Body still not identified

“No, we haven’t got him identified yet,” Nora Powell, Cedar County Coroner, told the Sun Monday, when asked about the skeletal remains found Wednesday, Oct. 29, in a brushy area just west of First Street southeast of the new Dollar Store.

She confirmed that the Highway Patrol is assisting.

“He might have wound up on city property,” the corner said.

“We are going to check DNA of relatives. That’s the only way we are going to get an identity.” She said the skeletal remains were of a male.

She said several set of eyes have looked at the skeleton and none of them located anything amiss. “I looked at the body. The Highway Patrol looked at the body. A pathologist from Southwest Forensics went over the body.”

She said all of them think the body had been laying there for about six months.

According to the St. Clair County Courier, two men have been missing for several months: Timothy Heil Taber, 56, of El Dorado Springs has been missing since April 27, 2021. Roger M. Wilockson, 49, Stockton, has been missing since Nov. 1, 2020. Taber, who suffers from medical conditions, was last seen or heard from on May 1 at Woods Supermarket in El Dorado Springs.  His disappearance is considered to be endangered and suspicious.

“I always tell my deputy and myself, you have to think about the family. You just have to realize there is a family behind this body.  We try to be judicious in not getting somebody’s hopes up or dashing their hopes. You have to wait for any evidence.”

For that reason, the coroner did not want to get into the height of the skeletal remains.

“The end result will be the DNA. It doesn’t lie.”

She said the lab will get DNA from the femur, the large leg bone.

She doesn’t think there is anything suspicious about the death.