Suspected homicide victim found near Pasco died at least a year ago. But who is he?

The body of a suspected homicide victim found earlier this month north of Pasco was there for at least a year, investigators say.

Franklin County sheriff’s detectives and the county coroner are still trying to solve the mystery the skeletal remains in the remote area.

Detectives are withholding information about where the remains were discovered and who found him on Oct. 5, in case that can later help identify a potential murderer, said Commander Marcus Conner.

Investigators believe the man was killed, but the body needed to be sent to the state forensic anthropologist Dr. Andrew Seidel to be confirmed, Coroner Curtis McGary told the Tri-City Herald.

They hope he is able to confirm that the wounds investigators discovered caused his death. Results are likely to return in the next few weeks, he said.

Confirming the man’s identity is also taking some time.

The coroner’s office has taken dental X-rays and DNA so they can be compared to people who have been reported missing.

Several families have called the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office to try and find out if it is their loved one. Conner said the sheriff’s office is working with those families to collect information.

DNA samples have been sent to the Washington State Crime Laboratory for comparison, Conner said.

“We’re definitely working on some active cases of missing people and people who may be missing under suspicious circumstances,” Conner said. “We are taking a lot of phone calls from a lot of families.”

For now, they are waiting for results to come back from the state to confirm who it is.

“We just have to sit and wait for this stuff,” he said, adding that it was frustrating for the detective’s unit to wait and they are doing what they can to continue the investigation.

“We know that someone knows how this person died and when the time comes that we reach out to them, we hope that they’re honest with us,” Conner said.

Dagoberto Galvez

The latest information that the man had died at least a year ago eliminated one possibility — that he was Dagoberto Galvez. The 33-year-old Pasco man disappeared on May 10, well after the other man was left in the remote area near Pasco.

Galvez’s family had been desperate to know if it was their loved one.

Galvez went missing after he took a pickup belonging to a family member and traveled through Othello and Connell before the truck was abandoned in the small rural community of Lind in Adams County.

Pasco police and Adams County Sheriff’s Office are continuing to investigate his disappearance.

This story was originally published October 28, 2024 at 5:00 AM.