Expert thinks advancements in DNA technology could provide a new perspective on 2009 Columbia cold case
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
On a chilly January day in 2009, a hiker found skeletal remains at a homeless encampment near a trailway behind the Conley Road Walmart in Columbia.
Officers began their investigation on Jan. 7. By April 20, with the help of forensic anthropology experts from the University of Missouri, police were able to give those human remains an identity and a cause of death.
Investigators determined that 49-year-old Mark Dailey was killed by blunt force trauma to the head and sharp force trauma to the neck.
Seventeen years after the harrowing discovery, one of the forensic experts who helped identify Dailey's remains in 2009 says that re-examining the remains could be worth the extra time and manpower for law enforcement, given years of technological advancements.
"There's always an opportunity to revisit cold cases like this and see if there are any new findings that can be found," said Mark Beary, who now works at MU's Research Reactor, but was formally a consulting forensic anthropologist with the Boone and Callaway County Medical Examiner's Office.
Most recently, in March, Columbia Police identified human remains found in 2025 at Rock Forks Lake Conservation Area as Daniel Thompson, who they say was reported missing in 2023.
Beary explained that in cases like Dailey's or Thompson's, forensic anthropologists are called in for assistance by the medical examiner's office because normal methods of forensic pathology or autopsy are not applicable to human remains in advanced stages of decomposition or skeletonized.
"A forensic anthropology analysis typically provides a biological profile of the decedent based on their skeletal remains, and those aspects generally include an estimation of the victim's age, their biological sex, their stature, and their ancestral affiliation," Beary said.
Along with the biological profile, Beary said an anthropologist can also help identify any trauma to the bones.
"If there's trauma present, those findings are ultimately then used by the medical examiner to make a ruling as to whether a case is a homicide, or some other motor manner of death," Beary said.
Beary said Dailey had blunt force trauma to the head or face and sharp force trauma to the bones in his neck.
Beary said that in some cases, law enforcement will also take forensic experts back to the scene, as was done in Dailey's case.
"With the location where the remains were recovered at that particular time in 2009, a homeless encampment, there was sort of a structure there in which the remains were recovered," Beary said.
He said his examination also found that Dailey's remains had been at the homeless encampment where he was found since at least the fall of 2008, but possibly up to one year in advance.
Watch the latest "Mid-Missouri's Cold Case Files: The Case of Mark Dailey" at 6 p.m. Thursday on ABC 17 News.
