Three hikers on separate occasions found human bones which had been scattered across a mountainside — and helped solve a missing persons case of eight years.
In a TikTok video, one man out hiking filmed the human bone with a surgical metal plate attached to it he found, which he initially assumed to belong to pet.
The hiker from Carson City, Nevada, said: “I went hiking with my dogs in 2020 and I came across this bone.
“I thought it was someone’s pet’s bone that had some surgery done to it.
“But I came to find out that it’s an actual human bone and this bone helped solved a missings persons case.
“The gentleman in question went missing in 2013 and me and two other hikers found bones and with our help they solved the mystery.
“Now his family has had a bit closure and I’m happy to have been the one to help.”
Christopher Cash, 55, was reported missing on August 1, 2013 and authorities described him as a paranoid schizophrenic who was off his medication.
Detectives investigated many leads but were unable to find Cash at the time, according to a press statement.
But on January 29, 2019, a different hiker found a human skull in a remote area above Centennial Park in Carson City.
The skull had no evidence of trauma, and investigators found no other bones in the area at the time.
A year later on November 23, 2020, this hiker who was out his dogs and filmed the bone found another with a surgical metal implant on it, approximately half a mile south of where the skull as found.
And on February 27 this year, a third hiker found bones in a steep ravine approximately two miles west of the 2019 search location.
Detectives, the Carson City Search and Rescue Unit and a human remains detection K9 discovered additional bones in the ravine and in other locations between the two search locations.
It appeared animals had scattered the remains in wide area, authorities said.
The Washoe County Regional Medical Examiner’s Officer said that the metal plate was the same kind of metal plate that Cash received in 2011, authorities said.
A private forensic DNA laboratory in Virginia also said that the DNA from the bones matched the DNA of the Cash’s sibling.
The cause and manner of death his death are undetermined, authorities said, and there is no evidence of foul play.
Cash was known to walk throughout Carson City, and he did not have a vehicle, according to investigators. They were also unable to determine how he ended up in the remote mountainside north of the city.