Remains of Missing Los Alamos Worker Found as Probe into Dead Scientists Gains Urgency
The remains of Melissa Casias were found in Carson National Forest over the weekend.
In April, Legal Insurrection reported that House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer had confirmed the committee would investigate the 11 scientists who have either died or remain missing.
These scientists all have ties to nuclear and space research, and the situation sparked national security concerns.
One of the missing scientists was Melissa Casias, who worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory and had disappeared suddenly in 2025.
Sadly, her remains were recently found in a forested area of New Mexico.
New Mexico State Police said the remains were discovered by a hiker last week in the McGaffey Ridge area of the Carson National Forest, a massive expanse of wilderness that is within driving distance of Taos, the city where she was from. A handgun was found near the remains, state police said. Casias would have been 53.
The medical examiner’s office will continue to conduct tests to determine the cause and manner of her death, according to police. When they shared her identity Saturday, neither of those rulings had been made yet.
Casias was employed as an administrative assistant at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, her niece, Jazmin McMillen, previously told CBS News. She was the second person employed at the laboratory to go missing last year, following the disappearance of Anthony Chavez, 78, in May.
Both are among a group of at least 10 missing or deceased scientists and laboratory staff who worked at sensitive nuclear or space technology labs, law enforcement officials have told CBS News. The FBI is leading an investigation into possible connections between the cases.
🚨Breaking: First missing scientist, a nuclear lab employee, is found dead a year after vanishing.
Melissa Casias, an administrative assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory — one of America's premier nuclear research facilities — disappeared in June 2025. Her remains have… pic.twitter.com/PdlEMy3SDJ
— David J Harris Jr (@DavidJHarrisJr) June 1, 2026
Casias reportedly wiped her phones and left her purse at home last June. She also failed to come to work or return home after visiting her daughter. Police indicated that a hiker in the forest discovered her body and that a handgun was found alongside the corpse.
The circumstances surrounding Casias’s case were even more disturbing, as the wife and mother wiped all records from her phones before leaving them and her identification behind and walking out of her home in Ranchos de Taos last June.
It remains unclear how long Casias’s body was in the forest before it was discovered, despite the area being part of a large US Forest Service restoration project where crews have been working regularly since December 2025.
The New Mexico State Police told the Daily Mail that investigators are still examining the scene where the body was found and are attempting to trace the gun’s origins, but it could take days before those answers are revealed.
At this time, it is unclear if Casias owned a handgun or if there is any indication as to who the weapon found near her body belonged to.
While the discovery of Melissa Casias’s remains brings a measure of closure to one family, it also sharpens the focus on those who are still missing. Each development and discovery adds to the growing body of information investigators can use to piece together what is happening behind the scenes.
The couple’s daughter, Sierra, told investigators that Casias dropped her off a sandwich and told her she planned to work from home after forgetting her badge.
Surveillance cameras last showed her walking alone eastward on State Road 518, some three miles from her home, at around 2:20 p.m. local time.
It is unclear if Casias owned a handgun, and New Mexico State Police are still examining the scene and tracing the gun’s origins.
With federal authorities actively pursuing leads, there is renewed momentum in the search for answers. For the families still waiting, that progress matters.
The hope now is that continued investigation will not only clarify Casias’s fate but also lead to the safe recovery of others and finally bring some much-needed resolution to a deeply troubling series of cases.
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Comments
A secretary at a huge joint flipped out and offed herself. Wake me up when the janitor goes missing.
He wasn’t the janitor, he was the maintenance man.
These people aren’t scientists, they’re office/site support staff.
Wiped all data from her phone and left her ID behind ? Smells like a suicide plan to me. Not sure what secrets a secretary would have.
There certainly are some nefarious possibilities. And there might be the possibility someone else wiped her phone, too. Wiping your phone should be a little harder nowadays, though, with everything going into “the cloud.”
You’ve never really known a secretary then.
Certainly looks like a suicide, but 2 points…
1) Any espionage-related killing would preferably be made to look like not an ERK.
2) Any spy or spy-genre fan could tell you that often the juiciest and most profitable person to turn in any org is…. the secretary or PA. They have access (officially or un) to their boss’s stuff and often a much lower profile.
Does she have all her fingers and eyes and other biometric identifiers?
One of the missing scientists
was employed as an administrative assistant
Remember the old Sesame Street ditty? “One of these things is not like the other ones; one of these things does not belong”?
Yeh, there is a LOT of BS going on with this story, where they are tying these people together simply through the phrase “nuclear and space technology.” That covers a lot of disparate ground. And that sort of vague connection is the heart of conspiracy theory. Also, the implication of being the second person “employed at Los Alamos” does that sort of work. There are over 10,000 people employed there. I don’t know how many are employed across the fields of “nuclear and space technology.”
any indication as to who the weapon found near her body belonged to
Well, golly, this would seem like a perfect time to use that vaunted “tracing” they all insist is so important in gun crimes. And… nada?
Use your critical thinking faculties, folks. Also, invest in aluminum foil futures.
“a perfect time to use that vaunted “tracing”
Yeah, my thought also… but forward tracing from the manufacturer (all they are technically allowed, though we know better) should take about a week, and then it will all get seasoned anyway with the usual BS about “we can’t tell you what we know because it’s an open investigation.”
LI commenter Sanddog told us that he knew her, and that she was not a scientist, nor did her job require a security clearance, and that she had been having personal issues. She never belonged on that list, and while her death is of course sad, it shouldn’t be any cause for national concern.
rest in peace
I have a friend who works at a defense contractor in Albuquerque. During the wu-flu, he moved his family to No. Idaho where he worked from home. After a few years, they said, no more, you must return to in=person.
After over a year of him commuting home every other weekend, I asked his wife if they were looking to move back there so they could be together more.
Her answer “No. The girls (14 &16) and I would never be able to leave the house. It is not safe for us there.” And so, he continues to work in Albuquerque and his wife is in Idaho with their 6 kids. That is the trade off they have chosen for safety.
anecdote to add to this mix of crazy from the Las Alamos area
So a commenter here on LI “knew” her and says she had personal issues, but was not suicidal. Sure, it must be true since it’s from a post on LI…
And the handgun next to her body — that happens all the time on the trails.
No one said she wasn’t suicidal. You made that up.
I never said she wasn’t suicidal. Misinformation on this case is leading a lot of people to speculate she was murdered. It doesn’t help that some weirdo private investigator from Arizona, hired by her parents has been beating the “she was murdered by her husband” drum and feeding bad information to the media. The area her body was found is not part of the McGaffey restoration project in the Carson National forest. She was found miles away from that area and yes, it’s entirely possible that searchers could have been in that area and still not found her. We’re talking tens of thousands of acres. As for the firearm found near her body, it wouldn’t be unusual for a suicide nor would it be unusual for a hiker as well. This whole thing was blown up because of her connection to LANL and a dirtbag PI from AZ who wanted to make a name for himself.
Space aliens (as opposed to the domestic illegal ones). Has to be space aliens.
I’m sorry but this is nothing but sensationalism at its worst.
Clickbait crap and once again congress takes the bait.
Piss off with this crap.
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