Skeletal remains found in a Colorado Springs storm sewer have been “positively identified through DNA,” police said.
In March of 2009 workers clearing sewer lines found “what they believed to be some bones” in the 2100 block of Cheyenne Canyon Road, the Colorado Springs Police Department said in a media release.
Workers called police, and the department’s homicide unit and the El Paso County Coroner’s Office investigated the discovery.
Investigators determined the remains were of a man and a “forensic bust,” a reproduction of likely facial features, was cast as part of the investigation.
Det. Derek Graham, with the homicide unit, connected the image from the bust to a missing persons case from July of 1996.
The work led investigators to positively identify the remains last month as those of Thomas “Richard” Saulsbury of Colorado Springs.
Saulsbury was 49 at the time of his disappearance.
The cause and manner of Saulsbury’s death has not been determined, the release said, and an investigation is ongoing.
Anyone with information on Saulsbury’s disappearance is asked to call police at 719 444-7000 or the Pikes Peak Area Crime Stoppers at 719 634-STOP (7867).
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
