Daniel Wayne Cleveland was a 35-year-old male when he was last seen on March 31, 2017, in Index, Washington, a small community in Snohomish County near the Skykomish River and the surrounding Cascade foothills. Public missing-person listings described him as White/Caucasian, with red or auburn hair, brown eyes, a height between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 10 inches, and a weight between 175 and 180 pounds. He was last seen near Sportsman Park outside Index, and reports said he was wearing a dark coat and jeans. He did not have access to a vehicle or a cell phone, making his disappearance especially concerning from the beginning.
The area where Daniel was last known to be is rugged and close to river corridors, wooded terrain, campgrounds, and mountain roads. Online case summaries connected to NamUs reported that he was last seen near Sportsman Park, while later local reporting described his last known location as a campground west of Index, upstream from where remains would later be found. Those details placed the early focus of the case around the Index and Skykomish River valley, where weather, water, terrain, and limited communication access could make a search difficult. Family members searched the river valley in the spring of 2017, but no trace of Daniel was found at that time.
Public reports also described Daniel as someone who had been living with mental illness, and bulletins at the time indicated concern that he may have been suicidal. Those details were not presented as an answer to what happened to him, but they help explain why his disappearance was treated with urgency and care. He had reportedly been in jail during the week before he vanished, according to NamUs information cited in local reporting, and he was last known to be without the practical means many people rely on in an emergency: no car and no cell phone. The unanswered question remained how he came to vanish from the Index area and why no immediate evidence surfaced despite searches by relatives.
A major development came later, after a fisherman discovered a palm-sized piece of human skull on a bank of the Skykomish River. The bone was found at a bend in the river, about a half-mile downstream from Zeke's Drive In, and authorities confirmed it was human. Investigators had little else to work with: no clothing, no additional remains, and no obvious evidence that could immediately identify the person. Because the location was downstream from where Daniel had last been seen, investigators suspected the remains could be connected to him, but early comparisons were not enough to make a definitive identification.
For months, investigators treated the remains as an unidentified-person case, referring to the man as "Big Bend John Doe." Around Christmas after the discovery, experts compared the cranial bone to Daniel's facial X-rays and found them consistent, but not conclusive. A private lab in Oklahoma later extracted DNA, and genealogist Deb Stone worked with the genetic profile, family trees, and distant relatives to help build supporting evidence. The medical examiner's office then requested DNA samples from Daniel's parents. Those results confirmed that the bone came from Daniel's skull, and his family was notified.
Official reports indicate Daniel was found deceased, though the exact date of death is unknown from the publicly available information. The Snohomish County Medical Examiner's Office announced the DNA confirmation, and local reporting said Daniel was presumed dead; however, exactly how and why he ended up in the Skykomish River remained unanswered. The case began with a vulnerable 35-year-old man last seen on foot near Index without a car or phone, continued through family searches and years of uncertainty, and reached a painful resolution only after a partial skull bone was recovered downstream and identified through DNA. In overview, Daniel Cleveland's case is the story of a man who disappeared from the Index area on March 31, 2017, a family left searching for him, investigators working with limited evidence, and a final identification that brought answers about where he was, while leaving unresolved questions about the circumstances of his death.
Last Seen: Mar 31, 2017
