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Son Discovers Father's Grave Holds Stranger
9 Jun
Summary
- Mark Wells exhumed a body believed to be his father's.
- DNA tests confirmed the buried body was not his father.
- The father, Dale Wayne Wells, vanished in February 1985.
Mark Wells discovered that the body buried as his father, Dale Wayne Wells, was not him. Dale vanished in February 1985 at age 38, and a body was found eight months later near his former wife's home in Colfax, California. Mark, frustrated by a lack of progress, paid for an exhumation in August 2019. DNA results, received in May 2022, confirmed the remains belonged to an unidentified stranger.
The Placer County Sheriff's Office has since reopened Dale's missing persons case. Mark Wells has long questioned the circumstances surrounding his father's disappearance, especially after discovering conflicting information about his death. He is determined to find out if his father is still alive or what truly happened to him after all these years.
