Overview
- Melissa Casias vanished on June 26, 2025 and hikers found skeletal remains identified as hers on May 28, 2026 in Carson National Forest.
- Forensic teams reconstructed Casias’s skull and an initial CT scan did not reveal any projectile, but the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator has not released a cause or manner of death.
- A handgun recovered at the scene is being traced by state police while Casias’s family says the weapon did not belong to her.
- A former FBI agent publicly suggested foul play and proposed unproven theories about advanced weapons; those claims remain speculative and are not supported by released forensic evidence.
- The case has drawn wider attention because of Casias’s ties to Los Alamos National Laboratory and a separate FBI review of unexplained deaths and disappearances involving people connected to sensitive research, with officials saying further forensic and tracing work will be key to next steps.