Yesterday the St. Tammany Coroner’s Office held a press conference to talk about the identity of a victim in a homicide cold case from 1993, where a man’s body was found in rural St. Tammany Parish off I-59 near the Mississippi state line.
Officials said the man died of a gunshot wound to the back of his head.
Dr. Charles Preston, St. Tammany Parish Coroner, said for years officials have been trying to identify the victim. Back in the 1990’s a clay model was made and then in 2003, a computer-enhanced model was made. But the big break in the case came once they were able to use DNA technology at their state-of-the-art lab and identified the victim as Joseph Lee Muniz, who was born in 1972.
With DNA samples in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons database, they were able to make matches with two siblings who live in other parts of the country. Those matches gave law enforcement confirmation that the victim was in Louisiana at the time of his disappearance back in 1993.
The St. Tammany Parish Coroner’s Office says they believe the suspect who killed Muniz is no longer alive, but law enforcement is still investigating.
