A man hoped to finally uncover the truth about the fate of his father, who disappeared in 1985. Instead, DNA testing revealed that a completely different person was buried in the missing man’s grave.
Exhumation / © pixabay.com
In the USA, a man who spent decades trying to determine the fate of his missing father has succeeded in having the remains exhumed, but the DNA analysis results turned out to be unexpected. It was discovered that the individual buried under his father’s name has no relation to the family at all.
This was reported by the publication Mirror.
52-year-old Mark Wells stated that his father, Dale Wayne Wells, went missing in February 1985 at the age of 38. Eight months after his disappearance, a man’s body was found in a forest near Colfax, California. The family was informed that it was Dale Wells.
According to Mark, when he was 12 years old, his mother told him that his father had died while hunting. Only later did he learn that the circumstances of the case were much more complicated. The death certificate listed the cause of death as unknown.
Mark recalls first noticing this discrepancy at the age of 18, when he was joining the U.S. Marine Corps and saw his father’s death certificate among the required documents. After speaking with his mother, he learned that she had not told him all the details of the case.
Over the years, the man began to independently gather information about his father’s disappearance. He found out that the body was discovered about a quarter of a mile from the home of Dale Wells’ then-wife. Due to prolonged exposure in the forest, the remains were significantly damaged by wild animals.
According to Mark, three bullets were found near the location where the body was discovered, leading to speculation about possible suicide. At the same time, law enforcement was unable to establish the cause of death, and there was no official confirmation of this theory.
In the early 2000s, Mark tried to push for the reopening of the investigation. He contacted the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, but, according to him, the case did not progress further at that time.
Finally, in August 2019, the man personally funded the exhumation of the remains. He hoped that modern DNA analysis methods would help definitively confirm the identity of the deceased and shed light on the circumstances of his father’s death.
However, the research results, which arrived in May 2022, were unexpected. Experts compared the DNA from the skeletal remains with the genetic material of Dale Wells’ sister, Sharon Service. The laboratory concluded that Dale Wells could be excluded as the individual to whom the examined remains belonged.
Mark said he was stunned by the results. According to him, he had believed for years that he knew where his father was buried, and now it turned out that an unknown person was lying in the grave.
Following the DNA test results, the Placer County Sheriff’s Office reopened the Dale Wells missing person case. As the identity of the man whose remains were buried in his place has not yet been established, the investigation is ongoing.
At the same time, the sheriff’s office explained that the remains were identified as those of Dale Wells at the time based on dental records. After that, the body was handed over to the next of kin for burial.
Despite the reopening of the case, Mark Wells still has not received an answer to his main question. He seeks to find out what actually happened to his father over four decades ago.
We remind you that earlier we told how a simple DNA test for genealogy research turned into a drama that changed the lives of several generations. A woman accidentally learned the truth about her biological origin after 45 years. The consequences were devastating for the entire family.
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