01x03 - A Titanic Child

[bunniefuu]

Fitzharris: Everyone knows
that the most famous

ocean liner ever built

sank on her maiden voyage.

But what happened to
all those hundreds

who died in the freezing
waters?

Oost: When the ships
got to the site,

they were greeted with
hundreds of bodies

bobbing around in the ocean.

Fitzpatrick: They took
the Titanic victims

so people could come and see
if they recognized anybody.

Fitzharris: For
almost a century,

one mystery remained unsolved.

Oost: We were worried
whether or not

there would actually be enough
bony material to sample.

Fitzharris: So who was the
child plucked from the sea

and buried in a simple
grave with no name?

I'm Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris.

I'm a medical historian
and best-selling author,

with a PhD in the history
of science and medicine

from Oxford University.

I've written about the
pioneering days of surgery,

about syphilis,
plagues and pandemics,

and even books
made of human skin.

Some might say I'm obsessed
with the macabre and with
death.

But I think the way people die

tells us a whole lot
about how they lived.

I'm going to explore some of
history's most famous lives

by looking at them through
their extremely curious deaths.

This is my investigation room.

And here is my science lab,
where Dr. Raychelle Burks

will be doing tests
and experiments for me.

And here is where my
crime-solving partner,

former scotland yard
detective Brian Hook,

helps me piece together
my investigations.

Call it biography with a twist,
a biography from the morgue.

(eerie music)

The Titanic, over 1,500 deaths.

Most of them not curious,
but one is.

This episode is a bit
different.

It's about kind of bringing
one victim back to life

after over a century.

The sinking of the Titanic

is one of the most famous
stories in history.

In 1912, almost 2/3 of all
the passengers and crew

perish in the freezing
North Atlantic ocean.

But what I didn't know was
that a small child's body

is recovered from the Atlantic,

where the doomed ship
goes down, a boy.

And when that tiny
body is buried,

he's buried with no name.

I'm not looking for a m*rder*r,

a m*rder weapon,
or even a motive.

I'm looking to find the
identity of a victim.

I wanna know who
the little boy is,

where he comes from,
and how he dies.

So meet the Titanic's
unknown child.

This dummy body will be
a constant reminder to me

of my search.

What are his secrets?

What details did he give
away when they recovered him?

My chief investigator,
Brian Hook,

has been examining
the ship's manifest

in order to help us uncover
the little boy's identity.

Hook: This is an altogether
unpleasant list, really.

These are the 59 children that
died when the Titanic sank.

-Fitzharris: It's so sad.
-Hook: Yes.

This is the list we need
to be looking at.

The 34 boys that died.

Fitzharris: So the unknown
child is one of these 34 boys.

I wonder how we
can narrow it down.

Even a century later, there's
still so much more to discover

about this tragic event.

-(dramatic music)
-(crowd cheering)

Many of us have seen
this footage before.

For years, most believed
that these were passengers

onboard the Titanic

being waved off from
Southampton, England,

except this isn't the Titanic.

This is actually her
sister ship, the Olympic,

as she sets sail for New York

in the year before
Titanic was even launched.

These are in fact the only
known and moving pictures

of the most famous ship
in maritime history.

Docked in Belfast, the Titanic
prepares for its journey.

It makes me wanna find out

if anything else
has been overlooked,

even on a case as well-known
as that of the Titanic.

(eerie music)

Countless films, TV
programs and books

have recounted the story.

Las Vegas, Nevada,
is over 2,500 miles

from the chilly North Atlantic,

but even it has a
direct connection,

one of the largest exhibitions

of Titanic artifacts
in the world.

Here, we can get an
insight into the lives

of over 2,200
passengers and crew,

our unknown child among them,
as they set sail.

(suspenseful music)

Skinner: You've got
three classes.

The first class are probably
the celebrities of the day.

The wealthy, the super rich,

who have the most
luxurious rooms.

Then, you have people in the
middle, the second class,

maybe starting a new life,
maybe doing business as well.

But you also have a
lot of third class,

the people at the very bottom,

who are perhaps putting
their life savings

into these tickets and chancing
their arm to start afresh.

But there were over 700
third-class passengers

on the Titanic.

Fitzharris: As the ship sails
towards New York,

our unknown child
is onboard somewhere,

perhaps sleeping peacefully,

unaware of the danger
that lies ahead.

(ominous music)

Skinner: It's a still night.

It's described as the sea
being almost like a mill pond.

She was going pretty
quickly, 22 knots.

It's dark, there's
no moon in the sky,

making it harder for the
lookouts to spot the icebergs,

binoculars being
left locked away,

not accessible
to those lookouts.

And when you put all
those things together,

you do see factors that
can be having the effect

of her sinking.

Fitzharris: Brian, it's nearing
midnight on April 14th.

Now tell me where the ship
had gotten to at this point.

Hook: The ship was on a journey
from Southampton to New York,

that's a distance
of 3,419 miles.

And it was about 2/3 of the
way, when they hit the iceberg.

The ice tore a huge gash in
the starboard side of the hull.

And what you now
have is over 11 tons

of freezing Atlantic seawater

flooding into the hull
every single second.

It took just two
hours and 40 minutes

for the unsinkable Titanic

to slip below the icy waters
of the Atlantic ocean.

Fitzharris: The ship sends
out a desperate distress call.

(radio beeping)

There are several vessels
close enough to respond.

One of the closest
is the RMS Carpathia.

But it still has to travel
an estimated 60 miles

to come to the Titanic's aid.

Even if more rescue ships

had set off from the
nearest port of Halifax,

they would have still
taken three to four days

to reach the wreckage.

When the Carpathia
finally arrives,

the Titanic has disappeared.

Fitzharris: The day after the
sinking of the Titanic,

newspapers around the world

reported that all the
passengers aboard had been
saved

with headlines like "Titanic
sinking; no lives lost".

And "All saved
from the Titanic".

How could so many newspapers
get it so wrong?

The state-of-the-art wireless
telegraph transmitter

installed by Marconi,
the leading technology company,

was the Titanic's
sole connection

to the rest of the world.

Other ships in the vicinity
had similar transmitters.

It turns out that the frantic
messages that burst forth

in the early hours of April
15th, 1912 were chaotic.

During the course
of wireless chatter,

someone asked,
"Are the passengers safe?".

An answer came,

"The ship is being towed to
Halifax and everyone is okay".

The only problem was
that neither the question

nor the response were about
the Titanic and her passengers.

It referred to another ship
in the vicinity

that had also floundered and
was being towed to Halifax.

When reporters got
wind of the story,

misinformation spread
like wildfire.

The scale of the disaster

overshadowed any scandal
that may have arisen

from this appalling
misreporting.

And so, the whole saga
was simply forgotten.

(dramatic music)

Skinner: One of the things
that is absolutely true

about the Titanic is she
only had enough lifeboats

for half of the people onboard,
which is a tragic statistic.

So, even if all of the
lifeboats were filled,

it would only have accounted
for about 1,200 people or so.

There were over 2,200
people on the Titanic.

Fitzharris: Most of us have
heard about the rescue

of those who survived
the disaster,

floating for hours
huddled in their lifeboats

in the freezing open Atlantic.

What most people don't know

is about the mission
to recover the bodies

of those who died.

It was from the Halifax
dockside

that the recovery cable ship,
the Mackay-Bennett, sets off.

On this voyage, they aren't
looking for survivors,

and they're carrying
a grim cargo,

100 coffins, 100 tons
of ice, embalming fluid,

and 12 tons of iron bars
to bury bodies at sea

if they haven't the means
to bring them back to shore.

This is the morgue ship.

And even i, who know
a lot about death,

find this spine chilling.

(suspenseful music)

Tracy Oost is a
forensic scientist

who has taken a special
interest

in those who died
aboard the Titanic.

Oost: I don't think the crew
was really expecting

to find bodies or at least
not very many bodies.

They figured that
by the time they got

to where the Titanic sank

that the currents
would have drifted

a lot of the bodies away,

a lot of the bodies
would have sank.

But when the ships
got to the site,

they were greeted with
hundreds of bodies

bobbing around in the ocean.

Hamilton: April 21st,
began picking up bodies.

Two icebergs, the nearest
one higher than the other,

sometimes not easily seen,
they look like breaking waves.

The ocean is strewn with
a litter of woodwork,

chairs, and bodies.

(solemn music)

Oost: The crew were given
very specific instructions

to number the bodies.

There was extensive
documentation in a log

as to the description
of the body,

the condition that it was in,

the personal effects
that were found with it.

The fourth body that was
recovered was the unknown
child.

The boy was actually
face up and frozen.

So this would have been,
I'm sure, rather disturbing

to the crew at the time.

Fitzharris: What can we learn
about this little boy

once he's pulled from
the freezing water

of the North Atlantic?

We have just one clue,

a note like this that was
later pinned to his body.

"Number four, male.

"Estimated age, two. Hair,
fair.

"Clothing, grey coat
with fur on collar.

"Brown shoes and stockings.

"No marks whatsoever.

Probably third class".

It's an extraordinary
note, isn't it?

But it does allow us to
narrow down the search

for the boy's identity.

Remember, there are
34 boys on our list.

How many of them are
around two years old?

Hook: Well, I've been
doing some counting.

And I've found that
there were only six boys

aged 2 1/2 or under who
died on the Titanic.

This is the first
one, Gosta Palsson.

And then, we have Eugene Rice.

Sidney Goodwin.

Fitzharris: Isn't it amazing
that we have photos

of all of these
babies and children?

Hook: I know.

Eino Panula.

And after all those wonderful
ones, one not so good.

-Fitzharris: Oh, wow.
-Hook: Albert Peacock.

And lastly, Gilbert Danbom.

Fitzharris: Such a great
French name.

Again, really
underlining the fact

that this was such
an international

group of passengers.

There is one thing we
can now be certain of.

One of these little boys
is our unknown child.

(suspenseful music)

After the Titanic sinks,

a note pinned to an
unidentified child's body

reveals he was a third-class
passenger.

So where would our child
have been on the ship?

As I understand it,

the Titanic hits the
iceberg at 11:40 p.m.

That means that a lot of
people would have been sleeping

in their cabins.

Where exactly are the
third-class cabins?

Hook: They are right down in
the depths of the hull of the
ship.

They are the lowest
passenger decks.

And because of this,

the third-class cabins
would be most in danger.

The flooding was gonna
reach those people first.

This is a breakdown, by the
class they were traveling in,

of who died.

Fitzharris: All right,
what does it show us?

Hook: Well, I find it
quite shocking.

62% of first-class
passengers survived.

Second-class passengers, 42%.

Third-class passengers,
only 26% survived.

-Fitzharris: 26%?
-Hook: Yeah.

Fitzharris: That's
really shocking.

Hook: It is.
There were 144 women

in first-class,
only four died.

Fitzharris: Only four of
the first-class women died.

So that tells me if
the unknown child

was traveling first class,
he was most likely to survive.

Hook: Yes, I agree.

Fitzharris: Imagine the boy's
mother on that fateful night.

It's just before midnight,

she's waking up her
little boy, the terror.

And maybe she's been separated
from her older children,

she's trying to regroup
her family.

(ominous music)

Skinner: Panic sets in,
many third-class passengers

who perhaps don't speak
English,

not knowing exactly
what's going on.

The testimonies of people
that were there,

they talk of chaos.

They're running around and
trying to get onto lifeboats,

families who were separated.

The screams of people
in the water afterwards.

It would have been harrowing
and terrifying

in equal measure.

Fitzharris: The eyewitness
reports give a chilling sense

of what it was like as
the ship sank that night.

Beasley: There fell on the
ear the most appalling noise

that human beings
ever listened to,

cries of hundreds
of our fellow beings

struggling in the
icy cold water,

crying for help with a cry we
knew could not be answered.

We tried to sing to keep the
women from hearing the cries.

Those sounds will
be one of the things

the rescued will find it
difficult to efface from
memory.

Fitzharris: It was said that on
the night the Titanic sank,

the water was 28
degrees Fahrenheit,

which is below freezing.

How long would someone who
didn't die from shock last

in those kinds of temperatures?

Burks: Experiments have
been done on this.

What happens to a body in water

when you lower and
lower the temperature.

(dramatic music)

At first, the body tries to
generate heat by shivering.

At around 95 degrees,
the heart rate, the breathing,

and blood pressure
all start to increase.

But as the temperature
drops further,

the body tries to compensate
by lowering the heart rate,

the breathing, and
blood pressure.

This cooling, if not checked,

leads to disorientation,
unconsciousness and death.

Fitzharris: Wow, so how long
would that have taken?

Burks: Sadly, not very long.

Takes about 15 minutes

for hypothermia to
set in in an adult.

You could be dead
in about 30 mins.

For a child, it would
be much shorter.

(dramatic music)

Fitzharris: Amongst the mayhem
in Titanic's last moments,

the ship's chief
baker, Charles Joughin,

was a complete outlier.

After sending up his finest
bread to the parting lifeboats,

the experienced seaman,

probably realizing he
was in mortal danger,

gulped down almost
half a pint of liqueur.

Apparently, he was
the very last person

to abandon the Titanic.

Well oiled, so to speak, he
dropped from an outside rail

and into the water
just as the ship sank.

Titanic's second officer,
Charles Lightoller,

recalled the freezing
conditions saying,

"Striking the water was
like a thousand knives

being driven into one's body".

Many died from the
cold water shock,

unable to catch their breath.

Flying in the face
of medical science,

Joughin allegedly
lasted for 2 1/2 hours

before being hauled
aboard a lifeboat.

He continued to work on
the transatlantic ships

and was also on
board the SS Oregon

when it sank in Boston Harbor.

He served on World w*r II troop
transports, retired in 1944,

and died at the age of
78 from natural causes.

The survival of the drunk baker
goes far beyond the curious

and into the miraculous.

(dramatic music)

Fitzharris: Tracy Oost has
examined what happened to those

who didn't hold out long
enough to be rescued.

Oost: When someone
dies in warm water,

the body starts to decompose

and actually starts
to disarticulate.

In the case of the Titanic,
because it was so cold,

the decomposition process would
have been greatly delayed.

So they were found in
a very intact state

by the crew of the
Mackay-Bennett.

Facial hair, eyelashes,
eyebrows

would have had frost on them.

Eventually they would
recover 328 bodies,

a lot more than
what they expected.

They realized very quickly

that they weren't going to
have enough embalming fluid,

they didn't have enough
coffins with them,

and so, some decisions
had to be made

about what they were going
to do with the bodies.

The majority of the bodies that
were brought back to Halifax

were first-class passengers

or people who could have
been very easily identified.

Bodies that were
very badly damaged,

if they couldn't be identified,

and any third-class passengers

or even second-class
passengers,

the decision was made
to bury them at sea.

(dramatic music)

Hamilton: The
funeral service

is conducted by the
Reverend Canon Hind.

For nearly an hour,

the words "We therefore
commit this body to the deep"

are repeated, and at each
interval comes, splash,

as the weighted body
plunges into the sea,

there to sink to a depth
of about two miles.

Splash, splash, splash.

Fitzharris: So, Brian,

I understand that a lot
of the bodies

of third-class passengers
that were recovered

were then reburied in the sea.

Hook: Well, it doesn't
surprise me

they were treating the
third-class passengers like
that

-at all.
-Fitzharris: Really sad.

And we know that the
unknown child is recovered

from the water around this
time,

and we also know that he
was a third-class passenger

because of that label.

So why didn't they commit
him to a watery grave?

Hook: Well, the story goes

that the sailors just
didn't have the heart

to bury the little boy at sea,
so they brought him back,

and they were willing to pay
for the funeral themselves.

Fitzharris: That's an
amazing story.

And so, he takes his
final journey then

-to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
-Hook: Yeah.

(solemn music)

Oost: There were 209
bodies brought here to Halifax.

The gravestones
here are laid out

in the shape of
the bow of a ship

to represent the
bow of the Titanic,

so it's very symbolic

that the graves were
laid out this way.

The unknown child is actually
at the top of the grave site,

about halfway up a
hill in the cemetery.

The crew of the Mackay-Bennett

felt so bad about
this little guy

that they had pulled
out of the ocean

and that there was no
family to claim him

that they paid for
a painted white casket

with the usual adornments that
you would see on a casket,

and they had flowers and so on.

Fitzharris: It's such a
touching story.

This tiny fellow melts the
hearts of the whole of Halifax.

And there he lies for
86 years until 1998,

when the Palsson
family from Sweden

makes an astonishing claim.

They believe they're
the descendants

of our unknown child.

Can forensic techniques
finally make it possible

to verify the boy's identity?

A young boy's body of
around 2 years of age

is pulled from the water
in the aftermath of the sinking

of the Titanic.

He is buried in a grave
in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

There he remains, referred to
only as the unknown child.

But in 1998, a scientific team

set out to solve the mystery
of the boy's identity.

Forensic genealogist,
Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick,

is asked to contribute
her expertise.

(suspenseful music)

Fitzpatrick: Well, the project
started in the late '90s.

The Canadian government
had been contacted

by the Palsson
family from Sweden,

who believed the unknown child
was a member of their family.

There was circumstantial
evidence supporting that.

There was eyewitness accounts
of Alma Palsson, the mother,

going into the water
with the kids,

and her body was found with
the tickets in her pocket.

So, you know, we knew
the Palsson children

were probably with her, and
they took a kind of guess

and they thought it was their
relative, Gosta Palsson.

Fitzharris: Do we know anything
about this boy, Gosta?

Hook: Gosta is a good match
for our potential victim

because he's the right age
and he's got blond hair.

Fitzharris: So he could be
the unknown child.

Hook: Yes, he could.

Of course, one of the
things we can do today

they couldn't do in those days

was use DNA to
identify the victims.

But that's what the Palsson
family wanted to do.

So they had to go
to the authorities

to get permission
to exhume the body

so the DNA test could be done.

Fitzpatrick: You have to
realize Halifax, there's a lot
of rain,

in recent times,
a lot of acid rain,

so the expectation was very low

that there'd be anything left.

Fitzharris: After so many years
in sodden earth,

will anything remain
of the unknown child?

Especially when you consider
how fast a body decomposes

under normal conditions.

(dramatic music)

What happens to our
bodies after we die?

If we're not floating
in the ice-cold Atlantic

like our Titanic child, we
begin decomposing immediately.

Bacteria convert the liquids
and solids inside of our bodies

into gases that cause
our corpses to bloat.

Just a few days after death,

our bodies can swell to almost
twice their previous size.

At this stage, the bacterial
production of sulfur

gives our bodies a strange,
yellowish color,

referred to by pathologists
as marbling.

It's around this time that
flies begin to arrive.

Their eggs later hatch into
maggots, which devour the
flesh.

In around six months, depending
on temperature and humidity,

all that's left
is skin and bone.

We still have a
huge amount to learn

about how the body decays,

but now have a new tool
to help scientists.

The first body farm was set up

by anthropologist
William M. Bass in 1981

at the University of Tennessee.

Here, at any one time,
up to 50 rotting cadavers

are left to decompose so
that they can be studied.

As gruesome as it sounds,

forensic scientists
and anthropologists

use their research

to help investigate
homicides and even genocides,

solving the important questions

of how, when, and
where a person died.

(dramatic music)

(solemn music)

In Halifax, on May 18th, 2001,

forensic anthropologist
Tracy Oost and her team

begin the exhumation.

Oost: Exhumation is a very
delicate operation.

One of the things that
was paramount for us

was making sure that this was
done in a forensic manner

and that we would have as much
dignity as possible involved

with this case.

We very quickly realized

that there was a lot
of groundwater here

and that that was going
to hamper our process.

We were a little bit worried

about the preservation
of the unknown child

and whether or not

there would actually be enough
bony material to sample.

However we were able to find

about a six-centimeter-
long piece of bone

that we wouldn't have found
at all except for the fact

that one of the adornments
from the casket,

this medallion that
appeared to say "our babe"

and had a certain
amount of copper in it

had actually fallen
down on top of the body

as the casket collapsed
and disintegrated.

Copper actually preserves bone,

so where the other
bone in the area

had long since disintegrated,

that particular piece
of bone was preserved

by that medallion.

Fitzharris: It's 2002, and
after lying in his grave for 89
years,

the unknown child is
about to get a name.

If the tiny amount of bone

yields enough of the
right kind of DNA,

then we can find out if it
matches with the Palsson
family,

who believe they are
the child's descendants.

(solemn music)

Historian Alan Ruffman
was a key part

of the investigating
team in Nova Scotia.

Ruffman: Pieces of the
bone were sent out

to various DNA laboratories,

and the metal may have assisted
the bone to be preserved,

but it also made
for contamination.

That gave people an
awfully difficult time.

It was not an ideal sample.

Fitzharris: But it is
enough to begin testing

for a crucial inherited link
down the female family line.

Burks: Mitochondrial DNA

is passed down from
mother to child.

So if we take a look at a cell,

the nucleus is
right in the center,

and that's where the DNA is.

Now surrounding that, hundreds
of them, if not thousands,

is the mitochondrial,
which have their own DNA.

All the children
from the same mother

should have the same
mitochondrial DNA.

Now, how they do an actual
mitochondrial DNA test

is they start by looking
at a hypervariable region

of mitochondrial
DNA nicknamed HVR1

to see who can be excluded.

If you don't match at HVR1,

you are definitely
not maternally related.

Ruffman: When they looked at
the DNA, unfortunately,

Gosta Leonard Palsson was
eliminated quite quickly

in the summer after
the initial exhumation.

The DNA wasn't a match,

so we knew it was one of
the other five at that point.

Fitzharris: Wow, that must have
been really disappointing

for the Palsson family.

Who do we have left?

Hook: Well, Gosta Palsson,
he's eliminated.

That leaves us with five.

We have Eugene Rice,
he's 2 1/2 years old.

Sidney Goodwin,
he's 19 months old.

We've got Eino Panula,
he's 13 months old.

Albert Peacock,
he's just seven months old.

And lastly,
we have Gilbert Danbom,

and he's only five months old.

Fitzharris: Five months,
so young.

(dramatic music)

Meanwhile, the investigators
had undertaken

the exhausting task of
tracing female descendant

for the remaining five boys.

If they couldn't find any,

the search for the
unknown child would end.

Fitzpatrick: You have to
consider, in doing this work,

that these families
were wiped out.

But you have to find, you
know, a family reference.

And a lot of times, that
involves going back in time,

building the tree up and
then work down to the present

until you can find
a living family member

along the female line.

So that can be one, two,
three, four generations.

It depends on the family.

Fitzharris: But through
extraordinary dedication,

the team managed
to track down relatives

in all five families.

It turns out that in the
two youngest candidates,

Albert Peacock
and Gilbert Danbom,

and the eldest, Eugene Rice,

the mitochondrial DNA
also did not match.

They are ruled out.

Fitzpatrick: There were two
left, one was a finnish baby,

Eino Panula, and the other
was Sidney Leslie Goodwin,

an English baby.

He was 19 months old. Eino
was, like, 13 months old.

But both of them were
identical in HVR1.

Fitzharris: What are the odds
of two Titanic infants

from different countries

matching on their
initial DNA test?

Well, actually,
it turns out pretty good.

Ruffman: The use of
mitochondrial DNA

was really quite young.

And the U.S. Federal
Bureau of Investigation

had begun to assemble a
database of mitochondrial DNA.

And they had realized that if
you're in the northern part

of Scandinavia or England
and you're a white Caucasian,

you have roughly about 18%
that in hypervariable area 1,

there'll be a match
with someone else.

So it's quite common.

And that HVR1 was not
gonna be conclusive.

Fitzharris: This is getting
really exciting now.

Just going over what we know,
we've narrowed down the search

from 59 children
down to 34 boys,

and then just six boys aged
2 1/2 years or under.

Out of those six, four
boys didn't match the DNA.

That leaves us with two,

two babies that it could be,
with a common female ancestor.

Sidney Goodwin and Eino Panula,

one of these two boys
is the unknown child.

(suspenseful music)

And so, in this twisting and
turning scientific search,

attention turned to
other remains unearthed

from deep inside the grave.

Oost: After finding the
bone, we kept excavating,

and I was able to actually
find three small teeth,

two molars and another tooth.

It was definitely exciting.

Finding the teeth was
a bit of a eureka moment.

Fitzharris: Are these fragments
of teeth the vital clue

that may finally put a name to
the Titanic's unknown child?

The identity of the unknown
child found floating near

the wreckage at the Titanic

has been narrowed down
to just two boys

Sidney Goodwin and Eino Panula,

both are a match
on their DNA tests.

And both come from poor
families escaping Europe

for a fresh start
in the new world.

Their stories are
eerily similar.

(dramatic music)

Finnish born Maria Panula
boards the Titanic at
Southampton

with her five children.

Her husband is
already in America.

The passenger lists

show that Maria and
her three younger sons

have a cabin in the stern.

An eyewitness reveals

that soon after the ship
starts sinking,

one of the older boys runs
from their cabin in the bow

to wake them all up.

But in the confusion,
Maria loses some of her boys.

None of the family survived

and none of their bodies
were ever found

unless, of course,
the unknown child is Eino,

Maria's youngest child.

Augusta and Frederick Goodwin

are also traveling on the
Titanic with their six
children.

Like the Panula family,

Frederick is taking them
to a new life in the U.S.

Relatives in America have
lent the family money

for their tickets,
46 pounds and 18 shillings,

a huge sum for a poor family.

And they've found
and furnished a house

for the whole family,

ready for their arrival
on American soil.

They all perish in the wreck
of the Titanic.

Is the unknown child
the youngest member

of the Goodwin family,
19-month-old Sidney?

But how to distinguish
between Sidney and Eino,

two children who couldn't
be separated by their DNA?

The key is the teeth,

estimated to be from a child
under 15 months.

Fitzpatrick: They
brought pediatric

dentists and orthodontists
into the picture.

And based on the lack
of wear in the teeth,

the growth of the roots,

they ruled that the child was
probably the younger child,

Eino Panula, and that's it,
and big celebration worldwide.

Fitzharris: The identity
of the unknown child

was triumphantly announced
on November 6th, 2002.

Parr: The results on both
dental and DNA analysis

are consistent with the remains
being those of Eino Panula.

Reporter: This relative
from Helsinki

found out 11 days ago

that scientists had
made a genetic match.

And with her family,

she came to Halifax to
visit the grave site.

Reporter: The remains
identified as those of Eino
Panula,

the child of this woman's
great aunt.

(dramatic music)

Fitzharris: A 90-year-old
mystery has been solved.

Or has it?

Shortly after the announcement,

a new piece of evidence
is found

which dates back to just a
few days after the ship sank

and it changes everything.

A small pair of brown
children's shoes.

Nothing is straightforward
in this investigation.

These shoes turn up and bring
their own story with them.

Just winding back, this is
what happens to the bodies

when the death ship,
the Mackay-Bennett,

returns to shore.

A Halifax police sergeant,
Clarence Northover,

does something that he
actually shouldn't do.

(suspenseful music)

Fitzpatrick: The story was that
they took the Titanic victims

so people could come and see
if they recognized anybody.

There was a police guard
that was guarding the bodies.

They didn't want
souvenir hunters,

and when time came
to burn the clothes,

that guard saved the shoes.

He couldn't bear
to see them burned,

so he took them, he put
them in his desk drawer

at the police station
and he kept them

and then he passed them to
his son and his grandson,

who eventually gave
them to the museum.

Fitzharris: This is incredible.

At the 11th hour, a brand new
piece of evidence comes in.

A pair of brown shoes
hidden away in a drawer

in a local police station are
passed down two generations

before being donated to the
Maritime Museum in Halifax

by the police guard's
descendants.

They claim they belong
to the unknown child.

(solemn music)

Ruffman: The museum went
through a long process

of verifying the provenance.

The fact that the name
is misspelled

tells me that if this
was a deliberate hoax,

you probably would have got

the spelling of the
word Titanic right.

As it is, it has
an extra "T" in it.

The line of persons from
Halifax

at the time of the bodies
coming ashore

through to the shoes being
brought to the museum

is pretty solid.

They very clearly
had been in water.

So I'm comfortable
that they really are

the shoes of the unknown child.

Fitzpatrick:
This museum analyzed

the amount of salt in the shoes

to see if it was commensurate
with the salt in the ocean.

They looked for diatoms
in the shoes,

those little one-cell
animals in the ocean.

They put that all
together and they said,

"It's reasonable to believe

that these are the shoes
of the unknown child".

Fitzharris: Remember the note
pinned to the child?

It gives a clear description
of what he's wearing,

most crucially,
the brown shoes.

I'm confident that the shoes
from the police station drawer

belong to the unknown child.

But the museum's experts
believe

they're not the size of shoes
for a 13-month-old baby,

that they're too big.

After almost a century, is
there yet another dramatic
twist

in the mystery
of the unknown child?

The unknown child, one of
the most mysterious casualties

of the sinking of the Titanic
had in 2002

been officially named as
finnish born Eino Panula.

But in an extraordinary turn
of events, this identification

might be overturned by
a new piece of evidence:

A pair of brown shoes.

Fitzpatrick: The trouble
started when somebody realized

that the shoes were too big

for a 13-month-old,
finnish baby Eino Panula.

And as far as the style,
were consistent with shoes

commercially available
in the UK at that time.

Everything they thought
about the identity

of the unknown child

is now thrown into doubt.

In 2002, DNA testing
wasn't sophisticated enough

to set Sidney and Eino apart.

But by 2007,
testing can go deeper

and reveal characteristics

unique to each of
their families.

(dramatic music)

The trouble is that
the research group

hang up their test tubes

after the teeth looked
like they matched Eino.

Now new DNA tests are needed.

And these are done by AFDIL,

the Armed Forces
Identification Laboratory

which specializes
in DNA sequencing.

Burks: And they look
at another part

of mitochondrial dna
called HVR2.

They find a match for Sidney's
family, but not Eino's.

Fitzharris: Okay,
so a tick for Sidney?

Burks: Yes, but they
wanna be really sure,

so they have to go even
deeper into the DNA,

which happens with DNA analysis

when you wanna actually
exclude someone.

They end up finding a
mutation in Sidney's family

and not in Eino's.

Combining the results from
AFDIL

and what we know about
those English brown shoes,

you get only one child.

Fitzharris: Now I can reveal,

once and for all,
the unknown child.

Sidney Leslie Goodwin,
aged 19 months,

a baby with a fur
collar on his jacket

and a pair of little brown
shoes, and his own unique DNA.

What little amount
of DNA was extracted

was exhausted through
these rounds of testing.

I was told the
identification was made

based on the DNA in one
cell of that child's body

and now it's gone.

It was a miracle,

so you always have to be
happy about a miracle.

And a miracle like this,
isn't it wonderful?

We solved it.

We know who the unknown child
is now.

That's great.
That's a good day.

Fitzharris: But there's
one final tragic twist

connected to the Goodwins

that began before
they even set sail.

The Goodwin family

were never even meant
to be aboard the Titanic.

They had tickets
for the SS New York,

but at the last minute,

they were transferred
to the Titanic.

(dramatic music)

Skinner: The spring of 1912
was an interesting time.

There was a coal strike in
Wales

which had a knock-on effect
that there wasn't the coal

to go around for all the
liners.

Those ships no longer leave,
and passengers are moved.

So we have a number of
families,

including the Goodwin family,

they get the good news,
as they see it,

they're gonna be on
the most beautiful,

the newest ship that
the world has ever seen.

Fitzharris: It's so sad.

We know that the Goodwin
family,

all eight of them
were on the Titanic.

But there were only
four beds in that cabin.

Would they have been together?

Hook: Highly likely they would
have been separated by gender.

Father would have been
with the boys in the bow

and mother would have been
with the daughters and Sidney

in the stern.

Fitzharris: It's so tragic.

The family wouldn't
have been together

when the ship hit the iceberg.

Fitzpatrick: What's interesting

is that the ship
contacted the iceberg,

a little spur under the water,

wasn't a big like collision,
little spur,

and the ship and the iceberg

were in contact
for seven seconds,

and the rest is history.

Fitzharris: On August 6th,
2008,

the living descendants
within the Goodwin family

finally visit the grave

to pay their respects
to baby Sidney.

Carol Goodwin,
his second cousin,

reads the names of
the other children

who also perished when
the Titanic went down

and a bell is rung for each.

(solemn music)

Fitzpatrick: The Goodwin family
had a memorial.

The family had been drawn
together because of this.

It sort of cemented
their place in history,

which is always good, and
made closure for their family.

They decided to leave
the stone as it was

for all the children that died

to preserve that for everyone

and not just keep it
for themselves.

I think that was a good thing.

Fitzharris: Science is one
of the most powerful tools

for uncovering the past.

But none of this would
have ever been solved

had it not been for
the ordinary people

who ended up playing
an extraordinary part

in this entire story.

Let's hear it for the men

who wrote those
heartbreaking diaries,

the people of Halifax,

and the scientists who
launched this project

to find out the identity
of the unknown child.

But overall, let's hear it
for the people

who hold onto little
fragments of the past.

You're the foot soldiers
of history.

And I'm your biggest fan.