DNA advances identify Oklahoma man in Pueblo County cold case from 2000

Yahoo

27-06-2025

The remains of an Oklahoma man found in a field have been identified after 25 years, according to the Pueblo County Sheriff's Office.
Marvin Majors of Oklahoma was 34 years old at the time of his death.
Majors was homeless and was believed to have been sleeping in a field just north of the Walking Stick development, where his body was found in 2000 by a woman who was walking her dog. The area is just north of the Pueblo city limits.
The body, which was mostly skeletal remains, did not have any identification, the sheriff's office said in a Thursday, June 26 news release.
The Pueblo County Coroner's office conducted an autopsy, and while the cause of death was undetermined, foul play was not suspected.
An anthropologist was contacted to analyze the remains and estimated that the man was of mixed race, between 35 and 50 years old, and had a height of 6-foot-1 and 6-foot-3. The man also had thick black hair that was in dreadlocks.
For months after the body was found, sheriff's detectives worked unsuccessfully to identify the man, PCSO said.In November 2001, a sculptor from the University of Colorado made a facial reconstruction using the man's skull to create a clay bust. Photos of the bust were sent to the media and the public.
They were also posted on websites for missing persons seeking help in identifying the man.
The sheriff's office said detectives only received a few leads, including from a rancher who identified the man as someone who had camped on his property in August 2000. The property was near the field where the remains were found. The rancher told detectives the man told him he was traveling from New Mexico to Denver, according to the sheriff's office.
However, while detectives continued to work the case, it would stay unsolved for over two decades.
In June 2021, detectives revisited the case and learned that the FBI had completed a DNA profile of the man, and that information was now in a combined national DNA database. Sheriff's detectives obtained a new DNA sample from an item in evidence that was taken from the campsite when the body was found.
With assistance from CBI, the new DNA sample was submitted to a genetic genealogy database in 2023.
A genealogy match was made with a distant family member of Majors in November 2024. Detectives then obtained a DNA sample from a suspected sibling. On the week June 22, the DNA comparison was verified by a forensic investigative genetic genealogist as a match for Majors.
Family members said that Majors, who was from Oklahoma and grew up in Los Angeles, lived atransient lifestyle, according to PCSO.
The family said they had not seen or heard from him since around 1998-99 and wondered what had happened to him. They expressed appreciation for the work the detectives put forth to identify Majors, according to PCSO.
'Through modern science and teamwork, our detectives were able to get the breakthrough theyneeded to identify this person,' said Pueblo County Sheriff David Lucero in the release. 'The years of dedication, diligence, and perseverance by our detectives demonstrate that no matter how old a case is, they are committed to solving it. This was somebody's family member, and our team went above and beyond to identify him and to bringsome closure to his family.'
Lucero also thanked CBI for working with the sheriff's office on this case.
'This shows that through our partnerships, we can solve decades-old cases," he said.
More: Texas man who drowned at Lake Pueblo identified by coroner
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This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Colorado cold case remains from 2000 identified as Oklahoma man