Dinosaur bones were found on a Thermopolis, Wyoming, ranch in 1993. A big deal, sure, but residents were more abuzz about the bones found the previous year.

The bones that diminished the dinosaurs had been unearthed on March 31, 1992, in a long-forgotten footlocker. These bones were not a precursor to those discovered the following year; tests determined they were of a human male.

The man in the Thermopolis footlocker remained a John Doe for a quarter-of-a-century until being identified in 2017.

The Man In The Footlocker

When John Morris moved from Thermopolis to Arlington, Texas, in 1986, he left several of his possessions with his friend, Newel Sessions. Among the items Morris did not take with him was a footlocker, which Newel stored in his shed and forgot about for six years.

As he was rummaging through the shed in 1992, Newel came upon the footlocker and decided to open it. After using a blowtorch to pry open the lock, he was taken aback by what he found beneath an empty tray.

Newel Sessions

A scattering of bones, covered in plastic, lay inside the crate. When Newel contacted Morris, the former Thermopolis resident seemed equally shocked. He denied any knowledge of the man’s identity.

When questioned by the Hot Springs County Sheriff’s Department, Morris claimed only vague recollections of the chest, saying he thought he had acquired it in approximately 1973 at a garage sale in Iowa, though it may have been in Illinois, Oklahoma, Arizona, Texas, or Wyoming. He refused to take a polygraph test.

A rotted plastic bag found in the footlocker‘s trunk bore a faded logo of Hy-Vee, a major grocery store chain founded in Iowa and with stores in seven other Midwestern states, including Illinois. The logo on the bag was used by the company in the 1950s.

A belt was also found among the remains.

Bones Found

The footlocker’s trunk and lock were from the 1930s. Although it was not official Government Issue, its markings suggested it had been used in the United States Armed Services between the two World Wars, possibly by the Illinois National Guard.

Morris said he planned to use the footlocker as a tool chest, and that he had attempted to open his purchase several times but did not have the necessary tools to do so. He ultimately gave up and forgot about the footlocker.

The Footlocker

The Wyoming State Crime Lab determined the remains in the footlocker were of an approximately five-foot-eight-inch tall Caucasian male in his mid-fifties to mid-sixties. Both of his lower leg bones and one hand were missing. His rib cage contained several nicks, possibly made by bullets.

The man’s death was ruled a murder after X-rays revealed a bullet was lodged in his skull behind his left eye. The angle of the wound suggested he was shot at close range from a person who was right-handed. He also appeared to have been shot in the chest.

The bullet was from a .25-caliber semiautomatic Colt pistol with a two-inch barrel. Such turn-of-the-century weapons were first available in the United States in 1908.

The John Doe’s remains appeared to have been previously buried at another locale.

For twenty-five years, the identity of the man found in the Thermopolis footlocker, believed to have been murdered between the 1940s-1960s, remained unknown.

A Likeness Of The Man

After reading a newspaper article about the quarter-century-old discovery, Des Moines, Iowa, resident Shelley Statler contacted the Hot Springs County (Wyoming) Sheriff’s Office in 2017. She believed the man’s reconstruction bore a resemblance to several relatives.

A DNA sample was obtained from Shelley’s mother, Kathy Guynn. In October 2017, the Wyoming State Crime Lab determined the man in the Thermopolis footlocker was her father, Joseph Mulvaney, (Shelley’s grandfather.)

Joseph Mulvaney

Joseph Mulvaney was born in Mattoon, Illinois, to Joseph, Sr. and Kathryn Mulvaney in 1921. In the 1930s, his family moved to Decatur, Illinois, where he attended high school.

The Mulvaneys;

Joseph Sr., Kathryn, And Joseph, Jr.

Joseph enlisted in the Illinois Army National Guard’s 130^th Infantry in 1941. He served in Australia and the Philippines during World War II.

After the war he worked for several railroads which took him across America.

World War II Veteran

Joseph married Des Moines native Mary McLees in California and they had three children, Kathryn (Kathy), JJ, and Patrick. From a previous relationship, Mary was also the mother of John Morris.

The Mulvaneys moved to Des Moines in 1961 and settled in the home where Mary was raised. Two years later, Joseph disappeared. For reasons unclear, he was never reported as missing. Kathy was approximately six-years-old when she last saw her father. She was told he had abandoned the family.

Mary died in 2009 at age eighty-five.

Mary McLees

The circumstances of Joseph Mulvaney’s murder, as well as when he was murdered, are mysteries which many never be unlocked. He was forty-two-years-old when he was last seen in 1963, but the tests on his remains showed he was likely in his mid-fifties to mid-sixties when he was murdered.

Despite the discrepancy in age, Shelley and her mother suspect he was killed in Des Moines in 1963, when he was forty-two, and initially buried in the backyard of his home. Shelley believes her grandfather was either murdered by his wife, Mary McLees, or stepson, John Morris, who would have been approximately sixteen-years-old at the time, but there is no evidence supporting her theory.

It is believed when Morris moved to Wyoming, he dug up Joseph’s remains and placed them in the footlocker which he took with him. If he did so, it is strange as to why he then left the footlocker with Newel Sessions when he moved to Texas. It seems unlikely he would have forgotten he had put the remains in the footlocker.

John Morris’s fate is unclear. Some sources say he later moved to Mississippi where he committed suicide, but in a 2019 Des Moines Register article, reporter Daniel Finney says he is still alive, now in his late seventies. The article also says the Register’s efforts to locate Morris to interview him for their story were unsuccessful.

I could not find a picture of John Morris.

Photos Of Joseph

Joseph Mulvaney was cremated prior to his funeral on March 29, 2019, in Cody, Wyoming.

He was laid to rest with full military rites.

Finally A Funeral

Photo From Powell Tribune

Kathy Guynn, Joseph Mulvaney’s first child, who supplied the DNA that lead to his identification, died in May 2022, at age sixty-eight.

Kathy Guynn

Joseph Mulvaney’s Daughter 

Shelley Statler hopes to learn the manner in which her grandfather was murdered.

Anyone who can shed light on the murder of Joseph Mulvaney is asked to reach Shelley by email at [email protected].

Shelley Statler

Joseph Mulvaney’s Granddaughter

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/194722282/joseph-junior-mulvaney#

SOURCES:

• Des Moines Register
• Doe Network
• The Global Dispatch
• Hot Springs County, Wyoming, Sheriff Department
• Powell Tribune
• Thermopolis Independent Record
• Unsolved Mysteries
• Wyoming Herald and Review