Coroner still struggling to identify man found dead in Rohnert Park

Sonoma County coroner’s detectives are still trying to identify a man whose body was found nine months ago behind a Rohnert Park storage facility after he died of natural causes.

Between 40 and 55 years old, the man was balding with brown hair and a full beard and wore aviator-style glasses. He was about 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighed 220 pounds.

The man’s presumed belongings found with his body offered few clues to his life other than he appeared to be a transient. But Sgt. Greg Stashyn said that a pile of loose pages with handwritten passages - mostly lists and writings about scientific concepts - potentially provide some insight into the man’s interests or state of mind, if they were written by him.

“He’s talking about Einstein and equivalence. It almost seems like he copied it out of a book,” Stashyn said.

Staff at the Rohnert Park Public Library told detectives that they possibly recognized the man, “but they didn’t know his name and didn’t think he had ever checked out any books,” Stashyn said. “It looked like he would go there and do research.”

Stashyn released a scanned copy of the pages to The Press Democrat in the hope that someone might come forward with information about the man.

In January, the Sheriff’s Office widely distributed a sketch rendering of the man drawn from an autopsy photo by retired deputy Carolyn McConville. Although several people have come forward to detectives to say they might recognize the man, none of those leads so far has helped reveal the man’s name, Stashyn said.

“We’re looking for the public’s help,” Stashyn said.

The man is the only unidentified body currently under investigation with the Sheriff’s Office coroner’s office other than old cases involving skeletal remains, Stashyn said.

A worker at the Expressway Self Storage facility on Commerce Boulevard found the man’s body shortly after 2 p.m. Jan. 2 on an access road that runs between the storage business and a Motel 6.

The man was wearing a black Ben Davis half-zip shirt, a brown zippered vest, a camouflage half-zip jacket, black pants, white socks, gray athletic shoes and a gray Timex digital watch.

Near the body, police found a black bicycle with multicolored speckles on its frame with a child carrier attached. Other items with him included a red 7-inch Polaroid tablet, a Cobra camera in a case, four micro SD cards, three memory cards and a micro solar panel.

Detectives searched through the tablet and camera as well as the memory cards and cellphones found with the man but nothing contained images or information that appeared to have anything to do with the man, and they may not have been his, Stashyn said.

Detectives canvassed the location where the man’s body was found, checking with businesses, transients and other people in the area.

Anyone with information about the case can call the Sonoma County coroner’s office at 565-5070.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.