Aposhian, a minister's son, was missing for six days when four Navy sailors found his body in July 1933. His eyes, fingers, lips and genitals were missing, which sent the city into panic.
Although a second autopsy conducted two years later showed that Aposhian had drowned, the case remained open all of these years, until Detective Curt Goldberg working withh Dr. Jon Lucas, a forensic pathologist at the San Diego Medical Examiner's office, took another look at the evidence.
Examining the seven-decades-old evidence, Lucas said the boy's mutilation was the result of "classic crustacean/fish activity." He also pointed out that not all drowning victims have water in their lungs and that sperm cannot possibly survive in open water for six days.
His ruling that the death was accidental drowning closes the case officially, Goldberg said.
At the time of the original investigation, a 10-year-old friend of Aposhian, Jack Confer, told deputies that the two were fishing on a pier when Aposhian slipped and fell. Confer panicked and ran away, he told investigators.
But Confer's story did not change the mind of Dr. Frank Toomey, who conducted the autopsy, nor did it stop the news media from sensationalizing the story to sell newspapers. The San Diego Union reported that a "maniacal killer" was on the loose in the city.
