A 70 Year Old Mutulation Case

The body of Dalbert Aposhian was found in 1933. The autopsy report said he had been mutilated with a knife that was known to be issued to sailors and had bled to death before he was thrown in the water and sodomized. The medical examiner also reported finding semen on the body. Aposhian, a minister's son, was missing for six days when four Navy sailors found his body in July 1933. His genitals, lips, fingers, and eyes, were missing, which sent the city into panic.

Although a second autopsy conducted two years later which showed that Aposhian had drowned, the case remained open all of these years, until Detective Curt Goldberg working with Dr. Jon Lucas, a forensic pathologist at the San Diego Medical Examiner's office, took another look at the evidence. Examining the seven-decades-old evidence, Lucas discovered that the boy's mutilation was the result of "classic crustacean/fish activity." He further pointed out that not all drowning victims have water in their lungs and that sperm cannot possibly survive in open water for six days.

Goldberg said that his ruling that the death was accidental drowning closes the case officially. At the time of the original investigation, a 10-year-old friend of Aposhian named Jack Confer told deputies that the two were fishing on a pier when Aposhian slipped and fell. He also told investigators that he panicked and ran away. But Confer's story did not change the mind of Dr. Frank Toomey, who conducted the autopsy, nor did it stop the news media from sensationalizing the story to sell newspapers. The San Diego Union reported that a "maniacal killer" was on the loose in the city.