New image by USF anthropology team hopes to crack Florida cold case

PALM COAST, Fla. - There is now a face to a cold case, first discovered in the heat of the Florida summer.

Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly says the anthropology team from the University of South Florida was able to create images in hopes of identifying a man whose remains were found at a residential construction site in Palm Coast.

"As of today, we still do not have an identity of the individual," Staly said. 

Construction workers found bones at the Toscana Community on July 18. Deputies then called on Dr. Erin Kimmerle and her team at the Florida Institute of Anthropology to gather and reconstruct the victim.

"We had to transport them here and provide sleeping quarters for them and so forth, but they got done in a week, a little less than a week, what would have taken us months to do," Staly said. 

The team was able to find 90% of the man's body. Dr. Kimmerle has helped investigators before.

(Photos via Flagler County Sheriff's Office)

"For me this is a challenge sort of like putting a puzzle together, but the reward is so much greater because it's helping families of missing people find their loved one," she said.

The new images suggest the victim was a black or mixed-race man in between the ages of 35 and 50. It didn’t match any missing person on the county's system.

Staly says they aren't sure how or when the man died, but investigators say the bones show it was less than 20 years ago.

"We will investigate this as a homicide until we prove otherwise," he added.

The medical examiner now has the bones and is trying to use the remains to pull DNA in hopes of finding a match.