Hiker discovers body of missing New Mexico nuclear lab worker, police say

One of the bodies of the 11 mysteriously missing persons that had imaginable ties to U.S. atomic secrets oregon rocket exertion has been discovered by a hiker successful a New Mexico nationalist forest.

Police person identified the remains of Melissa Casias, 54, a missing Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) worker. Her disappearance became portion of a wider swirl of speculation implicit scientists and lab-linked employees who vanished oregon died nether unclear circumstances that spurred President Donald Trump's attraction and a House Oversight Committee investigation.

The New Mexico State Police Investigations Bureau was informed Thursday that the hiker recovered Casias successful the McGaffey Ridge country of the Carson National Forest with a handgun alongside her remains, according to a NMSPBI Facebook station precocious Saturday night.

"The origin and mode of decease person not yet been determined," according to police, which noted the Office of the Medical Investigator (OMI) identified the remains arsenic those of Casias and are conducting "further anthropological examination."

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Casias, from Taos, New Mexico, and Anthony Chavez worked astatine LANL, a starring atomic probe installation successful New Mexico, and some were among those marked arsenic suspiciously missing by FBI and House Oversight investigations.

"The New Mexico State Police widen their deepest condolences to the Casias and Mondragon families during this hard time," the bureau wrote successful its release.

Casias was reported missing June 25, 2025, aft she failed to get astatine enactment and did not instrumentality location aft visiting her girl astatine work, constabulary said. Her household aboriginal recovered that her purse, recognition and cellphones had been near behind, prompting interest for her payment and a missing idiosyncratic investigation.

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State constabulary said the probe remains progressive and ongoing.

In an April 20 missive to FBI Direct Kash Patel, the House Oversight Committee said it was investigating "recent unconfirmed nationalist reporting" alleging that radical connected to "U.S. atomic secrets oregon rocket technology" had died oregon vanished successful caller years.

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"Public reports rise questions astir a imaginable sinister transportation betwixt a drawstring of mysterious deaths and disappearances which began successful 2023," House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., wrote successful a merchandise seeking accusation from national agencies.

The committee’s merchandise said the reported cases included the 2 LANL, 2 affiliated with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, an MIT idiosyncratic who worked connected atomic fusion – changeable by the Brown University wide shooter – a pharmaceutical researcher and a authorities contractor who worked astatine a atomic weapons constituent accumulation facility.

Authorities person not announced immoderate nexus betwixt Casias’ decease and the different cases and speculated they were not linked. The House letters besides described the reporting nether reappraisal arsenic unconfirmed.

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Casias’ disappearance had prompted a Missing Endangered Advisory from New Mexico authorities aft she was past seen successful the Taos area. She was 53 years aged astatine the time.

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The find successful Carson National Forest present closes the hunt for Casias, but not the probe into however she died and whose handgun was recovered beside her.