The Ongoing Investigation of Frozen Airman Offers Closure To All Four Possible Families As They Await DNA Testing
COOPER: We hope you are as intrigued as we are by a story that we've been following, an unfolding mystery. A frozen airman whose body was recently discovered in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. His remains were buried in the snow for 63 years. Question is, who is he and can he be traced to family members who lived a lifetime without him. CNN's Thelma Gutierrez reports.</s>THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It the ultimate cold case dating back to World War II. Forensic detectives are turning to the most advanced scientific methods to solve it. This mystery began just last month. The body of a young airman is discovered by climbers at the base of a glacier, 13,000 feet high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. His uniform and unopened parachute, reveal he's been dead for more than a half century. How did he get here? And who is this mystery man who died at the prime of his life? After weeks of studying his remains military scientists have narrowed down the possibilities. Out of more than two dozen training flights that crashed in the Sierra during World War II, scientists say this airman his one of four men who died there. On November 18, 1942, three young cadets and their lieutenant, all in their 20s, were on a navigational training flight with their plane disappeared in the Sierra Nevadas. On board, Glen Munn, Melvin Mortenson, Leo Mustonen and Lieutenant Bill Gamber. Five years after the crash in 1947, hikers found some plane wreckage but not the bodies. Then last month, 63 years later, climbers discovered this airman frozen in ice. But who was this airman? Scientists found some clues. He carried 51 cents in his pocket, a plastic hair comb and three leather-bound address books. Forensic evidence also suggests he had straight teeth with a small gap and was between 5 foot, 9 and 6 foot, one inches tall.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is backing, so that was attached to the collar.</s>GUTIERREZ: The airman wore no dog tags, a corroded name plate revealed a few letters. But even if scientists had found a name they still could not make a positive identification because that evidence is merely circumstantial. At JPAC, the Joint Prisoner Of War/Missing in Action Accounting Command, in Hawaii, experts have not choice but to turn to the hard science of</s>DNA. DR. ROBERT MANN, FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST: We would go out and seek to find some of their maternal -- their relatives, so we could get a DNA sample.</s>GUTIERREZ: The DNA of a maternal relative, because it is the easiest to match. So scientists send a piece of the airman's leg bone to another military lab for DNA testing. And they begin searching for a living relative of the four men.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now, I'm going to be drawing two tubes of blood.</s>GUTIERREZ: We followed the scientists trail from the Sierra Nevadas in California, where the airman was found, to Pleasant Grove, Ohio, and Fayette, Ohio; from Jacksonville, Florida, to Seattle, Washington. And all the way to Ogden, Utah, to meet the families.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You remember having a brother missing in action and we're doing a DNA testing.</s>GUTIERREZ: In Pleasant Grove, Ohio, Sarah Zaire and Jean Pyle have their blood drawn. They are the sisters of 22-year-old cadet Glenn Munn. While Munn was blond and had straight teeth, he was also 6 foot, 4. Maybe too tall to match the airman's height. Even so, the sisters are tested to make sure. In Fayette, Ohio, the nieces of Lieutenant Bill Gamber are also tested for</s>DNA. BILL RALSTON, GEMBER'S NEPHEW: I think its exciting. Just to know that something that happened so long ago, is just coming to the forefront now. It's terrific.</s>GUTIERREZ: Like the airman, Gamber was in his early 20s when he died and had extensive dental work. But Gamber also had very dark hair, perhaps too dark to match our airman.</s>RUTH MORTENSON, SISTER OF MISSING AIRMAN: My brother --</s>GUTIERREZ: In Seattle, 95-year-old Ruth Mortenson also had her blood drawn. The years have clouded her memory, but she still remembers her baby brother, Cadet Melvin Mortenson.</s>MORTENSON: I know he went to the university. He finished.</s>GUTIERREZ: Another possible problem here, scientists say the airman was in his early 20s when he died. Melvin Mortenson was 25. On to Florida, to the only known family of 23-year-old Leo Mustonen. Louella Mustonen and her two daughters, Leane and Onalee.</s>LUELLA MUSTONEN, SISTER OF MISSING AIRMAN: He had a little gap between his front teeth.</s>GUTIERREZ: Like the frozen airman Mustonen also had a gap in his front teeth. He was blond and at 5 foot, 9 he falls within the height range of the airman. But again, this is only circumstantial evidence, scientists need more. But with the Mustonens they hit a DNA dead end.</s>MUSTONEN: None of us ever knew what happened actually.</s>GUTIERREZ: Louella Mustonen is Leo's sister in law, so neither she, nor her daughters meet the criteria for a DNA comparison. So the only hope for identifying the airman as Leo Mustonen is if DNA tests eliminate the other three families.</s>CAROL BENSON, RELATIVE OF MISSING AIRMAN: I was too young to really know him, it's brought a closeness to him.</s>GUTIERREZ: Carol Benson of Ogden, Utah, told me the discovery of the airman has lead to a discovery of her own.</s>BENSON: Dear Anna, You're last letter reached me at Santa Ana.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The barracks are all long, the quarters are also air conditioned. All in all, it resembles more a summer resort than an Army camp.</s>GUTIERREZ: In an old box, Carol found this letter, written by her uncle Melvin Mortensen, before he died. Carol and the others told us the letters and photographs of the young crewmen sat in boxes untouched for decades. Each of the families say that in learning about the frozen airman, they've learned about their own lost airman and a little about themselves. And they say that even if DNA proves the frozen airman is not their relative, it is OK. Because all the families will have found closure after so very long.</s>COOPER: It's fascinating how so many of the immediate relatives have died off and yet these families are so deeply involved in this search.</s>GUTIERREZ: Well, you know, that was the thing that really struck me. Is that you sit down, you talk with these people. They have not heard of that relative for 63 years. The parents have died off and in many cases the siblings have died off, and yet you sit and you talk to them, and they well up with emotion because they've been carrying around that question for so very long. And I think that's the thing that really struck me the most. They have probably another month to wait. By the condrial (ph) DNA tests still in the works right now. And we think we may have word sometime in January.</s>COOPER: Let's hope. Thelma Gutierrez, thanks very much. Coming up on 360, hairless and fearless, remembering Sam, who for a time ruled the world as the ugliest dog on the planet.