Police confirmed the identity of remains discovered in the Utah desert more than 40 years ago. This finally closing a long-standing missing person case.
According to the Provo Police Department, 17-year-old Robby Peay left a youth treatment center in Salt Lake City on October 7, 1982. He was reported missing the same day and entered into national missing person databases after he did not return.
In February 1983, park employees found a body in Arches National Park near Moab. The victim was shot in the head. Investigators thought the 40 year old remains could belong to Peay, but the advanced decomposition made a positive ID impossible to confirm at the time. The case stalled, and were classified as John Doe.
A few months later, police found Peay’s truck at Lake Powell, about 350 miles away from where they found the body. No other leads surfaced, and investigators could not move forward. In 1990, Peay’s family sought to have him declared legally dead and placed a marker for him at Provo Cemetery.
The case stayed cold until 2018. A detective with the Provo Police Department submitted Robby Peay’s information to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). A forensic dentist noticed a mistake in Peay’s dental X-ray records. Correcting the number led to a strong match with the John Doe from Arches National Park. But the Utah Office of the Medical Examiner needed DNA to confirm.
Investigators discovered Peay was adopted and worked to access sealed adoption records. Although he had no living direct biological relatives, genealogical research helped detectives find an uncle. The uncle agreed to provide a DNA sample for comparison.
Detectives sought to exhume the remains from Arches. But at the same time, NamUs learned another agency already had the John Doe’s DNA profile. Testing confirmed the 40 year old remains belonged to Robby Peay.
Detective Sergeant Nick Patterson said, “Working cold cases as a detective is both challenging and time-consuming. Sifting through old files and photos, trying to reconstruct the past, can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. But the moment you uncover that long-awaited lead — the one that has eluded investigators for years — makes all the effort worthwhile.”
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