Melissa Casias (53) went missing on Thursday June 26, 2025. She was last seen in the Taos area of New Mexico. Her remains have just been found and many are questioning if this case could be related to the many missing people who work in the same field as she did.
Melissa dropped her husband at work at around 6am. Reports indicate that he and Melissa worked at the same place – Los Alamos National Laboratory. This was said to be around 70 miles from their home. He may have been employed as a superintendent and Melissa was said to be an admin assistant. When they arrived at the lab, Melissa said she had left her ID badge at home and decided that she would work from home that day. Mark said he found this strange because she would have needed the badge to get past security to drop him off.
Melissa left the lab and went home. At around 1pm, she took lunch to her daughter Sierra (19).
When Sierra arrived home from work at around 3.30pm, she found that Melissa was not there. Her purse, keys and wallet, a long with factory reset cellphones (a personal phone and a work phone) were found at the home. Melissa’s husband reported her missing at 5pm.
Authorities searched CCTV for any signs of Melissa. Surveillance footage reportedly captured her walking along State Road 518 near Talpa, New Mexico at around 2pm that day, carrying a backpack.
A GoFundMe was set up to aid in the search for Melissa.
Melissa is a beautiful, wonderful person. An amazing daughter, sister, wife and mother. Sadly, she has been missing since 6/26, and was last seen walking in Talpa, near Ranchos de Taos, around 2:20p that afternoon. No further information about her whereabouts is known at this time.
This gofundme was set up in Melissa’s parent’s name, for the sole purpose of offering a REWARD for information leading to Melissa’s return. We are looking for support in furthering this investigation. Unfortunately, cases go cold all the time, and the police will sooner or later need to turn their attention to a new crime. We want to keep Melissa’s disappearance in the public eye, and encourage people to share what they know.
The search for Melissa went on for around 11 months.
On May 28, 2026, a hiker discovered human remains in the McGaffey Ridge area of Carson National Forest.
This is around 2.5 mile walk/50 minutes from where Melissa was last seen.
A handgun was found near the remains.
Within a few days, the remains were confirmed to belong to Melissa.
We are still waiting for the autopsy results but this is info from some current news reports:
The body of a missing nuclear lab worker who vanished last year was reportedly found “skeletonised” with a gunshot injury to her skull in a national forest in New Mexico.
Thomas McNally, a former homicide detective who was investigating Casias’ disappearance for her family, told The Daily Mail that the mum-of-one’s “skeletonised” corpse was propped up against a tree – with an abandoned gun laying nearby.
McNally said that Casias’ body didn’t show any signs of animal activity or disturbance, despite being left to rot in the forest.
McNally told the outlet Casias and her husband got into an argument over a vape pen during the commute to the lab.
During the investigation into her disappearance, her husband alleged that Casias “was running around with a boyfriend somewhere,” which the police “believed,” according to McNally.
Thomas has been hired by Sierra’s grandparents – Joe and Joanne Mondragon. We believe these are Melissa’s parents.
Melissa’s family have made a Facebook page for her and they posted this update:
“there will be more information to come but what we can tell you now is she was located in an area previously searched.”
“This is a lot to process, our hearts are heavy and we fully intend to continue to pursue answers for justice,” they added.
Sierra has raised questions about where Melissa got the weapon from:
‘She could not legally purchase a firearm and did not have one. Every firearm in our home is owned and purchased by my father. At no point did I EVER see her carry a handgun or keep one in her vehicle. She also spent the majority of her time working on Los Alamos National Laboratory property, where firearms are strictly prohibited,’ Sierra said in a Facebook post.
Her family have also said that they were having financial trouble which may have impacted how much access Melissa had to classified information at her workplace.
The woman’s family and private investigators have disputed how much access Casias really had to classified data, claiming that the LANL employee lost her security clearance due to financial troubles she and her husband were having.
Chris Swecker, the former FBI assistant director in charge of the bureau’s Criminal Investigative Division, told the Daily Mail there are several critical questions investigators must now answer.
‘The gun that was nearby, was it a gun owned by her? What was her cause of death? Those are the first things you have to establish. Was this a suicide, or was this a crime?’ Chris said.
He previously told the media that he feared the growing list of names may be tied to a plot being carried out by a ‘hostile foreign intelligence service’ against US researchers and workers connected to advanced technology.
Melissa’s disappearance and death was one of several to take place in New Mexico, alongside the disappearances of Anthony Chavez, a former LANL employee, and government contractor Steven Garcia, who worked at the Albuquerque facility for the Kansas City National Security Campus – a nuclear weapons lab. As well as Neil McCasland who we previously covered.
‘I think there’s enough of a pattern, even if it’s a small group, I think there’s a smaller group of missing people that warrant an investigation by the FBI, which is the lead agency in counter-espionage, counterintelligence. I would be looking for that, unless we show something points to another direction,’ Chris said.
Former FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindafer has a different opinion. “The fact she left everything behind, her purse, her identification and was last seen over eight miles walking from her place, this seems. to me a person that was struggling and had a mental situation she was dealing with,” she said.
“This so falls in line with other situations we see like this; when people are really struggling with a situation, they just want to walk off and go off by themselves. And unfortunately, it is so difficult to find people in the wilderness, no matter how many dogs you have,” Jennifer said.
Melissa’s family released a statement via their FB page this week. Their statement alludes to some speculation in the media about there being marital issues.
Over the last 11 months we as a family have gathered and documented factual evidence and witness statements that point in one direction and one direction only.
Although all evidence (including a witness to a confession) has implicated Melissa’s husband as the main suspect in her murder, we must state “Allegedly ” for legal purposes.
We have been providing all pertinent information to the New Mexico State Police. We expect that now that Melissa’s body has been recovered, in an area we had already searched, that the New Mexico State Police will take our mound of evidence seriously and stop going with Mark’s narrative that she simply walked away.
We do not believe and will not accept this tragedy be ruled a suicide and there is absolutely no evidence that indicates such.
We want to thank everyone for the thoughts, prayers, compassion and love throughout this unimaginably painful 11 months. Thank you for loving Melissa. Now that she’s been found, let’s pray for justice. #justiceformelissa
Sierra has also insinuated that there is false information being spread by a PI in the case.
‘This individual has been “hired” by members of my mother’s family. He has made repeated accusations toward me and my family while failing to provide any meaningful contribution to the actual search for my mother,’ Sierra said.
‘Instead, the focus has consistently been on targeting my father rather than advancing the investigation,’ she said.
‘Claims that my father was blaming my mother for our financial situation or speaking negatively about her from the beginning are not accurate,’ the teen posted.
‘I was consistently with him and present for the conversations being referenced. He did not have a full understanding of the financial situation early on,’ she added.
‘Much of the information was still being uncovered, documented, and pieced together over time and still is to this day. It is misleading to suggest he was assigning blame for circumstances that were not yet fully known.’
‘Spreading misinformation in a situation this serious is damaging to me, to others who care about my mom, and to the integrity of the case itself,’ the teen declared.
At the time of writing this blog, Melissa’s autopsy results are pending and we will update once the information is available.
SOURCE LIST
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0723mr8j3po
https://www.newsnationnow.com/missing/melissa-casias-likely-had-mental-situation-ex-fbi-agent
https://www.gofundme.com/f/join-the-search-for-melissa-casias