No missing persons report and an abandoned car: What we know about skeletal remains in Iowa
How skeletal remains ended up in western Iowa near the Missouri River is still a mystery.
An employee of a real estate company found the remains of Salvador Agustin Fonseca, 30, on March 20 while scouting the property for deer, according to a Monday news release from the Fremont County Sheriff's Office. Law enforcement officials also found a gym pass and the keys to a 2015 Chevrolet Spark near the scene.
Fonseca had been missing from Springfield, Missouri, for more than a year before his remains were discovered outside of Hamburg, Iowa, about 300 miles north of his home.
Here's everything we know about him and the circumstances surrounding his death.
Police identify skeletal remains found in western Iowa along the Missouri River
Police's last interaction with Fonseca was a drug overdose
Fonseca’s last known interaction with authorities in Missouri occurred on Feb. 25, 2022, when they responded to reports that he overdosed, according to Springfield Police Department public affairs officer Cris Swaters.
Swaters said officials administered Narcan, a drug to combat the effects of an opioid overdose, before they took him to the hospital. That was the fourth time within six months that the Springfield Police Department had interacted with Fonseca, she said.
Fonseca had other run-ins with authorities in southern Missouri. Springfield police arrested Fonseca in December 2021 for allegedly driving under the influence. A warrant was issued for his arrest after Fonseca failed to appear in court on Aug. 29, 2022. Police were never able to locate him, according to court records.
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Was a missing person's case ever filed?
The Fremont County Sheriff's Office in Iowa said Fonseca left his last known address in Springfield, Missouri, without telling others where he was going.
There was never a missing persons case filed in Missouri for Fonseca, according to local authorities there.
Sgt. Paige Rippee of the Greene County Sheriff's Office, whose jurisdiction includes Springfield, Missouri, where Fonseca was last seen, said Fonseca had been estranged from his family for a few years prior to his death. The Des Moines Register attempted to locate Fonseca's family but did not receive a call back from a phone number associated with a person who shared an address.
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Fonseca's car associated with Iowa burglary — is it connected to his death?
Sgt. Andrew Wake of the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office said Fonseca’s car was linked to a burglary that occurred a week after Fonseca was last seen in Springfield.
Court records show the owner's manual for a 2015 Chevrolet Spark and loan documents belonging to Fonseca were found inside a stolen Honda-CRV that local authorities impounded during a burglary investigation. After they discovered the items, police located Fonseca's vehicle on March 6, 2022, parked along the northbound lane of Interstate 29 near the seven mile marker, according to court records.
Wake said the windows were smashed. Court records show police also found a box wrench near the broken windows.
He said officers attempted to locate Fonseca to notify him that his vehicle had been found, but they were not successful.
"We will track down the owner when it needs to be picked up from our impound," Wake said. "But in this case, a lien company who owned the vehicle came and picked it up."
Wake said police did not find any connections between Fonseca and the suspect in the burglary case. He said police do not believe the burglary is related to Fonseca's death.
"A lot of times we've had vehicles abandoned," he said. "Either somebody owes money on it or for whatever reason it's abandoned."
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Is there foul play suspected in his death?
Wake said the Office of the State's Medical Examiner conducted an autopsy and identified Fonseca through dental records.
He said police found no evidence of foul play in Fonseca's death, though he declined to provide a copy of the autopsy report. The Office of the State's Medical Examiner did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the cause of Fonseca's death.
"We didn't have anything that we observed at the scene or in the vehicle or anything that came up in our investigation of the burglary of the vehicle that would lend to anything that's foul play," Wake said.
Police do not know why Fonseca may have stopped his car on the interstate but it appears he walked west toward the Missouri River, according to the Fremont County Sheriff's Office.
Francesca Block is a breaking news reporter at the Des Moines Register. Reach her at FBlock@registermedia.com or on Twitter at@francescablock3.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Skeletal remains in Iowa: What we know about the missing Missouri man
