Georgia law enforcement agencies discovered the remains of a man missing for more than a year after receiving a call from someone whose dog brought home an unusual bone.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation confirmed Wednesday that the human remains found in Morgan County were those of Chancellor “CJ” James McCall, a 23-year-old man from Atlanta who went missing on December 28, 2020, reports the Morgan County Citizen. The remains were found on December 16, the newspaper’s office said, Special Agent Mary Chandler.
The local sheriff’s office received a call in early December from a man who said he believed his dog brought home a human bone, vice chairman Keith Howard told the newspaper. The caller said he put the bone in his truck and drove to his job in Madison. The police met the man at work and identified the bone as human.
Authorities put a tracking collar on the dog and mapped the dog’s daily journeys. That led officers to a decayed skeleton lying on the leaf-covered floor, Howard told the newspaper. The remains were found about 100 meters from the dog owner’s house.
A dog in Georgia brought home a bone that was used to find the remains of a missing man.
Andrey Klemenkov / Getty Images
At the Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s crime lab, agents used dental records to identify the remains as McCall, the newspaper said. Morgan County Sheriff Robert Markley told the citizen that along with McCall’s clothing and hairstyle, investigators also used the National Missing and Unidentified Person System records to help carry out the identification.
“We’re always excited to graduate from families,” Markley told the newspaper. “If you don’t know where your child is, it won’t give you a degree.”
McCall was believed dead after he was shot dead in front of an apartment building in Decatur, Georgia, according to the National Missing and Unidentified Person System. Witnesses said McCall’s body was loaded into the trunk of his own car and driven away.
“His car was found in another location a few hours later after it was burned,” said the description of his case on the website.
The National Missing and Unidentified Person System’s August 2021 report (the most recent) disclosed 20,559 cases of unresolved missing persons from 55 US states and territories. According to the national tracking system, 600,000 people are missing and 4,400 unidentified bodies are recovered every year.
WAGA-TV reports that two men have been arrested in DeKalb County in connection with McCall’s disappearance. However, the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office is still investigating the case and has not released any additional information about the arrests, according to the station.
The DeKalb County Sheriff’s office was unavailable for further comments Friday night.
