because of the efforts of so many people I can stand before you to announce that we've identified the first 1921 tuls race Massacre victim since we began our search for them 5 years ago that announcement more than 100 years truly in the making came down from Tulsa City Hall this morning a body found in an unmarked grave near downtown Tulsa has now been identified as a confirmed and previously unknown VI victim of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Fox 23 anchor Rick marinan is live at Oakland Cemetery where that man was buried for more than a century now and where more remains of others will hopefully be identified soon Rick Shay this is absolutely bizarre a World War I veteran who isn't even from Tulsa was trying to get from Utah making his way to his family in Georgia was caught up in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre was killed and was here for 100 years and we didn't even know it years of searching and digging for answers yielded its first result we've identified the first 1921 tuls race Massacre victim since we began our search for them 5 years ago Tulsa mayor GT bam revealed a name Friday no one has heard in over a century and to many they had no idea he was even buried in Tulsa let alone Oklahoma CL L Daniel was a veteran who served our country in World War I who was killed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and whose family did not know where he had been buried for the last 103 years until this week CL L Daniel a black man working in Utah passing through trying to get back home to his mother in Georgia would die in Tulsa during one of the darkest days of the city's history it's not clear how he died but in a long lost document from the Veterans Administration on his mother's behalf she says she believes her son is dead and died in Tulsa during the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre some parts of him were in better shape than others so he was in good enough shape for us to determine his skeletal age that he was a young man I'm not sure he even made 25 researchers say Daniel's body was put into a coffin too small for his size and placed in an unmarked grave in a section previously only reserved for black people at oaklan cemetery and then over time elements like an underground stream assisted in his near total Decay but researchers were able to get a DNA profile that opened the doors to more dots being connected we hope he's not the last we hope that Mr Daniel is not the last and we are confident but what's next isn't in the hands of City officials it's in the hands of Daniel's family some who just days ago had no idea he existed my message to them is just we are here to support you and whatever we can do as a city to be of help uh as you decide what you want to do with his remains and to give him that Proper Burial the city will not rush Daniel's family into making a decision they said some of them are in shock and many of them are out of state so what is next as far as for all of the graves out here we do know the city and the archaeological teams will be out right here in this section and in fact they're going to remove this tree in just a matter of a few weeks around July 22nd this tree by the way has no historical significance to it so it's okay to rip this up it was planted back in 1995 it's not it represents anybody or anything so they're going to remove this tree they're going to do some more digging that digging will take about four more weeks it'll go into the month of August live in downtown covering news that matters I'm Rick Marin on FOX23 News