Cannot empty trash because item is owned by 'unknown'

I am trying to delete 16 files from an old Time Machine backup. The trash refuses to empty, returning the error message above. Doing a cmd-i shows no users and says 'you have unknown access'. There is no option to set myself as the owner (and no padlock symbol). I have tried the Terminal sdu rm -rf command but still it will not delete. The files are old (2004-2008) system Preferences files of the form:
com.apple.FontBook.plist
com.apple.dock.db
etc.
Is there a way to reset the ownership and to remove these files?
Thanks.

I doubt that re-installing the OS will accomplish anything. I think that the problematic trashed items are still on the same external drive that they were on originally, and if so, re-installing the OS will not affect such items.
The Trash window you see when you open the Trash icon on the dock can represent more than one folder. When you move an item on your startup disk to the Trash, it goes into a hidden folder named .Trash in your home directory. Files on external volumes that are trashed are stored separately, in a hidden .Trashes folder at the root level of each external drive. The external trash is segregated by user, so that the trash belonging to the user whose UID is 501 goes into the .Trashes/501 folder on the external drive, etc. The contents of the separate user-specific trash folders appear together in the single Trash window that you see when you open the Trash icon in the dock.
So if you log into a different user account, the Dock Trash icon there will probably act normally, because it no longer includes the contents of the .Trashes/501 folder on the external drive - it will be looking at a different subfolder there, such as .Trashes/502, along with the .Trash folder in that account's Home folder. Likewise if you shut down, disconnect the external TM drive, and then restart, the Trash icon should again be able to be emptied, because the "bad" files are no longer mounted. Re-connecting the external drive will re-create the problem.
If your system does behave this way, I think it isolates the problem to the external drive itself, not to any issue with the OS.

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