The physique of a lacking nuclear lab employee who vanished final 12 months was reportedly discovered “skeletonized” with a gunshot to her cranium in a nationwide forest in New Mexico.
Melissa Casias’ decaying physique was present in a distant a part of the Carson Nationwide Forest on Monday, in keeping with native authorities. Casias, 54, was final seen on June 26, 2025.
Thomas McNally, a former murder detective who was investigating Casias’ disappearance for her household, informed The Every day Mail that the mom-of-one’s “skeletonized” corpse was propped up towards a tree – with an deserted gun laying close by.
McNally mentioned that Casias’ physique didn’t present any indicators of animal exercise or disturbance, regardless of being left to rot within the forest.
The investigator firmly believes that foul play was concerned in Casias’ loss of life – and hinted that her devastated household will file a civil lawsuit towards the New Mexico State Police for purportedly botching the case.
Casias labored as an administrative assistant on the Los Alamos Nationwide Laboratory, created throughout World Warfare II for the groundbreaking Manhattan Challenge, and was carefully tied to US nuclear weapons analysis ever since.
On the day she disappeared, the married mom wiped all data from her telephones earlier than leaving them and her identification behind and strolling out of her house in Ranchos de Taos, a distant group some 70 miles northeast of Santa Fe.
She dropped her husband, Mark, one other Los Alamos worker, off on the facility earlier than allegedly claiming she’d forgotten her badge and needed to return house.
McNally informed the outlet that Casias and her husband acquired into an argument over a vape pen throughout the commute to the lab.
The couple’s daughter, Sierra, 19, informed police that Casias did return to their house, dropped off a sandwich and informed her that she deliberate to make money working from home.
“She appeared completely regular. Sierra mentioned every little thing was superb. She didn’t look bizarre,” McNally informed the outlet.
Casias was final seen strolling alone eastward on State Highway 518, some three miles from their house, round 2:20 p.m. native time.
McNally surmised that Casias “was fleeing someone” when she disappeared.
Through the investigation into her disappearance, her husband alleged that Casias “was working round with a boyfriend someplace,” which the police “believed,” in keeping with McNally.
Casias is only one of a number of individuals with hyperlinks to US protection and nuclear packages who’ve gone lacking — or died instantly — in recent times.
Former Los Alamos worker Anthony Chavez, 79, vanished and not using a hint after leaving his house on foot on Could 4, 2025, simply seven weeks earlier than Casias.
Monica Reza, 60, an aerospace engineer who served because the director of the NASA Lab’s Supplies Processing Group, disappeared whereas climbing in a Los Angeles forest in June 2025.
Steven Garcia, a authorities contractor working for a serious facility in Albuquerque, additionally disappeared after strolling out of his house on Aug. 28, 2025, carrying solely a handgun and no identification.
And retired Air Drive Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, 68, hasn’t been seen since leaving his house in Albuquerque on Feb. 27.The FBI is now concerned in the seek for McCasland, who had deep knowlege on UFOs and was concerned in among the Pentagon’s most superior aerospace analysis.
He additionally as soon as headed up the Air Drive Analysis Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Drive Base in Ohio.
