![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/fe83f9ac-P-TARRANT20COUNTY20TAX20REFUND_1472783486037_1943134_ver1.0.jpg\")
<\/p>\nFORT WORTH, Texas – The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office is seeking the public’s help in identifying the next of kin for two cold cases that have recently been identified through fingerprint analysis.<\/p>\n
Cold cases identified <\/p>\n
What we know:<\/p>\n
Through fingerprint analysis, the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office has identified two cold cases and is asking the public to help find their next of kin.<\/p>\n
1986 cold case <\/p>\n
TCME identified an individual recovered on Oct. 16, 1986 as Jose Francisco Reyes Ortega, who was born on April 11, 1956.<\/p>\n
Archived evidence from the Fort Worth Police Department was examined, including fingers removed at autopsy. TCME fingerprint analysts developed fingerprints from the evidence, which generated a positive identification.<\/p>\n
Ortega has been assigned Unclaimed Person number UCP158233.<\/p>\n
2000 cold case <\/p>\n
TCME identified an individual discovered on Aug. 18, 2000 as Ciro Estrada Hernandez, who was born on July 16, 1969.<\/p>\n
Hernandez was identified through routine fingerprint reexamination. The resubmission hit on a criminal history out of California that matched Hernandez.<\/p>\n
Hernandez has been assigned Unclaimed Person number UCP158233.<\/p>\n
What you can do:<\/p>\n
Neither cold case identification has a next of kin, and both have been assigned as an Unclaimed Person by the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office. The Unclaimed Person database can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Anyone with information regarding next of kin for Ortega or Hernandez is asked to contact the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office at (817) 920-5700.<\/p>\n The Source: Information in this story comes from the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.<\/p>\n Tarrant County<\/a>Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas – The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office is seeking the public’s help in identifying the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1046,116,118,117,223,122,216,393],"class_list":["post-410397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-news","tag-tarrant-county","tag-tx","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410397","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=410397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}