Laotian villager aided in recovery of candidate's brother's remains
Associated Press
VIENTIANE, Laos — A Laotian villager helped lead investigators to the area where human remains believed to be of U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean's brother and an Australian friend were exhumed earlier this month, the head of the team said yesterday.
Associated Press library photo
The Laotian man told investigators that the bodies thought to be of Charles Dean and Neil Sharman were buried near a boulder in a rice field in central Laos, said Dr. Elizabeth Martinson, an anthropologist who led the excavation team.
Presidential hopeful Howard Dean, second from right in this undated photo of the Dean brothers, will likely be at Wednesday's repatriation ceremony for Charles Dean, left.
The remains of Dean and Sharman, along with the remains of two U.S. soldiers killed during the Vietnam War that were excavated at other sites in northeastern Laos, will arrive at Hickam Air Force Base on Wednesday.
A joint honor guard will commemorate the arrival at 9 a.m. Following the repatriation ceremony, the remains will be transported to the POW/MIA Accounting Command's Central Identification Laboratory where the forensic identification process will begin.
Howard Dean has said he will likely fly to Hawai'i for the ceremony.
U.S. Ambassador to Laos Douglas A. Hartwick and Laotian Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Phongsavath Boupha are also expected to attend.
Charles Dean has been missing since 1974, when the 24-year-old University of North Carolina graduate was traveling through Southeast Asia with Sharman. Both are believed to have been imprisoned and killed by communist insurgents who took control of Laos in 1975.
An investigation into their disappearance began in 1991, but it wasn't until August that the first of two joint U.S.-Laotian excavation teams began digging in the general area where local informants indicated the bodies may be buried.
In October, a man who claimed to have seen the bodies nearly 30 years ago provided clues that eventually helped a U.S. Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command team find the remains.
"There is a large boulder exposed in the rice paddy, and the witness said that is the southernmost point of consideration," Martinson said, adding that the site was pocked with bomb craters and had to be cleared of Vietnam War-era ordnance.
Digging north of the boulder, the team found human remains and personal effects on Nov. 8 and began the delicate task of exhuming them with trowels, bamboo implements and paint brushes, she said.
Martinson declined to describe the remains, citing the family's privacy. The remains were found near the town of Lakxao, east of the Laotian capital, Vientiane, and about 26 miles west of the Vietnamese border in Bolikhamxai province.
The remains have not been positively identified, but Howard Dean said last week that they include bones, a sock, a pair of shoes and a bracelet. He said his family is convinced they belong to his brother.
Advertiser staff writer William Cole contributed to this report.
