Dismembered foot found in bucket helps identify victim in Louisiana cold case
10/07/2022 2:42 pm PDT
ST. TAMMANY PARISH, La. (TCD) -- Officials positively identified a man killed in a 2016 homicide thanks to DNA technology and a dismembered foot found in a bucket.
According to the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, on July 29, 2016, at 7 a.m., a passerby called 911 after seeing a "badly decomposed body" on Highway 90. The autopsy reportedly determined the victim was approximately 5-foot-10, male, and at least 65 years old. His cause of death was listed as blunt force trauma.
The victim’s age and race were not determinate due to the state of decomposition. He reportedly had a mark on his chest from open heart surgery, but that was the only major identifying detail.
His DNA did not match any missing persons reports, so officials sent the DNA to a lab to create a phenotype of the victim.
The St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office said they do not believe the victim was killed at the site, and he was likely slain three days before he was left on the highway. Both of the man’s arms and one of his legs were dismembered as well.
Detectives caught a major break in the case when conducting an April 2019 natural death investigation in Biloxi, Mississippi. According to the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, Biloxi Police Department investigators at the scene in Biloxi discovered a severed foot in a bucket on the property. DNA from the foot matched the information on file from the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office, so Biloxi Police contacted them and helped with the investigation.
Investigators continued trying to identify the victim, and they confirmed their findings by using DNA from the victim’s relative. The victim has been identified as Kleanthis Konstantinidis. The Biloxi man who died in April 2019, Phillip Pointer, is reportedly "the primary suspect Konstantinidis' death."
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