Officers chasing suspects through woods stumble upon human remains, Florida cops say
Officers in the middle of a high speed chase accidentally found human remains when the suspects ran into a heavily wooded area, Florida authorities said.
A group of potentially armed men were identified by Vero Beach Police officers on Dec. 14, and the officers attempted a traffic stop, according to an Aug. 3 news release from the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office.
Instead of stopping for the officers, the suspects took off, driving at “recklessly high speeds,” a police report said, according to the sheriff’s office.
The officers briefly followed the car in a high-speed chase until the car crashed, and the three men ran from the vehicle, the sheriff’s office said.
They ran into a “heavily wooded area,” and officers followed them, according to the release.
“They picked a really bad day to do this,” Sheriff Eric Flowers said in a press conference streamed by WPBF.
The sheriff said it was a K-9 training day, and multiple agencies responded to the scene to try and corner the suspects.
All three suspects were tracked down, and two were bitten by dogs in the process, the sheriff said.
“That’s not why we’re here to talk,” the sheriff said in the news conference. “Our team, the K-9s, were back tracking attempting to locate that gun. Along the path, one of the officers that was walking on the path noticed a skull in the woodline.”
The officers marked the location, and later a forensic team went out to the area and spent multiple days combing through the forest for more skeletal remains, the sheriff said.
The team was able to find most of the bones for a single body, but they were scattered over a large area, according to the sheriff.
The medical examiner identified the remains as belonging to a single individual, likely an Asian male in his 50s or 60s, and about 5 feet, 9 inches tall, according to the release. The sheriff’s office also said it believes the remains had been on the property “for some time.”
The sheriff said DNA was collected from the remains and run through multiple missing person databases, but officials were unable to find a match.
The skull was sent to a neighboring county’s lab, and a facial reconstruction was drawn from markers on the skull, the sheriff said.
“As of this time, we do not know who this person is,” the sheriff said.
Flowers said to their best guess, they believe the remains belonged to a man of Japanese descent, but said they can’t rule out Hispanic or Native American ancestry.
“While you see the photo, and it’s based on the best estimate that we have at this time, we want to put this photo out and see if there is anybody who recognizes this,” the sheriff said.
The DNA extracted from the remains will be sent to a genealogy lab in the next step of the case, Flowers said, but the process to receive a full profile could take years.
The Indian River County Sheriff’s Office asks anyone who recognizes the image or has any information to contact them at 772-569-6700.
Vero Beach is about 150 miles north of Miami.
This story was originally published August 3, 2023 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Officers chasing suspects through woods stumble upon human remains, Florida cops say."
