A dead man who was found locally more than 25 years ago has been identified after years of missing.
On January 30, 1999, CPD officers were called to find a deceased man along Jonathan Moore Pike near Carr Hill Road. The man was believed to be in his 50s or 60s and died from a single gunshot wound. Two handguns were found with the man, but he had no identification or anything on him that would lead investigators to his identity. His death was determined to be a suicide.
Over the years, investigators have tried numerous ways to identify the man, including fingerprinting, asking for the public’s assistance in press releases, sending out bulletins to regional law enforcement and entering his descriptors into national databases , including in the database of missing persons. The FBI was able to recreate a photo of what the man looked like when he was alive. However, none of these things led to the identity of the man. After more than 25 years of investigations, CPD used forensic genetic genealogy to close the case of an unidentified man who took his own life locally. Working in conjunction with the Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office and the Bartholomew County Prosecutor’s Office, local investigators were met with decades of dead ends until they sought the assistance of Othram, a Texas corporation specializing in forensic genetic genealogy.

After sending a sample of the man’s DNA to Othram, leads were generated that led to north-central Ohio, where a nephew identified the man in the FBI photo and provided his own DNA to confirm their family relationship . With this information, the man’s identity was confirmed to be Leo Michael Murray, an Ohio resident who was 61 years old when he died. Mr. Murray had never been married and had no children. He told his family he was moving to Florida before he disappeared, which is why his family never reported him missing to the police.
It was very important for investigators to re-identify the man and provide answers to his family, highlighting the commitment and determination of our investigators to provide closure.
Some of the resources used for the investigation were funded by the Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office and NamUs, a national information and resource center for missing, unidentified and unclaimed persons in the United States. There is more information about forensic genetic genealogy, cases solved using it and fundraising opportunities on the Othram website at

CPD encourages anyone missing a loved one to report their disappearance to law enforcement for inclusion in a national missing persons database. For the Columbus Police Department, there is no minimum amount of time a person must be missing before entering a missing person into that database.

Photos courtesy of the Columbus Police Department:

This attached photo was taken at the site in 1999.

Leo Michael Murray

FBI recreational photo of Murray