Published Jul 30, 2026, 11:47 AM EDT
Armes Henry Lahti, an avid fisherman known as "Mousy," was discovered in woods of southwestern Oregon more than five decades ago.
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Published Jul 30, 2026, 11:47 AM EDT
Authorities have discovered that the remains of a murder victim, whose bones and remains were found in southwestern Oregon more than 50 years ago, belonged to a WWII veteran. Coos County Sheriff's Office discovered that the skeletal remains of a body found in the woods near Bandon in 1972 matched the genetic makeup of Armes Henry Lahti, a U.S. Navy veteran from Astoria, Ore., who served in the military during the conflict. “This long‑awaited identification reflects years of dedicated work, collaborative science, and advances in modern genetic genealogy. ... “This outcome would not be possible without the ongoing cooperation among multiple law enforcement agencies, private scientific partners, and volunteers committed to resolving cold cases," said state forensic anthropologist Hailey Collord-Stalder in a statement. The office, in a social media post on July 29, said that opening and re-investigating cold cases "takes an enormous amount of effort and time, presenting a challenge in dedicating active patrol members or detectives who are daily bombarded with calls for service." They had worked for the last two years with the Oregon Cold Case Collective (OC3)—a group of unpaid volunteers who have a passion for bringing old cases forward using new technology and investigative techniques. That led to OC3 coordinating with the FBI to run Investigative Genetic Genealogy to trace DNA to find family. That testing began in March 2025, which led OC3 and the FBI to identify the remains as Lahti. The discovery solves a mystery that spanned over five decades. At the time Lahti's bones were discovered, authorities knew he had been shot twice in the head in the 1960s, but there was little evidence on the scene for them to investigate aside from some clothes and a set of denture plates.
