ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, July 7, 1996 TAG: 9607080077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: EMPORIA
SOURCE: BILL BASKERVILL ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE UNKNOWN MAN died in a traffic accident, with only concert ticket stubs and a letter in his pockets.
A year after his death, a young man who had a star tattooed on his arm, Grateful Dead concert ticket stubs in his pocket and a letter from two Carolines lies unidentified on a mortuary's cold slab.
He was in his 20s and - except for a letter - carried no identification on June 26, 1995, when the Volkswagen van in which he was riding rammed two large loblolly pines along U.S. 58 three miles west of Emporia.
In the pockets of his Levi's 505 jeans were the ticket stubs, four quarters, a yellow cigarette lighter and this note: ``To Jason, Sorry we had to go. See you around. Caroline O. and Caroline T.''
Jason - if that is his name - waits for someone to claim his remains from the state medical examiner's office in Richmond.
``I would like to find out who he is and close it out,'' said state Trooper T.E. Jones, who is frustrated by the lack of leads on the man's identity.
Jones said the driver of the van, Michael Eric Hager, 21, of Inman, S.C., apparently fell asleep. Hager, a student at the University of South Carolina, and his lone passenger were flung through the windshield and into the trees, Jones said. Both died instantly of massive head injuries.
The trooper believes the passenger had attended a Grateful Dead concert in Washington's RFK Stadium the weekend before the Monday accident.
Jones said Hager left his girlfriend's Fairfax County home about 7:45 a.m. on the day of the crash and picked up the hitchhiker later. Hager drove to his father's house in Gloucester County, where neighbors told the trooper they remembered seeing another man with Hager. The two left Gloucester County about noon, according to a message Hager left for his father. That would have put them at the accident scene about 1:30 p.m., the trooper said.
Hager was en route to his mother's home in Inman. Where the hitchhiker was headed is not known. Evidently, he was not following the Grateful Dead tour because the band's next date was in the Midwest, and Hager was headed south, Jones noted.
The hitchhiker was wearing a Grateful Dead Summer Tour 1995 T-shirt, light blue denim jeans, blue FILA athletic shoes, white athletic socks and macrame and bead necklaces. He was white, 5 feet 8 inches tall, 169 pounds. He had shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes.
A crudely drawn star tattoo was on his upper left arm. His left earlobe was pierced, but there was no earring.
Jones has run the hitchhiker's fingerprints through the FBI database and sent his description to every police agency in the country to no avail.
The next step is to check the fingerprints with the Secret Service, which the trooper said has a larger database than the FBI.
Gladys Culp of Salisbury, N.C., took up Jason's cause by shopping the story to news organizations. She has mailed journalists copies of a Virginia State Police sketch of the man and a summary of the case.
``I just felt bad there would be somebody that young out there,'' said Culp, who has sons ages 17, 18 and 21. ``Maybe he has a family searching for him.''
Robert Holloway, administrator of the state medical examiner's office, said it is unusual for a body to remain unidentified for this long. The state will hold the body indefinitely, he said.
Those with information about the hitchhiker should call Virginia State Trooper T.E. Jones at (804)634-4454.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: This is an artist's rendering of the man stillby CNBunidentified after a fatal 1995 traffic accident.