http://www.cooganresearchgroup.com/crg/index.htm

06 June 2010

COOGAN story 

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(appearing on AP Wires ["Northeastern PA News"], 06 APR 2005):


SELTZER, PA (AP) - DNA testing has confirmed that a body that washed
ashore north of San Francisco in 1983 was that of a Schuylkill County
native swept away by heavy waves while on a business trip to 
California, the Marin County Coroner's Office announced.

The body of Joseph Coogan was interred Saturday in Calvary Cemetery,
Hillside, next to grave of the father, Francis Coogan, who died in
November 1995.

"I believe that is why God let me live so many years, so I could 
finally see him laid to rest," said Coogan's mother, Blanche A Coogan,
86, of Seltzer.

Coogan was a 1973 graduate of Nativity BVM High School and a 1977
graduate of Gannon University in Erie, who had been living and working
in Erie at the time of his death on January 23, 1983.

A business associate said he was taking a picture of Coogan atop a
large rock surrounded by pounding surf on the picturesque Monterey
coast, and "one minute he was there, and the next minute he was gone."

A Coast Guard search failed to recover the body, and the disappearance
wasn't linked to an unidentified body that washed ashore the next
month, 100 miles to the north, until authorities reopened the "cold
case" in November.  A key found on the body and traced to a former
Erie car dealership eventually established the link.

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