Where is Christian Hall? 20 years later, family still hopes for answers<\/a><\/p>\nOfficials say Norman Prater was last seen walking with friends in Dallas in January 1973 and was later reported missing. Months later, in July of that same year, an unidentified man was killed in a hit-and-run crash along Highway 35 in Rockport.<\/p>\n
For decades, the two cases appeared unrelated. That changed after the case was reexamined with help from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.<\/p>\n
Joe Hayen, director of operations for the Nueces County Medical Examiner\u2019s Office, said extensive work and collaboration with other agencies led to Prater\u2019s positive identification.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were fractures and blunt force trauma. Possibly it could have been a hit and run,\u201d Hayen said.<\/p>\n
Hayen said the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children contacted his office for assistance. After reviewing the original records he provided, investigators were able to create a forensic profile for Prater.<\/p>\n
That profile became a key lead in identifying him.<\/p>\n
\u201cPublished that photo on his social media platforms. And doing that, they had a lead from someone in the community that said that looks like missing teenager Norman Prater from back in 1973,\u201d Hayen said.<\/p>\n
Hayen said the strongest confirmation came from Prater\u2019s brother.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe interesting thing is that he was able to even identify a scar Norman had from a dog bite from when they were kids,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Hayen said the identification brought long-awaited closure to Prater\u2019s family after more than 50 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough the phone I could hear his closure. And not only in his tone, his demeanor, he said this case is closed,\u201d Hayen said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A decades-old cold case was solved after the Nueces County Medical Examiner\u2019s Office helped identify a missing teen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-118214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}