Family of Los Alamos lab worker found dead near handgun rejects suicide theory, suspects foul play

The household of a idiosyncratic astatine Los Alamos National Laboratory successful New Mexico recovered dormant adjacent to a handgun implicit the play has rejected the thought that she would person killed herself, and immoderate relatives judge foul play whitethorn person been involved.

Melissa Casias, 54, vanished connected June 26, 2025, from Taos, New Mexico, according to authorities.

Relatives connected her parents' broadside of the household wrote connected Facebook that the country wherever she’d beryllium found, successful the McGaffey Ridge country of Carson National Forest, had been searched previously.

A hiker recovered her assemblage implicit the weekend, according to New Mexico State Police. They publically identified her remains Saturday. They said determination was besides a handgun nearby.

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Melissa Casias, 53, an administrative adjunct astatine Los Alamos National Laboratory successful New Mexico, was reported missing connected June 26, 2025, and her whereabouts stay unknown. (Mondragon family)

An authoritative origin and mode of decease had not been made nationalist arsenic of Thursday morning. Fox News Digital has reached retired to the region aesculapian examiner’s bureau and constabulary for much information.

Although the station mentioned a "mound of evidence," it was not instantly wide what the household had collected successful transportation with the case.

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"You don’t request to beryllium a hunter, a idiosyncratic oregon a bull to cognize that a quality assemblage is not going to beryllium near retired successful the elements and beryllium undisturbed a twelvemonth later," said Thomas McNally, an Arizona backstage researcher who has been moving with her family.

New Mexico State Police Chief Matt Broom, center, provides updates during a quality league successful Albuquerque, New Mexico, connected Friday, May 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

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He said Casias was known to conceal transportation a pistol, but helium couldn't talk to the caliber oregon information of the 1 recovered adjacent her remains.

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However, helium distanced Casias from reports of different authorities laboratory workers who person gone missing successful caller months, telling Fox News Digital she was an administrative adjunct and not a scientist. Some of her duties progressive scheduling authorities vehicles for off-site maintenance, helium said.

A replica of the Los Alamos Project Main Gate, wherever the archetypal atomic bombs were developed during World War II, stands astatine the borderline of municipality successful Los Alamos, New Mexico, U.S., July 30, 2023. (REUTERS/Brian Snyder)

New Mexico State Police person said Casias failed to study to enactment the time she went missing, past visited her girl but ne'er came home.

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According to authorities, she near down idiosyncratic belongings including her purse, driver's licence and aggregate cellphones.

Los Alamos National Laboratory, astir 35 miles northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is 1 of 16 Energy Department labs astir the country. There are presently astir 14,000 radical moving there.

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It was established successful 1943 successful transportation with the Manhattan Project — resulting successful the world's archetypal atomic weapons.

Fox News Digital has reached retired to the laboratory for comment.