Ohio authorities solve "mystery of 31-year-old remains" found by hunters in 1991

More than three decades after hunters discovered a set of human skeletal remains near a farm in central Ohio, authorities have identified the bones, previously known as John Doe, as former Columbus resident Robert A. Mullins.

The remains were originally found on Nov. 1, 1991, in a shallow grave dug beside a private farm lane on the north side of an interstate highway, according to an announcement released Tuesday by the Ohio Attorney General's Office. Officials came to a number of conclusions about the deceased person's identity over the years, many of which turned out to be false, the office explained in a news release. 

For example, the remains were initially believed to belong to an Indigenous person, before further review by anthropologists suggested that they belonged to a woman, with an estimated height between 5 feet, 1 inch and 5 feet, 4 inches. At the time, the attorney general's office said, personnel involved in the investigation surmised that the remains had been in the ground for about three years before they were discovered.