Body Poses Mystery In Oakland's Deadly Ghost Ship Fire
OAKLAND (CBS SF) – Alameda County Sheriff/Coroner Greg Ahern has a mystery on his hands as his office goes through the painstaking process of identifying the victims of last weekend's deadly Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire.
He admitted Monday that of the 36 victims recovered from the blaze, 33 of them have been tentatively identified.
"Right now there are 36 victims and we have tentatively identified 33," he told reporters. "Three have not been identified either due to extreme burns or not being on the list."
The identities of seven victims have been released to the media with Ahern announcing that another 16 families have been notified. He said those notifications have been made to families in the Bay Area, elsewhere in California, in the United States and in three foreign countries.
Five family notifications were pending.
Ahern said the international victims were from Finland, South Korea and Guatemala.
The coroner's office investigators have used items found on the bodies like drivers licenses to ID some of the victims. Fingerprints have helped to identify others.
For those too badly burned, the coroner's office has asked the families of the missing to preserve anything that would contain their DNA like a hairbrush.
However, one of the recovered bodies was presenting a real challenge.
"One (body) had no ID and doesn't match any of the people on the listed missing persons," he said.
