Efforts by members of the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Unit and Coroner’s Office have led to the identification of a man found deceased on November 16, 2019. He is 41 year old Khamphanh Xayachit of Fresno.
Xayachit was found in the canal along McKinley Ave., east of Millbrook Ave., in Fresno. He appeared to have been in the water for several days, therefore hindering our office’s ability to identify him. A good set of fingerprints were difficult to collect due to his water damaged hands. However, one of our crime scene technicians was able to get some samples and placed them into her files.
In late November, Deputy Coroner Jeff Gentry issued a notice to the public asking for help to identify the man. The only information to go off of was a basic physical description of him and what he was wearing. This included: 5'5", 175 lbs., possibly Asian or Hispanic and in his 30s or 40s. He wearing a Cargill shirt, shorts, a black belt and bright red Nike shoes. He has several tattoos, which include a tribal design on his right shoulder and a tattoo of a name written in cursive on his left hand.
After not receiving any leads, Gentry looked to 108 Reserve Deputy Jason Lopez-Perez for additional assistance on this case. They focused on a metal plate that had been surgically inserted into the victim’s arm. The two men took photos of it and captured the manufacturer’s name on it as well as a serial number. They sent those photos to the medical equipment company and asked them to check records of who the implant might be registered to. The company responded on January 1, 2020 with the names of two people in the Fresno area who had such plates placed into their arms. Gentry gave those names to our crime scene technician. The first name she researched in our office’s fingerprint database was Khamphanh Xayachit, who had prints on file. She began to compare those prints with ones collected off of the victim. After spending a considerable amount of time carefully examining the prints, she was able to confirm a match to Xayachit. Gentry was able to contact Xayachit’s sister and notify her of her brother’s death. The woman was under the impression he had moved and that is why she had not recently seen or heard from him. She was extremely grateful to Gentry, Lopez-Perez and our crime scene technician for the lengths they had gone to in order to obtain this information and deliver it directly to her.
