A son who was told his ‘missing’ dad had died more than 40 years ago has exhumed the body – and found they buried the WRONG person.
Mark Wells, 52, has spent decades wondering what really happened to his dad, Dale Wayne Wells, who disappeared aged 38 in February 1985.
After becoming frustrated at a lack of answers from the authorities, he paid to get his dad’s remains exhumed in the hope that new DNA could help solve the mystery.
But Mark was stunned when the results came back — and revealed the man he buried and mourned as a child was not his dad — and belonged to a complete stranger.
And he has now slammed the “inexcusable” mix-up he believes could have been a way for police to ‘close’ a missing persons enquiry without making the most basic enquiries.
The body he thought was Dale’s was found in Colfax, California, a quarter of a mile from his then-wife’s house, eight months after he was reported missing.
According to his son, his body had been “ransacked” by animals.
The police have never been able to find out how Dale died or who was responsible, leaving Mark searching for answers.
Mark, a business owner from the Bay Area, California, said: “I want to know why that person is buried in the ground instead of my father.
“Most importantly, I want to know if my father is alive.
“I don’t know if he has passed away – I want answers.
“When I got the results back, I was mad, mad that something like this could happen.”
Mark said in August 2019 that he became fed up with getting nowhere with the authorities, so he paid for the exhumation.
So far, police have not been able to work out who the man is, and have now reopened his dad’s missing persons case.
But when he got the results back in May 2022, he found out that the man whose family was buried was not his father.
Mark was just 12 years old when his mum told him that his father had been killed in a hunting accident.
Growing up, he didn’t ask many questions about his father’s death.
Aged 18, Mark enlisted in the Marine Corps. Included in the documentation he needed to take was his father’s death certificate, stating that the cause of his father’s death was “unknown”.
“I had always been told that my father was killed in a hunting accident,” Mark said.
“I told my mum how I saw his death certificate, and I saw that my father’s death was unknown.
“She apologised and said she didn’t want to tell me the truth about what happened.”
Mark then learned that his father had disappeared eight months before he was found dead by his grandfather in the woods just a quarter of a mile from his then-wife’s house.
Mark was told that there were three bullets around his father’s body when he was found, making many believe he killed himself, but Mark didn’t believe that theory – and the police were never able to confirm how he died.
He said: “The night my dad disappeared, he was driving back home to Colfax from Sacramento, where he worked, to see his then wife and my half siblings.
“I am thinking that he got himself in a really sticky situation. At the scene where the body was found, there were bullets on the ground – showing that a gun had been fired by someone.
“The body had been up there for eight months, ransacked by animals.
“My grandfather was the one who found him; and notified the police.
In the early 2000s, Mark went to the sheriff’s office and asked to speak to the sheriff about his dad’s case.
But claims he was told, “If you’re trying to reopen this case, stop now because there is nothing you can do to reopen it.”
“Then the sheriff walked off,” Mark said.
“The lady behind the counter said that she would do everything she could to reopen the case.
“So that is when I did everything I could and started digging in.”
Mark said, nothing made sense with his dad’s case, and through speaking to friends and family members – they all confirmed he would never have killed himself.
So in August 2019, Mark had the body exhumed in the hope of finding answers, but all it did was bring more questions to Mark, as results showed the man in the ground was not his father.
The company compared DNA from the bone to DNA from Dale’s sister, Sharon Service.
In a letter, sent to Mark, Mitrotyping technologies, who carried out the DNA testing on the bones, said that Dale can be “excluded as the contributor to the biological material questioned bone sample.”
Mark said: “I was so mad when I got the news. It was emotional for me when my wife got home. I told her about the results and broke down.
“I was thinking, number one, that isn’t my father in my ground, and number two, does that mean he is still alive?”
Now, the Placer County Sheriff’s Office has told Mark they have reopened his father’s missing persons case, as his dad is still missing.
But, years on, Mark is still no closer to finding out what has happened to his dad.
“It is frustrating for sure,” Mark said.
“All I want is answers, but I feel like nobody is truly willing to help me.”
“I want to know if my dad is alive, and if not, what happened to him?”
A spokesperson for Placer County Sheriff’s Office said: “The Placer County Coroner’s Office positively identified the remains as those of Dale Wells through dental records.
“After the identification was confirmed, the remains were released to the next of kin.”