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Mohave County Cold Case Breakthrough: DNA Identifies Man Found in 1992 Shallow Grave Near Lake Havasu City
Willie Blanton Mills, a Pennsylvania native last seen in California in 1992, has been identified as the victim of a decades-old homicide near Lake Havasu City after DNA testing and genetic genealogy. Authorities are now asking the public for help piecing together how he ended up in the Arizona desert.
More than three decades after his remains were discovered in a shallow grave near Lake Havasu City, a man has been identified through DNA testing and genetic genealogy, the Mohave County Sheriff's Office announced.
The victim was Willie Blanton Mills, born April 4, 1955, who was 36 years old when his body was found, according to a sheriff's office news release.
Deputies discovered the remains on March 11, 1992, in a wash near Needle Mountain Road off Interstate 40. An autopsy was unable to determine a cause of death but classified the case as a homicide. Fingerprint searches and X-rays at the time turned up no matches.
The case remained unsolved for years until June, when the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System offered to fund DNA testing. Othram Inc., a Texas-based forensic laboratory, developed a DNA profile from the remains. An FBI genetic genealogy team then traced the profile to a relative, who told investigators that Mills had not been seen since 1992.
The FBI notified the sheriff's office on Oct. 21, and fingerprints subsequently confirmed the identification.
Mills was originally from Pennsylvania and had been living with relatives in Santa Ana, California, when he disappeared. Investigators still do not know how he died or how he came to be in Mohave County.
The identification marks a measure of closure for a case that had gone cold for more than 30 years, but it also opens new questions. Authorities are asking anyone with information about Mills' whereabouts around 1992 to contact investigators at 928-753-0753 and reference case No. 92-03547.
The breakthrough underscores the growing role of forensic genetic genealogy in resolving long-dormant cases, a technique that has helped law enforcement agencies across the country identify previously unknown victims and suspects in recent years.