Hickam lab IDs
unknown soldierThe Army lab says the Korean War
victim is a Minneapolis man
The U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory has identified the first unknown Korean War soldier, using a dental research technique developed and perfected by a forensic anthropologist.
The remains of Pfc. Ronald Lilledahl, of Minneapolis, will be returned to his family. He had been buried at the National Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl, since 1954 under a headstone marked "Unknown."
Central Identification Laboratory officials said they believe Lilledahl, a member of Company C of the 7th Marines, was killed in the Chosin Reservoir campaign when his company was surrounded by Chinese forces on Nov. 28, 1950.
Lilledahl was identified by a chest X-ray and by comparing dental records to a database of almost 40,000 dental patterns collected by Bradley Adams, a civilian forensic anthropologist working for the Army lab.
Adams said the project began more than three years ago as his doctoral thesis at the University of Tennessee -- which involved a new technique for establishing dental identifications based on patterns of missing, filled and un-restored teeth.
His research and the use of the technique, known as odonto search, were published this month in the Journal of Forensic Science.
Using both military and civilian dental studies from World War II to the present, Adams collected these patterns of missing, filled and un-restored teeth, coded them and compiled them in a database. His information was then included in the Army laboratory's Web site in April 2002.
The forensic lab had to turn to X-ray and dental records because they were unable to extract a good DNA sample from Lilledahl's skeleton.
Ginger Couden, a spokeswoman for the Army laboratory at Hickam Air Force Base, said a postal stamp-size chest X-ray of Lilledahl was discovered in his medical records at the National Personnel Records Center. It was then enlarged and used as an overlay over the exhumed remains.