When the discovery of a human skull on Chicago’s Near West Side set a neighborhood on edge, the investigation immediately began to find out who the person was and what happened.
A year and a half later, NBC 5 Investigates has answers and an inside look at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s effort to connect missing people with resources and experts.
It takes a team of experts at the medical examiner’s office to bring clarity to families.
“Our mission is to find out who the person is, what happened to the person. Sometimes, it does take time, but we realize how important it is to give that closure,” said chief medical examiner Dr. Ponni Arunkumar.
Nine years ago, Arunkumar hosted the first Missing Persons Day. Since then, hundreds of family members and friends filed reports and provided pictures to help find missing people.
“They’re also able to give their oral swab for their DNA to be uploaded into the national database, so that when that missing person is found, their DNA will get matched to the family’s DNA,” Arunkumar said.
Two years ago, the event brought closure to six families. Last year, three more families got closure. One of those cases started with a disturbing discovery near Taylor and California. It was 2024, three weeks before Halloween.
A caller called 911 and reported seeing a skull inside an open Amazon box while walking his dog. Scanner audio revealed dispatchers said they hoped it was a Halloween decoration.
“Let’s hope so,” the dispatcher said.
But, it wasn’t. The skull found in a box on a sidewalk — right next to a sports complex — turned out to be human remains. Police then called the medical examiner for assistance.
“There’s around 20 to 30 measurements that we can take, just at the skull alone,” said forensic anthropologist and Northwestern University professor Dr. Erin Waxenbaum.
Waxenbaum was brought in to consult. The goal was to determine the sex, the ancestry, how tall the person was and specific features that might match up with someone missing.
“How difficult is it to make a determination when you’re only given a skull, for example, as opposed to the entire set of remains?” NBC 5’s Rose Schmidt asked Waxenbaum.
“Certain aspects are a little bit more difficult to make estimations on. As I mentioned, stature is particularly difficult. And in this case, age estimation was a little bit broader than it might be if we had the entirety of the remains,” Waxenbaum said.
“We do get dismembered body parts, maybe once a year, once in two years,” Arunkumar added.
In 2025, a family came to Missing Persons Day, believing they knew who was in the box. Their loved one, Andre McDaniel, was last seen three blocks away from where the skull was found. Family said McDaniel had trouble hearing in his left ear, which matched up with one of Dr. Waxenbaum’s findings: a left ear abnormality that could lead to hearing difficulties.
But, confirmation took time.
“We told them that we will need to wait for final DNA testing from the state lab to be able to make that match,” Arunkumar said.
Finally, in November of last year, more than a year after the skull was first discovered, the results were in: McDaniel was a match. The cause of death isn’t clear. Police searched for the rest of the remains but weren’t able to find them. Still, another family has answers because of Missing Persons Day.
“Everyone who comes on that day will get closure at some time or another. Maybe right away, maybe years later,” Arunkumar said.
