25 Year Old Cold Case of Unidentified Deceased Man Solved By CPD
A Deceased Man who was found locally over 25 years ago has been Identified after years of dead end leads.
On January 30th, 1999, CPD officers were called to a deceased man being found alongside Jonathan Moore Pike near Carr Hill Road. The man was believed to be in his 50’s or 60’s and died by a single gunshot. Two handguns were found with the man, but he did not have any identification or anything with him that led investigators to his identity. His death was determined to be a suicide.
Through the years, investigators tried numerous ways to identify the man, including running his fingerprints, asking for the public’s assistance in news releases, sending bulletins to regional law enforcement, and entering his descriptors into nationwide databases, including the missing person database. The FBI was able to recreate a photo of what the man looked like when he was living. However, none of these things led to the man’s identity. After over 25 years of investigating, CPD has used forensic genetic genealogy to close the case of an unidentified man who died by suicide locally. Working in conjunction with the Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office and the Bartholomew County Prosecutor’s Office, local investigators were met with decades of dead-end leads until they enlisted the assistance of Othram, a Texas-based corporation specializing in forensic genetic genealogy.
After sending a sample of the man’s DNA to Othram, leads were generated that led to north-central Ohio, where a nephew identified the man from the FBI’s photo and provided his own DNA to confirm their familial relationship. With this information, the man’s identity was confirmed to be Leo Michael Murray, a resident of Ohio who was 61 years old when he died. Mr. Murray had never been married and had no children. He told family he was moving to Florida before he disappeared, which is why his family never reported him missing to the police.
It was very important to investigators to restore the man’s identity and provide answers to his family, highlighting our investigators commitment and determination to providing closure.
Some of the resources used for investigating were funded by Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office and NamUs, a national information clearinghouse and resource center for missing, unidentified, and unclaimed person cases across the United States. There is more information about forensic genetic genealogy, cases solved using it, and fundraising opportunities at Othram’s website, at https://dnasolves.com.
The CPD encourages anyone who is missing a loved one to report their disappearance to law enforcement for entry into a national database of missing people. For the Columbus Police Department, there is no minimum amount of time a person must be missing before we enter a missing person into that database.
Photos Courtesy of The Columbus Police Department:
This attached photo was taken at the scene in 1999.
Leo Michael Murray
FBI Recreation Photo of Murray