Bodies

The poor economy is taking a toll even on the dead, with an increasing number of bodies in Los Angeles County going unclaimed by families who cannot afford to bury or cremate their loved ones. At the county coroner's office -- which handles homicides and other suspicious deaths -- 36% more cremations were done at taxpayers' expense in the last fiscal year over the previous year, from 525 to 712.

His name might not rank with Amelia Earhart's and Judge Crater's, but the disappearance of Everett Ruess has been an enduring legend of the Southwest for 75 years. Only 20 at the time of his disappearance, the writer, artist and environmentalist who has been compared to a young John Muir was last seen near Utah's Davis Gulch in 1934. Numerous search parties failed to find him, and authors have speculated widely about his demise. Many believed he drowned in the Colorado River.

Searchers have found the bodies of three snowboarders missing since early December in a skiing area northeast of Mt. Rainier. Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer said searchers advantage of melting snow and searched Saturday in the area where the three disappeared. Authorities planned to airlift the bodies from the remote site in the Cascades near Crystal Mountain. Kevin Carter, 26, Devlin Williams, 29, and Phillip Hollins, 41, all of the Seattle area, are believed to have been killed by an avalanche.

A 90-year-old woman apparently has been living in a house with the bodies of three siblings, one of whom may have been dead since the 1980s, police in suburban Chicago said. The bodies were found Friday morning by police who were called by a senior advocate, Evanston Police Cmdr. Tom Guenther said. The woman was taken to a hospital for observation. The Cook County medical examiner's office said Saturday that the people had died of natural causes. The dead were identified as Anita Bernstorff, who was born in 1910; Frank Bernstorff, born in 1920; and Elaine Bernstorff, born in 1916.

Seven bodies were dumped before dawn at a school soccer field in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez. Neighbors in an upscale neighborhood found banners allegedly signed by a drug gang with the bodies, but officials would give no details about the messages. No suspects had been located. The unidentified victims had been shot, beaten and choked, but the cause of death was still being determined.

Two mass graves containing as many as 2,000 bodies have been discovered in eastern Congo, officials said. Justice Minister Luzolo Bambi told reporters that the graves were found late last week in the town of Bukavu in a plot of land formerly owned by a member of the Congolese Rally for Democracy, a Rwandan-backed rebel group. Many of its top leaders were integrated into the government. Constantin Charhondangwa, a regional official, said the bodies were discovered by a new owner of the land who was digging to install a septic tank.

The mother of an 18-month-old girl found dead near a San Fernando Valley freeway has recanted her story about the toddler being abducted during an attack and now says she panicked after her daughter died in an accident and dumped the body herself, a sheriff's official said Thursday. Stacy Barker initially told detectives that she was knocked unconscious by an attacker at a Lancaster park as she was buckling her daughter, Emma Leigh Barker, into her car seat.

The army of grievers climbed to the hilltop at dawn, waiting for the 365 flag-draped coffins to arrive. Some sat weeping in the stony dirt amid row after row of empty graves; others lined the streets for blocks. They clutched framed pictures of husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters -- all victims of Saddam Hussein's 1988 genocidal campaign against the Kurds. When the coffins came, carried up the hill on the backs of soldiers, the lamentation could wait no longer.

Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Saturday that his guerrilla organization had the remains of Israeli soldiers left on southern Lebanon's battlefields during a 34-day war that started after the group captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. "Oh Zionists, your army is lying to you. . . . Your army has left the body parts of your soldiers in our villages and fields," Nasrallah said in a rare public appearance. "I am not talking about regular body parts.

A body found in a San Diego alley is believed to be that of a Huntington Beach man missing for several days, police said Tuesday. Dane Williams, 23, was last seen by friends about 1:30 a.m. Saturday leaving a bar in the Gaslamp Quarter, where he had been attending a trade show with his employer, surf clothing manufacturer Hurley International. About 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, police found a body they believe is Williams' wrapped in a blanket.