Human skeleton found near Boone County Jail

Anthropologists are working on discovering the cause of death.

By Samantha Sunne

Published March 12, 2010

Mark Beary, a forensic anthropologist with the Boone County Medical Examiner's Office, is determining the cause of death of a human skeleton found in a wooded area Saturday.

The Columbia Police Department identified the skeleton as Ronald P. Elic, 57, whose last known address was in Overland Park, Kan., CPD spokeswoman Jessie Haden said.

If Beary finds Elic's death was due to an accident or foul play, CPD will pursue an investigation.

"We have to leave all those doors open," Haden said. "You can't just say because there's no obvious signs of foul play that we're not even going to investigate that."

A 13-year-old boy found the fully intact human skeleton Saturday morning in a wooded area close to the Boone County Jail, a CPD news release stated.

When the examiner's office is dealing with skeletons rather than corpses, they sometimes call in anthropologists to help with identification, Beary said. He will also try to establish a time frame for Elic's death.

"Anthropologists have a lot of experience in working with bones," Beary said.

The skeleton was found with some hair, clothes, shoes and a wristband. There were also some graphics on his partially intact shirt, Haden said.

"Given those items and the close proximity to the jail, we thought it was very likely that it was somebody who had been incarcerated at some point," Haden said.

Boone County Jail officer Julie Cluver said Elic was released in July 2009 after serving seven days for violating conditions of his probation. He was serving a two-year supervised probation for violating a restraining order, according to MissouriCase.net.

Elic's body was found wearing the clothes and shoes the jail had given him, Haden said. CPD is not sure if he had been in that area since July, though they think his body had been in the woods for at least a few months.

"That's a long time for somebody to be in an outdoor area like that and go unnoticed," Haden said. "And that's something that, again, is part of the investigation. We have to figure out why he was able to go unnoticed."

The examiner's office performed an autopsy on the skeleton Tuesday morning but was unable to determine a cause of death, Haden said. It identified Elic through dental records provided by Elic's family.

CPD Detective Cyndi McLane was able to contact the family within days of the skeleton's discovery because of the quick clothing identification, Haden said. CPD also searched missing persons databases for the surrounding area that weekend.

The only other case where CPD found skeletal remains is the unsolved homicide of Mark Dailey last year, Haden said. Police investigated Dailey's death by asking people in the surrounding areas if they had seen or heard of him.

"If we hadn't gotten (Elic) identified, we'd have had to do the same thing," Haden said. "We'd have had to put good old-fashioned legwork into it."

Other steps police can take in such an investigation include putting out fliers or expanding the range of the missing persons database. Haden said a sketch artist with CPD could sketch an image of what a person would look like based on remains.

Cases with human skeletons are very rare in Columbia, Haden said.

"I can't think of any other cases where we actually came across skeletal remains, other than these two, so it's very unusual," Haden said.