Life had taken difficult turns for Harry Martin Bubolz, whose residence and place of death are listed as a wooded area on Lincoln Memorial Drive near the McKinley Marina.
His mostly skeletonized remains were found in November 2012 on what amounted to his living room, a shower curtain that protected him and his few possessions from the cold, damp ground.
Harry had been estranged from his family for years, decades actually. They told the Milwaukee County medical examiner's office to go ahead and provide him with a county burial.
"We approached the family and said he's a complete human skeleton and we don't get this very often. Would you consider donating him to our office as a teaching tool? They did," said Marissa Ordinans, the medical examiner's forensic supervisor who investigated the case.
"This is Harry," she told students at career day last week at Cudahy High School.
Spread out on the table in front of them were Harry's skull, pelvis, leg and arm bones, a few ribs, a section of vertebrae and his lower jaw with the one wiggly tooth he had left by the end of his rough existence.
Marissa had packed the bones in bubble wrap and transported them to the school in a red plastic bin. Harry is the medical examiner's first-ever resident teaching skeleton. Marissa feels a connection to this man she never met in life.
"He felt like kind of a lost soul," she said. "I hope he would be happy people are able to learn from him."
Harry was born in 1942, making him 70 when he died. The medical examiner's interviews with family members reveal at least a partial biography of the man.
He came from a large Wisconsin farm family and graduated from Valders High School in Manitowoc County, then went on to earn a bachelor's degree in economics from UW-Madison in 1964, the death report says.
'Chasing Commies'
Harry served in the Army in the 1960s and was honorably discharged, the report also says. There were unconfirmed rumors in the family that he worked for the FBI, CIA or Secret Service. One relative put him in Panama "chasing Commies and double Russian spies."
I reached Harry's sister-in-law Shirley Bubolz in Manitowoc, and she had no recollection of his military service or college graduation. "He was very secretive about what he was doing. He always said it had to do with the FBI," she said.
One driver's license found by police places Harry in Nevada for a while, and he once told a sister he was a foreman at a plant in Milwaukee. A Wisconsin driver's license with a 1991 expiration date shows his residence then as the Ambassador Hotel. His smile reveals a healthy set of teeth at that time.
A relative said Harry never married or had children. He also had no criminal record.
Harry stayed a couple of weeks at the Milwaukee home of his brother, Ralph, in 1972, but disappeared without a goodbye. They never saw or heard from each other again. Family contacted Harry when his brothers Lesly and Earl died in 1983 and 1997, respectively, but he ignored the overture.
Harry's nephew, Dean Bubolz, 46, of Reedsville, who was a child when his uncle took off, tracked him down in Milwaukee about 20 years ago. Harry told him he just wanted to be left alone.
He got his wish. He was so alone that it took about four months for his body to be discovered by a volunteer cleanup crew on Veterans Day. Investigators found he had a Journal Sentinel from July 25, 2012, and a Walgreens receipt from that same month.
Because of the body decomposition and a lack of any medical history, a cause of death could not be determined. His bones now teach, but they hold tight to that secret.
His driver's license suggested at least a tentative identity, but that needed to be confirmed. Brother Ralph reluctantly gave a DNA sample that led to a positive identification of Harry after his remains were sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification. When Ralph died alone a year later, that same DNA swab identified him.
So now Harry's skeleton resides in a basement storage room at the medical examiner's office downtown. Operations manager Karen Domagalski said, "Students from grade school through college have studied the bones and have hopefully become inspired to either continue or pursue a career in the forensic sciences."
Sister-in-law Shirley said she's fine with that, but she still has a hard time with the lonely way Harry lived and died.
"He was a wonderful guy," she said. "That's why I can't understand how he ended up the way he did."
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or [email protected]. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl
Contributor: K. Roberts (46807847)∼Other cases are not as easy to close. On Nov. 11, 2012, an 11-year-old volunteering in a clean-up effort near the McKinley Marina found a human skeleton lying on a shower curtain in the woods. Investigators spent five months solving the mystery of the deceased’s identity, an effort that included running DNA tests and sending the skeleton to the University of North Texas Center of Human Identification’s Lab of Forensic Anthropology. The search also involved more than a dozen interviews with possible family members, calls to the University of Wisconsin Registrar’s Office and Marquette Dental School and futile inquires at more than half a dozen hospitals in the area. After five months, investigators determined the remains belonged to Harry Bubolz, a 70-year-old veteran, who earned a degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1964.
His mostly skeletonized remains were found in November 2012 on what amounted to his living room, a shower curtain that protected him and his few possessions from the cold, damp ground.
Harry had been estranged from his family for years, decades actually. They told the Milwaukee County medical examiner's office to go ahead and provide him with a county burial.
"We approached the family and said he's a complete human skeleton and we don't get this very often. Would you consider donating him to our office as a teaching tool? They did," said Marissa Ordinans, the medical examiner's forensic supervisor who investigated the case.
"This is Harry," she told students at career day last week at Cudahy High School.
Spread out on the table in front of them were Harry's skull, pelvis, leg and arm bones, a few ribs, a section of vertebrae and his lower jaw with the one wiggly tooth he had left by the end of his rough existence.
Marissa had packed the bones in bubble wrap and transported them to the school in a red plastic bin. Harry is the medical examiner's first-ever resident teaching skeleton. Marissa feels a connection to this man she never met in life.
"He felt like kind of a lost soul," she said. "I hope he would be happy people are able to learn from him."
Harry was born in 1942, making him 70 when he died. The medical examiner's interviews with family members reveal at least a partial biography of the man.
He came from a large Wisconsin farm family and graduated from Valders High School in Manitowoc County, then went on to earn a bachelor's degree in economics from UW-Madison in 1964, the death report says.
'Chasing Commies'
Harry served in the Army in the 1960s and was honorably discharged, the report also says. There were unconfirmed rumors in the family that he worked for the FBI, CIA or Secret Service. One relative put him in Panama "chasing Commies and double Russian spies."
I reached Harry's sister-in-law Shirley Bubolz in Manitowoc, and she had no recollection of his military service or college graduation. "He was very secretive about what he was doing. He always said it had to do with the FBI," she said.
One driver's license found by police places Harry in Nevada for a while, and he once told a sister he was a foreman at a plant in Milwaukee. A Wisconsin driver's license with a 1991 expiration date shows his residence then as the Ambassador Hotel. His smile reveals a healthy set of teeth at that time.
A relative said Harry never married or had children. He also had no criminal record.
Harry stayed a couple of weeks at the Milwaukee home of his brother, Ralph, in 1972, but disappeared without a goodbye. They never saw or heard from each other again. Family contacted Harry when his brothers Lesly and Earl died in 1983 and 1997, respectively, but he ignored the overture.
Harry's nephew, Dean Bubolz, 46, of Reedsville, who was a child when his uncle took off, tracked him down in Milwaukee about 20 years ago. Harry told him he just wanted to be left alone.
He got his wish. He was so alone that it took about four months for his body to be discovered by a volunteer cleanup crew on Veterans Day. Investigators found he had a Journal Sentinel from July 25, 2012, and a Walgreens receipt from that same month.
Because of the body decomposition and a lack of any medical history, a cause of death could not be determined. His bones now teach, but they hold tight to that secret.
His driver's license suggested at least a tentative identity, but that needed to be confirmed. Brother Ralph reluctantly gave a DNA sample that led to a positive identification of Harry after his remains were sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification. When Ralph died alone a year later, that same DNA swab identified him.
So now Harry's skeleton resides in a basement storage room at the medical examiner's office downtown. Operations manager Karen Domagalski said, "Students from grade school through college have studied the bones and have hopefully become inspired to either continue or pursue a career in the forensic sciences."
Sister-in-law Shirley said she's fine with that, but she still has a hard time with the lonely way Harry lived and died.
"He was a wonderful guy," she said. "That's why I can't understand how he ended up the way he did."
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or [email protected]. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl
Contributor: K. Roberts (46807847)∼Other cases are not as easy to close. On Nov. 11, 2012, an 11-year-old volunteering in a clean-up effort near the McKinley Marina found a human skeleton lying on a shower curtain in the woods. Investigators spent five months solving the mystery of the deceased’s identity, an effort that included running DNA tests and sending the skeleton to the University of North Texas Center of Human Identification’s Lab of Forensic Anthropology. The search also involved more than a dozen interviews with possible family members, calls to the University of Wisconsin Registrar’s Office and Marquette Dental School and futile inquires at more than half a dozen hospitals in the area. After five months, investigators determined the remains belonged to Harry Bubolz, a 70-year-old veteran, who earned a degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1964.
Life had taken difficult turns for Harry Martin Bubolz, whose residence and place of death are listed as a wooded area on Lincoln Memorial Drive near the McKinley Marina.
His mostly skeletonized remains were found in November 2012 on what amounted to his living room, a shower curtain that protected him and his few possessions from the cold, damp ground.
Harry had been estranged from his family for years, decades actually. They told the Milwaukee County medical examiner's office to go ahead and provide him with a county burial.
"We approached the family and said he's a complete human skeleton and we don't get this very often. Would you consider donating him to our office as a teaching tool? They did," said Marissa Ordinans, the medical examiner's forensic supervisor who investigated the case.
"This is Harry," she told students at career day last week at Cudahy High School.
Spread out on the table in front of them were Harry's skull, pelvis, leg and arm bones, a few ribs, a section of vertebrae and his lower jaw with the one wiggly tooth he had left by the end of his rough existence.
Marissa had packed the bones in bubble wrap and transported them to the school in a red plastic bin. Harry is the medical examiner's first-ever resident teaching skeleton. Marissa feels a connection to this man she never met in life.
"He felt like kind of a lost soul," she said. "I hope he would be happy people are able to learn from him."
Harry was born in 1942, making him 70 when he died. The medical examiner's interviews with family members reveal at least a partial biography of the man.
He came from a large Wisconsin farm family and graduated from Valders High School in Manitowoc County, then went on to earn a bachelor's degree in economics from UW-Madison in 1964, the death report says.
'Chasing Commies'
Harry served in the Army in the 1960s and was honorably discharged, the report also says. There were unconfirmed rumors in the family that he worked for the FBI, CIA or Secret Service. One relative put him in Panama "chasing Commies and double Russian spies."
I reached Harry's sister-in-law Shirley Bubolz in Manitowoc, and she had no recollection of his military service or college graduation. "He was very secretive about what he was doing. He always said it had to do with the FBI," she said.
One driver's license found by police places Harry in Nevada for a while, and he once told a sister he was a foreman at a plant in Milwaukee. A Wisconsin driver's license with a 1991 expiration date shows his residence then as the Ambassador Hotel. His smile reveals a healthy set of teeth at that time.
A relative said Harry never married or had children. He also had no criminal record.
Harry stayed a couple of weeks at the Milwaukee home of his brother, Ralph, in 1972, but disappeared without a goodbye. They never saw or heard from each other again. Family contacted Harry when his brothers Lesly and Earl died in 1983 and 1997, respectively, but he ignored the overture.
Harry's nephew, Dean Bubolz, 46, of Reedsville, who was a child when his uncle took off, tracked him down in Milwaukee about 20 years ago. Harry told him he just wanted to be left alone.
He got his wish. He was so alone that it took about four months for his body to be discovered by a volunteer cleanup crew on Veterans Day. Investigators found he had a Journal Sentinel from July 25, 2012, and a Walgreens receipt from that same month.
Because of the body decomposition and a lack of any medical history, a cause of death could not be determined. His bones now teach, but they hold tight to that secret.
His driver's license suggested at least a tentative identity, but that needed to be confirmed. Brother Ralph reluctantly gave a DNA sample that led to a positive identification of Harry after his remains were sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification. When Ralph died alone a year later, that same DNA swab identified him.
So now Harry's skeleton resides in a basement storage room at the medical examiner's office downtown. Operations manager Karen Domagalski said, "Students from grade school through college have studied the bones and have hopefully become inspired to either continue or pursue a career in the forensic sciences."
Sister-in-law Shirley said she's fine with that, but she still has a hard time with the lonely way Harry lived and died.
"He was a wonderful guy," she said. "That's why I can't understand how he ended up the way he did."
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or [email protected]. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl
Contributor: K. Roberts (46807847)∼Other cases are not as easy to close. On Nov. 11, 2012, an 11-year-old volunteering in a clean-up effort near the McKinley Marina found a human skeleton lying on a shower curtain in the woods. Investigators spent five months solving the mystery of the deceased’s identity, an effort that included running DNA tests and sending the skeleton to the University of North Texas Center of Human Identification’s Lab of Forensic Anthropology. The search also involved more than a dozen interviews with possible family members, calls to the University of Wisconsin Registrar’s Office and Marquette Dental School and futile inquires at more than half a dozen hospitals in the area. After five months, investigators determined the remains belonged to Harry Bubolz, a 70-year-old veteran, who earned a degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1964.
His mostly skeletonized remains were found in November 2012 on what amounted to his living room, a shower curtain that protected him and his few possessions from the cold, damp ground.
Harry had been estranged from his family for years, decades actually. They told the Milwaukee County medical examiner's office to go ahead and provide him with a county burial.
"We approached the family and said he's a complete human skeleton and we don't get this very often. Would you consider donating him to our office as a teaching tool? They did," said Marissa Ordinans, the medical examiner's forensic supervisor who investigated the case.
"This is Harry," she told students at career day last week at Cudahy High School.
Spread out on the table in front of them were Harry's skull, pelvis, leg and arm bones, a few ribs, a section of vertebrae and his lower jaw with the one wiggly tooth he had left by the end of his rough existence.
Marissa had packed the bones in bubble wrap and transported them to the school in a red plastic bin. Harry is the medical examiner's first-ever resident teaching skeleton. Marissa feels a connection to this man she never met in life.
"He felt like kind of a lost soul," she said. "I hope he would be happy people are able to learn from him."
Harry was born in 1942, making him 70 when he died. The medical examiner's interviews with family members reveal at least a partial biography of the man.
He came from a large Wisconsin farm family and graduated from Valders High School in Manitowoc County, then went on to earn a bachelor's degree in economics from UW-Madison in 1964, the death report says.
'Chasing Commies'
Harry served in the Army in the 1960s and was honorably discharged, the report also says. There were unconfirmed rumors in the family that he worked for the FBI, CIA or Secret Service. One relative put him in Panama "chasing Commies and double Russian spies."
I reached Harry's sister-in-law Shirley Bubolz in Manitowoc, and she had no recollection of his military service or college graduation. "He was very secretive about what he was doing. He always said it had to do with the FBI," she said.
One driver's license found by police places Harry in Nevada for a while, and he once told a sister he was a foreman at a plant in Milwaukee. A Wisconsin driver's license with a 1991 expiration date shows his residence then as the Ambassador Hotel. His smile reveals a healthy set of teeth at that time.
A relative said Harry never married or had children. He also had no criminal record.
Harry stayed a couple of weeks at the Milwaukee home of his brother, Ralph, in 1972, but disappeared without a goodbye. They never saw or heard from each other again. Family contacted Harry when his brothers Lesly and Earl died in 1983 and 1997, respectively, but he ignored the overture.
Harry's nephew, Dean Bubolz, 46, of Reedsville, who was a child when his uncle took off, tracked him down in Milwaukee about 20 years ago. Harry told him he just wanted to be left alone.
He got his wish. He was so alone that it took about four months for his body to be discovered by a volunteer cleanup crew on Veterans Day. Investigators found he had a Journal Sentinel from July 25, 2012, and a Walgreens receipt from that same month.
Because of the body decomposition and a lack of any medical history, a cause of death could not be determined. His bones now teach, but they hold tight to that secret.
His driver's license suggested at least a tentative identity, but that needed to be confirmed. Brother Ralph reluctantly gave a DNA sample that led to a positive identification of Harry after his remains were sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification. When Ralph died alone a year later, that same DNA swab identified him.
So now Harry's skeleton resides in a basement storage room at the medical examiner's office downtown. Operations manager Karen Domagalski said, "Students from grade school through college have studied the bones and have hopefully become inspired to either continue or pursue a career in the forensic sciences."
Sister-in-law Shirley said she's fine with that, but she still has a hard time with the lonely way Harry lived and died.
"He was a wonderful guy," she said. "That's why I can't understand how he ended up the way he did."
Contact Jim Stingl at (414) 224-2017 or [email protected]. Connect with my public page at Facebook.com/Journalist.Jim.Stingl
Contributor: K. Roberts (46807847)∼Other cases are not as easy to close. On Nov. 11, 2012, an 11-year-old volunteering in a clean-up effort near the McKinley Marina found a human skeleton lying on a shower curtain in the woods. Investigators spent five months solving the mystery of the deceased’s identity, an effort that included running DNA tests and sending the skeleton to the University of North Texas Center of Human Identification’s Lab of Forensic Anthropology. The search also involved more than a dozen interviews with possible family members, calls to the University of Wisconsin Registrar’s Office and Marquette Dental School and futile inquires at more than half a dozen hospitals in the area. After five months, investigators determined the remains belonged to Harry Bubolz, a 70-year-old veteran, who earned a degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1964.
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