A Chehalis Police Department squad car sits in the vacant lot adjacent to where a dead body was found on Feb. 23 off of Kresky Avenue in Chehalis.
The skeletal remains found in Chehalis on Feb. 23 have been positively identified, the Lewis County Coroner’s Office announced Thursday.
The name of the woman, who was in her mid-50s, is not being released until next of kin can be located and notified.
However, Coroner Warren McLeod told The Chronicle if all search options are exhausted, the name may be released to the media in the hope of locating family.
The coroner’s office uses search engines not available to the public to try to find relatives and social media.
“We have reached out to an acquaintance of this person who knows a little bit about family history, so we’re working on that,” McLeod said.
The remains arrived in Seattle Thursday morning, he said, and forensic anthropologist Dr. Kathy Taylor with the King County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the remains using dental records.
The coroner’s office had previously sent out a request to local dentists for possible records of a potential name and got a match from a local dentist. The X-ray records and remains were sent to the examiner’s office earlier this week.
The female was living locally, but was not filed as a missing person with local law enforcement agencies, according to a press release.
McLeod added in an email that the cause and manner of death are still pending. Taylor will be trying to determine how the female died.
The Chehalis Police Department in a previous release said there were no obvious signs of foul play at the scene.
The remains were discovered by a survey team in the 2200 block of Kresky Avenue in Chehalis on Feb. 23 and recovered the following day by the coroner’s office.
