24-year-old vanished a decade ago. Now his bones have been found in Illinois forest
The body of a missing Illinois man has been identified over a decade after he vanished, state officials said, bringing closure to his family.
Marcus Wright, a 24-year-old from Joliet, a Chicago suburb, was reported missing by his parents on March 21, 2013, according to a July 3 news release from the county coroner’s office.
Joliet police initiated a missing person investigation, but their efforts proved unsuccessful.
“Throughout the subsequent years Joliet Police investigated numerous leads including leads that he had been murdered,” officials said.
But while tracking down new leads earlier this year, police finally caught a break.
On March 24 — almost 10 years to the day after Wright went missing — investigators reported finding two bones in a wooded area inside the Will County Forest Preserve.
The skeletal remains were sent to the county coroner and later evaluated by a forensic anthropologist.
They “were found to be consistent with originating from a tall male subject,” officials said, adding that Wright stood at 6 feet, two inches tall.
A bone and DNA sample from Wright’s mother were then sent to Othram, a forensic genetic genealogy company in Texas, for testing.
Othram determined the bone and the mother’s DNA had a close genetic relationship, indicating the bone belonged to Wright.
“This part is a painful one,” Kimberly Perdue, Wright’s cousin, wrote in a July 3 Facebook post.
“I feel both like a wound has been reopened (and) I’m grateful that this MAY bring just a little bit of closure to my Auntie,” Perdue wrote. “I don’t understand why it took so long. Just so many questions.”
A representative for the Joliet Police Department declined to comment when contacted by McClatchy News.
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