By Cecilia Chan

Independent Newsmedia

A body of a man, believed to be 40-65 years old, was found in a desert area near Crozier Road and Sun Valley Parkway in Surprise

Clad in brown shorts and wearing a silver-color ring with black on it, he had been dead three months to a year before his body was discovered on Sept. 2, 2006.

For more than a decade the man remained nameless, his body unclaimed — Case Number: 06-3506 with the Maricopa County Medical Examiner. He was just one of 175 unidentified men found dead in Arizona on the Doe Network. Nationwide, 5,454 missing and 4,059 unidentified men and women are featured on the nonprofit website, which launched in 1999 and is manned by volunteer amateur sleuths.

“Most of the unidentified are stripped of any form of ID and are often the victim of homicide,” said spokesman Todd Matthews. “It’s hard to solve a homicide when you don’t know who the person is.”

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