Human Remains Found in Western Colorado July, 2008

[The Kitchen Guy]

From a press release issued by the Mesa County Sheriff's Department, July 28, 2008

HUMAN REMAINS FOUND, INVESTIGATION ON-GOING

Coroner’s Office joins Sheriff’s Investigators on case

Mesa County, Colorado—Sheriff’s Officials are investigating a discovery of human remains found in the region. They are working closely with the Mesa County Coroner’s Office for identification purposes. The exact location of this discovery is not being released to allow law enforcement officials to return to the area for a more complete forensic search and analysis.

Further details will be released as the investigation develops.

[The Kitchen Guy]

Mesa Co. bones came from Utah

By Tom McGhee
The Denver Post

Link: Denver Post (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10046093)

The Mesa County Coroner has examined human remains after someone found them in Utah and turned them over to the County Sheriff's office.

The bones have been returned to the Utah State Medical Examiner's Office, according to a release from the Coroner's office.

"Citizens should be reminded that it is illegal to move any discovered remains that may be human and should notify law enforcement immediately before taking any further action," Mesa County coroner Robert A. Kurtzman said in the release.

Someone brought the remains to the Sheriff's Office last Thursday.

For the past year, authorities have been looking for Paige Birgfeld, a mother of three who worked as an escort and disappeared in June 2007.

Searchers have combed remote areas and have found checks and other possessions.

Frank Birgfeld, Paige's father, said earlier this week that investigators told him that they had found remains. "But it was almost an aside. They called and talked about some other things that we had been communicating about, and at the end, they said, 'Look, you know, because there will probably be press around today asking questions, we found some remains.' "

[The Kitchen Guy]

Bone discovery leaves mystery

By AMY HAMILTON
The Daily Sentinel
Link: Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/news/stories/2008/07/30/073108_1B_body_folo.html)

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Ten searchers on Wednesday were tasked with searching an area northwest of the Colorado state line after a hiker discovered a human bone there, according to Utah’s Grand County Sheriff’s Department.

A person whom law enforcement declined to identify found the bone while hiking in the Bryson Canyon area of the Bookcliffs in Utah, and turned it over to the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department.

Mesa County Forensic Pathologist Robert Kurtzman confirmed Wednesday the bone brought to the Mesa County Coroner’s Office on July 24 was identified as a human remain.

Kurtzman said the bone has since been turned over to Utah’s medical examiners office for further study, but it is too soon to make any determination of who the bone belongs to. Kurtzman declined to speak about what type of bone it was or whether it was from a man or woman.

On Tuesday, investigators from Grand County and one investigator from Mesa County traveled to the site where the bone was found to search a three- to five-mile swath for additional remains, Grand County officials said in a news release.

Speculation had surfaced recently about the remains because the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department recently reported that local investigators had been tasked with identifying human remains discovered in the region.

The father of Grand Junction woman Paige Birgfeld, who has been missing for more than a year, was notified by the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department, prompting talk that the remains may provide some answers in the highly-publicized case. Frank Birgfeld said he was notified of the find, but not given any further information.

Spokeswoman Heather Benjamin of the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department said, if requested, Mesa County will provide DNA to Grand County investigators on the county’s 11 missing persons cases reported since 1983.

Kurtzman said it is illegal for anyone who believes they have come across human remains to move them from the site.

He added that solving cases of found human remains can take years, citing a case that was recently solved when hikers found a human skull on Grand Mesa two years ago.

“It’s early,” Kurtzman said of the recent find. “It’s been blown way out of proportion. These cases are complicated. It involves a great deal of effort.”

[The Kitchen Guy]

More human bones at site

By AMY HAMILTON
The Daily Sentinel
Link: Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/news/stories/2008/08/02/080308_1a_Bone_follow.html)

Saturday, August 02, 2008

A man who said he took an arm bone to Mesa County authorities said Saturday that he also told them he found more bones and led investigators to the site near Interstate 70 in Utah.

The man, who only gave his first name as James, said he found the upper arm bone late last month near some smaller hand bones after about a 10-minute walk from the first westbound rest stop in Utah off I-70. The bones were not bleached, didn’t appear to be dated or brittle and were near what appeared to be a small animal’s den, James said.

Speculation has risen over the origin of the human bone that was discovered by a hiker and brought to the Mesa County authorities.

The remains have been turned over to the Utah State Office of the Medical Examiner, and Utah authorities have searched the site for more human remains.

The man said he saw the bones and immediately thought they looked like human remains.

He said he picked up the largest upper arm bone, placed it in a plastic bag and delivered it to Grand Junction authorities. He later led officials to the site where the other bones were.

“I was just trying to do the right thing,” the man said about bringing in the human remains. It is illegal to disturb found human remains.

The man, who said he is an avid hiker, said he was “surprised to find something.” He said he would feel satisfied if he helped authorities solve a case.

“I would be glad if I could do something for somebody,” he said. “It would make me feel good.”

Mesa County has 11 reported missing persons cases.

The Mesa County Sheriff’s Department would not release the name of the person who reported the bones.

•

E-mail Amy Hamilton at amy. hamilton@gjsentinel.com.

[Nut44x4]

Still no updates on these bones. Kitchen Guy....have you heard any more?

[TigressPen]

Seems after 5 months that something would be known of and written about these skeletal remains. As many missing persons in CO seems they'd have them top priorty.

[Nut44x4]

I also wonder if the recent remains found in the 2 links below are connected to the case above

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008875034_fourmissing.html
http://helpfindthemissing.org/forum/showthread.php?p=556937&highlight=Utah#post556937

[Nut44x4]

Bone in murder probe 'unidentifiable,' cops say

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Nearly a year after a hiker in Utah stumbled upon it, a small piece of human skull that piqued the interest of investigators looking into Paige Birgfeld’s disappearance remains a mystery.

But while questions remain about the roughly silver-dollar-sized bone, Grand County (Utah) Sheriff James Nyland said he’s confident about one thing: who it didn’t belong to.

“It didn’t appear to be recent enough to be from any of these homicides,” said Nyland, referring to Birgfeld’s case and the murder of Leann Emry, a Washington woman whose partial remains were found in March near Moab. Today marks two years since Birgfeld was last seen alive.

The bone in question was returned to Grand County this past spring after it had been tested at the FBI’s laboratory in Quantico, Va. Nyland said the FBI couldn’t extract DNA because of the bone’s age. He didn’t offer an age estimate.

“It’s not identifiable,” he said. “It was found at the bottom of a dry wash (in Bryson Canyon), so it could have come out of the Bookcliffs.”

No other bones submitted by Grand County were tested at the FBI lab, Nyland said.

Mesa County Sheriff’s Department investigators spent several days searching in Utah in late July 2008 after the bone was found by a hiker, who picked it up and brought it to Grand Junction. It was eventually handed over to the Utah Medical Examiner’s Office.

Authorities have said it’s illegal to move any suspected human remains.

Mesa County law enforcement officials still think about Birgfeld, a mother of three children, whenever news breaks about the recovery of human remains in the region. Most recently, the June 14 recovery of a dismembered body in a Glenwood Springs apple orchard had authorities wondering if it might be Birgfeld. Instead, it was a missing Aurora woman, 38-year-old Janine Ann Johler.

Birgfeld, 34, an escort known to clients as “Carrie,” was last heard from while driving back to her Grand Junction home the evening of June 28, 2007, after spending the day with her first husband, Howard Beigler of Aurora.

Beigler and Birgfeld’s second husband, Rob Dixon, were cleared in October 2007 of involvement in Birgfeld’s disappearance. At the same time, authorities named Pear Park mechanic Lester Ralph Jones as the lone suspect in the case.

No arrests have been made.

While Mesa County Sheriff Stan Hilkey said investigators are waiting to hear back on several items sent out for testing to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, there have been no recent new leads. District Attorney Pete Hautzinger last year raised the prospect of presenting the case to a Mesa County grand jury, but made no commitments.

The proceedings are secret under state law.

“That seems like a logical next step in the absence of new developments,” Hilkey said of a grand jury probe.

http://www.gjsentinel.com/hp/content/news/stories/2009/06/27/062809_3a_Birgfeld_folo.html

[Nut44x4]

Could a mod please add a date to this title? July 2008 / thanks

[Roamer]

Done.