ARIZONA.- The human remains that hikers found 47 years ago in a shallow grave between Arizona and Nevada have been identified.
The man was Luis Alonso Paredes, a native of El Salvador but likely living or working in the Las Vegas area at the time of his death, the Mohave County Police Department announced Tuesday.
The remains were found on November 23, 1976 in a desert area of northwestern Arizona, east of Lake Mohave.
According to the police department, an autopsy performed at the time revealed that the victim was probably in his early 30s and had been shot in the head at point-blank range. But even though authorities took fingerprints during the autopsy, the case remained unsolved and the individual remained unidentified for nearly five decades.
ID
The police department announced in a statement that it had resumed the investigation in October by comparing the fingerprints to all available fingerprint records, which led to the identification.
But authorities said they have not been able to locate any relatives of Paredes, who may have worked in the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy in the San Francisco area about a decade before his death.
The police department asked the public to contact them if they had information about the case or could help them locate relatives of Paredes.
Source: AP
