NamUs UP#13280 and UP#13278

By: Shane Lambert

I spent some time reading about two cases of unidentified people tonight, cases from January of 2003. The cases may be related although NamUs does not connect them. They are NamUs UP#13280 and UP#13278.

The former was found in Imperial County on January 2nd, 2003 and believed to be dead for five months. The latter was found in the same county on January 7th, 2003 and also believed to be dead for five months. The zip codes associated with the deaths are about 9.4 miles apart according to Google Maps. Both decedents were described as being found in the "open desert."

UP#13280 was found near a jacket that had The Master Palette logo on it. Anyone working on this case may want to know that the logo is associated with Glidden Professional, a paint company. The first snippet below shows the logo on the decedent's jacket while the second snippet shows the logo inset into a website (webpage was active at time of writing). They are remarkably similar.

With UP#13278, I did some research on the most striking feature of this deceased person's remains. She had gold star inlays on her front dentures. In an article published on April 4th, 2007 at the Houston Press, author Olivia Flores Alvarez regales a story of an individual he met in March of that year who had gold star inlays on her front teeth. That person can't be UP#13278 because this UP died in 2002. However, according to Alvarez the gold star inlays are "a popular fashion in highland Guatemala." The title of the article is "Packing Meat" and the topic is illegal immigrant workers.

The relevance is that UP#13278 may have originated from highland Guatemala. This region is in southern Guatemala. It lays between the Sierra Madre de Chiapas to the south and the Petén lowlands to the north.

Anyone working on these cases should be aware of connections to Glidden Professional and to the highlands of Guatemala.