Dental Sleuth Forensic Odontologist Frank Morgan Uses His Dental Expertise To Identify Remains

The victims of crime and misfortune are strewn about the region on mountainsides, in lonely fields, at the bottoms of muddy lakes. When the remains are discovered, law enforcement officials know that identifying these bodies is sometimes as difficult as pulling teeth.

So they call their dentist.

For 17 years, Dr. Frank Morgan has been Eastern Washington’s only certified forensic dentist - or forensic odontologist, in industry-speak. The 55-year-old Spokane Valley family dentist’s alter-ego has helped Washington and Idaho officials identify the “John and Jane Does” of some of their most puzzling cases.

“I think it’s just the interface with the criminal system that fascinates me,” Morgan said. “It gets you away from the fill-and-drill. Not that that’s not interesting, but this is a different world.”

Morgan has worked on about 175 cases through the years, using his special dentistry skills to identify drowning victims, people who died in fires, and even the remains of long-dead Native Americans washed from an ancient burial place by flooding.

However, more than half of Morgan’s cases have involved foul play, and some have been high-profile crimes.

It was Morgan who identified the decomposing body of a child found in an East Spokane gravel pit as 6-year-old Tricna Cloy, who was abducted from her home and killed in 1988.

He also worked on a 1989 case in Boundary County, Idaho, in which two charred bodies were found in the rubble of a burned cabin that had housed a large marijuana growing operation.

Police needed to know the identity of the dead people in order to start an effective investigation.

After hours of work in his Spokane laboratory on one set of teeth, Morgan finally determined the identity of one body. Identifying the other, thought to be cabin-owner Donald Waskey, a suspected two-time murderer from New Mexico, proved tougher. Little remained of the jaw; all authorities knew was the victim had been shot in the back of the head.

Morgan learned from dental records, however, that Waskey had been fitted with an unusual crown. It was made of metal - indestructible even in the 1,700-degree inferno that had consumed the cabin.

Acting on a hunch, Morgan returned to the cabin near Bonners Ferry to search.

“We must have sifted through ashes for four hours before finding a single crown,” Morgan said. “It was like finding a needle in a haystack.”

Such field work is an exception; most of Morgan’s work is performed in the laboratory.

On the surface, what Morgan does is relatively straightforward. He looks at teeth and identifies dental work, then matches it with dental histories. The dental records of every missing person in Washington are recorded in a computer database.

But Morgan also can tell other things from victims even when they have no dental records. Age and often social class, for instance, can be deciphered from the condition of the teeth. All this helps authorities identify bodies.

Det. Rick Grabenstein, of the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department, said Morgan’s findings often provide a starting point for an investigation.

“Morgan’s work is basically invaluable. He probably has identified some people who may never have been identified without him or another expert in his field,” Grabenstein said.

Morgan got involved in forensic dentistry in 1980. After reading an article about forensic odontology in a professional journal, he called Lois Shanks, then the Spokane County coroner, to ask who handled such work in Spokane.

“She told me, ‘Anybody who can stomach it,”’ Morgan said. “The next week they pulled a body from the river, and they called me.”

Since then, Morgan has attended 13 annual meetings of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. He was president of the group in 1990-91. He served on the board of the American Society of Forensic Odontology from 1985-92, and taken a dozen postgraduate forensics courses, ranging from mass-disaster identification to bite-marks.

Dr. Jerry Jones, the Priest River dentist who worked with Morgan on the Bonners Ferry case, said Morgan’s compassion and empathy are what make his forensic work so effective.

“He’s as nice a guy as you’ll ever find,” Jones said. “Frank really cares about the victims.”

Many cases are charged with emotion. Victims leave behind grieving families and friends. Despite that, he pushes himself to maintain a clinical perspective on his cases.

A human body, in Morgan’s words, is the “the clay temple which housed the soul during its stay on earth.” He is the archaeologist - putting a name back on the temple.

Dr. George Lindholm, a forensic pathologist who handles most of Spokane County’s unidentified-body cases, said Morgan is exceptionally good at what he does.

“I have some general understanding of dentistry, but the subtle nuances of the investigations are the provence of a forensic odontologists,” Lindholm said. “Whenever Frank is available, I always decline to get involved in that area.”

Morgan’s desire to use his skills to help others, Lindholm said, outweighs the often difficult and disturbing nature of forensic medicine. In an effort to fully understand the cases he’s involved in, Morgan often attends autopsies after a body is found, Lindholm said.

“We have the obligation to be spokesmen for the deceased,” Lindholm says. “I can’t imagine a better spokesman than Frank Morgan.”