On May 28, 2026, a hiker found skeletal remains on McGaffey Ridge in Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico. Two days later, New Mexico State Police identified them through dental records as Melissa Casias, 53, an administrative assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory who had been missing since June 26, 2025.

That morning, Casias had driven her husband to work at the lab; surveillance later confirmed the car arriving at a Los Alamos guard shack at about 6:13 a.m. She never clocked in for her own shift. She had left her purse and phones at home, and the phones had been factory-reset.

According to the autopsy, her body was found leaning against a stone, with a firearm nearby. The bullet entered the lower right side of her skull and exited the left. In August, the state Office of the Medical Investigator listed the cause as a gunshot wound to the head but ruled the manner of death undetermined, meaning it couldn’t say whether it was suicide, homicide or accident. State police have said the gun was bought by her husband around 2020. No one has been charged, and the investigation remains open.

Her family has rejected the idea that she took her own life. Online, her case is often grouped with a list of dead and missing scientists and lab workers that federal agencies began reviewing in April. Investigators haven’t connected her death to any of the others.