2003 Bones Search II

In the spring of 2003, TIGHAR sent Roger Kelley, a retired police office, and Marty Moleski, a Jesuit priest, to Fiji to follow up on various leads developed in the 1999 search for the bones that had been found on Nikumaroro in 1940. Although TIGHAR had also developed fresh ideas for avenues to explore through the [Earhart Forum, Kelley and Moleski's search failed to find any trace of the bones, sextant, box, shoe parts, and corks on brass chains that Gallagher had found on Niku and sent to Fiji.

TIGHAR field report

Fiji Bone Search II--Final Report (article on TIGHAR website)

Background

• Bones Chronology
• Tarawa file
• DNA tests
• Bones Analysis (1998)
• Bones I Article (1999)
• Bones II Article (2003)

Suspects

The WPHC closed the [Bones file|inquiry]] into the death of an unknown person on Niku in September of 1941. The last entry in the file reads, "Seen. P.A. ["put away"]." There is no mention in the file of what was done with the bones and other materials that Gallagher had collected.

1941-1976	Western Pacific High Commission
1941	Sir Harry Luke, WPCH High Commissioner and Governor of Fiji (died 1969)
1941	Henry Harrison Vaskess (died 1969), Secretary of the WPHC
1941	David Winn Hoodless, MD (died ~1955), Fiji School of Medicine
1941-1976	Patrick "Paddy" MacDonald. errand boy in 1941 but later became Colonial Secretary.
1940-1981	Walter Lindsay Isaac Verrier, MD (died 1981)
1950s	Kenneth J. Gilchrist, MD (died 1992)
1968	Gerard Denis Murphy, MD (died 2004?)

Burials, Cremations, Police Evidence Warehouse

It is conceivable that someone decided to give the castaway of Nikumaroro a decent burial. Roger Kelley tested that idea by examining all of the burial and cremation records in Suva from 1937 to the present.

Comment from Daniel Postellon

Regarding "naming the bones and burying them". We named the (Saxon) skeletons we found during an archaeological dig in Winchester. The names usually had something to do with their characteristics. One that I fondly remember was "Ethelred Unbod" We only found the skull and a few vertebrae, the rest of the skeleton was destroyed when some Victorians dug a big hole on the site a century earlier. It might be worth looking for a "John Doe Gardner" or some similar creative name.

Roger Kelley's Reports--Fiji, 2003

Interviews

Fiji Museum

Ritati

Sundry contacts

To do

Leftover suggestions for Bones III