In June 1983, John Restuccia was found floating in the East River, an apparent suicide. The body was held three weeks waiting for someone to claim it. When no one did, the corpse was fingerprinted, photographed, wrapped in a tar paper shroud, placed in a plain pine box and shipped to Hart Island for burial.
Restuccia's family waited more than a year to notify police that he was missing. "He had a habit of taking off and disappearing," said Kevin Hobbs, the attorney who handled his estate. The police department's missing persons bureau tracked the body down six weeks after the family filed its report. His body was removed in 1985 and reburied in a Brooklyn graveyard.