Remains, including that of the ‘Beaufort Co. Jane Doe,’ sent back to family, coroner says

Sofia Sanchez
·4 min read

A pair of unclaimed cremains interred in a Beaufort County mausoleum are heading back home this week after the coroner’s office was able to get in touch with their families.

An orthopedic surgeon found the remains of Paciano Lopez-Morales, 54, of Hilton Head, while clearing trees from his Spanish Wells Road property after Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Lopez-Morales had been missing since May 2015.

The coroner’s office is currently coordinating the return of his remains to family in Mexico, Beaufort County Coroner David Ott said Wednesday.

A second set of cremains, belonging to 36-year-old Maria Telles-Gonzalez, of Kissimmee, Florida, was sent back to family members Tuesday, Ott said.

Maria Telles-Gonzalez of Kissimmee, Florida, had been known as the Beaufort County “Jane Doe” for 27 years. Gonzalez, who was 36 at the time of her death, was a wife and mother of three children.
Maria Telles-Gonzalez of Kissimmee, Florida, had been known as the Beaufort County “Jane Doe” for 27 years. Gonzalez, who was 36 at the time of her death, was a wife and mother of three children.

Telles-Gonzalez was murdered in 1995 and, up until her DNA was sent to an ancestry database in 2020, she had been known to police only as the “Beaufort County Jane Doe.” The investigation into her death is ongoing.

In a 2021 ceremony, both were interred in a mausoleum purchased by Beaufort County along with more than two dozen others at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Beaufort. The interment took place as part of a project spearheaded by Chief Deputy Coroner Debbie Youmans to get the unclaimed remains of 61 people piled on a shelf in the coroner’s office back to their families.

In the end, 34 people went on unclaimed. Four of the unclaimed remains were veterans who were laid to rest in a ceremony at the Beaufort National Cemetery while the other 30, including Telles-Gonzalez and Lopez-Morales, were placed in the mausoleum.

“The highlight of the day for me was always when someone was claimed,” Youmans previously told the newspapers about the project.

The public reaching out about the remains, Ott told the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette, has been helpful. In Lopez-Morales’ case, it was a Hilton Head family who ended up getting coroner’s office officials in touch with his loved ones after they saw a March 2023 newspaper article that had named him.

In September 2022, a family in Honduras was finally reunited with the ashes of their brother, 42-year-old Hector Bueso Mejía, 15 years after his death on Hilton Head after they discovered what became of him in an online article.

The unclaimed remains of two others who died in February 2023 were also added to the mausoleum in a ceremony Tuesday.

A mausoleum purchased in 2021 to house the unclaimed remains of people who have died in Beaufort County.
A mausoleum purchased in 2021 to house the unclaimed remains of people who have died in Beaufort County.

Lopez-Morales

After Lopez-Morales’ remains were discovered in 2016, pathologists performed an osteological examination, an assessment of bones or skeletal remains. No no signs of trauma were found. The cause and manner of his death are undetermined, according to previous reporting.

Lopez-Morales, nicknamed “Shorty” by friends, was staying in a makeshift room at a house on Bluebell Lane, about a minute’s drive from where his remains were found. He did not have any known medical conditions but had told friends of his ears bothering him before he went missing, according to previous reporting.

In 2018, the FBI was able to use DNA technology to get in touch with Lopez-Morales’ sister in San Luis Potosí, a city in central Mexico, but later lost touch. Before that, his family did not know what had happened to him, Ott said.

Maria Telles-Gonzalez

On May 24, 1995, Telles-Gonzalez was found in a drainage ditch off of I-95 in Yemassee wearing only a pair of Leonisa underwear, a brand manufactured in Colombia and sold in South and Central America at the time. Police estimated she had been found about 36 to 48 hours after her death.

An autopsy concluded that she died by ligature strangulation and bruises led police to believe she was beaten. DNA samples, dental records and fingerprints were taken from her body.

Her three children thought their mother left the family and only discovered what happened to her after DNA technology was used to link her to a relative, according to previous reporting.

Telles-Gonzalez’s identity was released by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office in December 2022. After the announcement, Maj. Bob Bromage, head of the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office cold case investigations, said the case was far from over.

“It’s not solved,” he previously told reporters. “We have a lot of work to do on this case.”

Investigators have contacted several of Telles-Gonzalez’s friends since making the announcement in December 2022. Currently, they are trying to get in touch with a man they think lived in Central Florida around the time of her death named “Carlos.” Pictures of the man have not been made public. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division is working with age progression technology to show what Carlos might look like today.

The investigation is ongoing.

Anyone with information about this case may call Maj. Bob Bromage with the cold case investigations team at the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office at 843-816-8013.