Identity of Arlington Cemetery’s Unknown Ice-Skater Revealed

The Army launched the first criminal investigation into the misplacement of remains after the discovery last October of eight unidentified urns dumped in a single grave at Arlington Cemetery. While searching for clues as to the identity of the eight unidentified remains, investigators found a plastic bag containing a picture of a little girl ice-skating inside one of the urns.

For the past few months the Army Criminal Investigation Command has been tracking down the girl in the photo. Investigators contacted advertisers seen in the background of the picture, and the Washington Post published the picture on Friday.

It turns out that the skater is Rachel Stretcher of Ashbrun, Va. Stretcher’s family contacted the CID after seeing the photo in the paper, and special agents went to the family’s home to get a positive identification. Stretcher is now nineteen and a cadet at the Air Force Academy. The urn containing the photo belonged to Stretcher’s grandmother whose urn was supposed to have been placed above the coffin of Stretcher’s grandfather, a retired Army chief warrant officer.

The CID identified the remains in three of the eight other unidentified urns, but not enough information exists to make an identification of the remaining four urns’ remains.

See Arlington Cemetery’s Unknown Skater Revealed, MSNBC, Aug. 19, 2011.