New Mexico State Police confirmed that the remains of missing Los Alamos National Laboratory employee Melissa Casias were found in Carson National Forest. A handgun was located alongside the remains, but the exact cause and manner of death have yet to be officially determined.
A hiker discovered human remains in the McGaffey Ridge area on May 28 and alerted authorities. The Office of the Medical Investigator subsequently identified the remains as those of Casias.
Casias worked as an administrative assistant at the prominent U.S. nuclear research facility. She was reported missing on June 26, 2025, after she failed to arrive at work and did not return home following a visit to her daughter. Her purse, identification, and cell phones were all left behind.
Her disappearance is one of nearly a dozen cases involving individuals connected to advanced research who have died or vanished under mysterious circumstances in recent years. These incidents have prompted a congressional investigation.
Other recent cases include LANL employee Anthony Chavez, 78, who went missing in May 2025 and remains unfound. Steven Garcia, 48, a government contractor at the Kansas City National Security Campus, vanished from his Albuquerque home in August 2025. He left behind his phone, wallet, and keys, taking only a handgun.
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory materials official Monica Reza was reported missing in 2023. Two other JPL workers, Frank Maiwald and Michael Hicks, have died since 2023, with no public cause of death and no foul play alleged. Retired Air Force Major General William McCasland went missing in February.
In separate incidents, MIT physicist Nuno Loureiro was fatally shot at his Massachusetts home in December. Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, 67, was killed on his porch in February. Novartis cancer researcher Jason Thomas disappeared in December and was found drowned in a Massachusetts lake three months later.
The House Oversight Committee has requested briefings from the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the FBI, and NASA regarding scientists and personnel connected to U.S. nuclear secrets or rocket technology. U.S. President Donald Trump described the matter as “pretty serious stuff,” but authorities have not established any confirmed link among the cases.
This news article is created with AI enabled services and auto published, therefore it might contain errors, reader discrimination advised.
This article and views expressed therein, are solely that of the original news source also displayed for the interested reader, therefore it is not an act of copyright infringement by this platform, also this platform only aggregates the content and has no bearings and or shares any opinions or promotes views expressed by the original author, all intellectual property rights is totally credited to the original source.
