative.
And it takes time.
"DNA is kind of a last resort," Quain said. "Fingerprints can be done in a day. Dental workups can be done in a day. DNA can take weeks or months."
DNA is used to confirm an identity, not establish it, he said.
A team of 10 investigators, backed by technicians, works around the clock, staffing a communications desk and going out to scenes of homicides or unusual deaths, Quain said.
About 300 bodies or sets of remains arrive at the Medical Examiner's Office each year as unknowns.
Many are quickly identified.
For example, word of a fatal shooting can spread quickly through a neighborhood, carrying the bad news to the victim's family.
