Updated at 2:15 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The skeletal remains found earlier this year off Little Hanaford Road outside Centralia have been identified as an 18-year-old Spanaway man reported missing more than two years ago.
A DNA match was confirmed yesterday, using family reference samples of Christopher D. Virdell, according to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office. Virdell was reported missing by family members in February 2012 to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, according to the sheriff’s office.
[1]Christopher D. Virdell
Pierce County has had an ongoing investigation into the young man’s disappearance and is now working closely with Lewis County detectives to determine what led to his death, Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said in a news release.
Brown declined to speak about Virdell’s cause of death, saying Pierce County is the lead in the investigation.
The partial remains were found the evening of Feb. 28 by a resident in the area out walking his dog. The sheriff’s office said at the time they believed they had been dumped there.
The (Tacoma) News Tribune [2] reports Pierce County detectives believe Virdell was killed and have interviewed more than 100 people in the case but have not released a motive.
According to Crime Stoppers of Tacoma and Pierce County, Virdell was last seen at 10 a.m. on February 9th, 2012, as he left a friend’s residence on 223rd Street East in Spanaway to catch a bus to work. He was reported missing later that night after he failed to show up to work or home.
The property near the 2800 block of Little Hanaford Road is wooded, close to the roadway, and owned by Trans Alta, according to the sheriff’s office.
The remains were sent to King County to be examined by a forensic pathologist who has expertise with skeletal human remains. The identification through DNA was made by the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification and reported to detectives yesterday.
Further dental testing will be conducted, but it is strongly believed the remains are those of Virdell, Brown indicated.
The news prompted a conversation at the sheriff’s office about another unsolved case [3], the still unidentified remains of a female found near Morton in the spring of 2011.
A motorist who pulled off U.S. Highway 12 to take a break spotted the remains off the side of a logging road on April 7. The sheriff’s office has said they suspect foul play, but they still don’t know who the victim is.
Dental records and DNA have been entered into databases with no matches found. An examination by the specialist at the King County Medical Examiner’s Office could not determine the cause of death.
The woman is believed to have been between 20 and 35 years old when she died, small in stature and possibly of mixed ethnicity.
“We’ve done everything we can,” Brown said. “We’re still hoping someone will step forward to report their loved one missing.”
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For background, read “Breaking news: Human remains found on TransAlta property” from Saturday March 1, 2014, here [4]