You never know. Contact from Hungary

I don’t know if it is a sign that the world is shrinking because of our Internet connectivity, but I got an email from Hungary Monday.

It was from the father of an individual who was found dead and skeletonized in May of 2007. He came across a report of her death on the Internet. “Shock” and “devastating” were his descriptors of that discovery.

We were able to identify the young lady and law enforcement agencies helped locate family in Chicago. We were told by the family members we had contact with at the time of her discovery that they were this young woman’s only relatives and that her father was dead. We, therefore, did not look for him. (We have since lost contact with the other family members that we had contact with in 2007)

Certainly this is not the way to find out about the death of a loved one, but we were able to answer a number of his questions over the phone yesterday. Many questions remain about her death, however, with the continued investigation in the purview of the Lake County Sherriff’s Office. We were unable to determine her cause or manner of death, primarily because all that remained was skeleton and it had no marks or abnormalities, although there were some drugs in the clothing found with the sketalized remains.

We will be helping him arrange final disposition of his daughter, no one else made those arrangements. He plans to have her remains with him in Hungary after cremation. He, also, hopes that at some time the Sheriff’s Department might be able to get him a few more answers regarding her death (the case has “got cold”, as he put it in his email).