{"id":34659,"date":"2023-04-14T16:45:05","date_gmt":"2023-04-14T22:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/skeletal-remains-found-on-middle-mountain-identified\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:19:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:19:34","slug":"skeletal-remains-found-on-middle-mountain-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/skeletal-remains-found-on-middle-mountain-identified\/","title":{"rendered":"Skeletal remains found on Middle Mountain identified"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=829a8655-c008-424e-bf08-238d22cb3781&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"1600\" height=\"992\" alt=\"Vallecito Reservoir is seen from Middle Mountain Road. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Vallecito Reservoir is seen from Middle Mountain Road. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>The Colorado Bureau of Investigations remains tight-lipped about whether they have any clues or leads pertaining to the human remains found on Middle Mountain in September \u2013 but a name has been released.<\/p>\n<p>DNA testing identified the skeletal remains to belonging to Micheal Kroll of Joplin, Missouri, according to the Pagosa Springs Police Department, which posted on its Facebook page in January that Kroll had been in the Pagosa Springs area a short time before being reported missing Oct. 19, 2021. He was 41 years old when he went missing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were advised he lived in town for a short period of time by the person who reported him missing,\u201d said Pagosa Springs Police Chief William Rockensock. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing else I can release to you now on this investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hikers discovered the remains in the area of Middle Mountain Road northeast of Vallecito Reservoir on Sept. 25, 2022. No autopsy occurred because only a skeleton was recovered, according the La Plata County coroner. The remains are currently being examined by Fort Lewis College professor and Dean of Anthropology Dawn Mulhern, who coordinates forensic studies.<\/p>\n<p>Mulhern could not be reached for comment concerning possible clues about Kroll\u2019s demise.<\/p>\n<p>CBI referred to the Pagosa police Facebook post when asked for information.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are no additional details available at this time as this is an active and ongoing investigation,\u201d Lisa Kohlbrenner, spokeswoman with CBI, said in an email.<\/p>\n<p><em id=\"emphasis-a417fa0b851a064eb4dea5ec22e96c6e\"><a href=\"mailto:gjaros@durangoherald.com\">gjaros@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by hikers in September belonged to Missouri man who lived in Pagosa Springs a short time<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[255,28,993,310,1500,1394],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-34659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-death-and-dying","tag-headlines","tag-investigation","tag-pagosa-springs","tag-vallecito","tag-vallecito-reservoir"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82694,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34659\/revisions\/82694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34659"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=34659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}