In the spring of 1963, a 42-year-old White male named Joseph Junior Mulvaney, a veteran of World War II, vanished from his new life in Des Moines, Iowa. He and his wife, Mary Alyce, along with their three young children, had just purchased a home in the city. Joseph, originally from Illinois, had followed his wife to her hometown with no other ties to the area. His disappearance on April 26, 1963, was shrouded in silence; he was never reported as a missing person.
His children were simply told that he had wandered off. For decades, the truth of what happened to Joseph remained a dark family secret.
The mystery began to unravel years later and miles away, in Thermopolis, Wyoming. In 1992, a man cleaning out a shed he had acquired from a former resident named John David Morris, discovered a padlocked military footlocker. Inside, wrapped in plastic and a grocery bag, were the skeletal remains of a man. An examination revealed the cause of death was a homicide; the victim had been shot. A crucial clue, a Hy-Vee grocery bag found with the remains, suggested a connection to Iowa. This discovery, however, would not yield an identity for another quarter of a century. The case even gained national attention when it was featured on the television series "Unsolved Mysteries" as "Gabby's Bones," referring to Morris's nickname.
Through the persistent efforts of his granddaughter, Shelley Statler, who had heard family whispers about the remains possibly being her long-lost grandfather, the bones were finally identified as Joseph Junior Mulvaney. Statler's research, aided by military records, confirmed his identity. She believes her grandfather was shot and killed in their Des Moines home and buried in the backyard. She suspects that her grandmother, Mary Alyce, was the one who pulled the trigger, and that her step-uncle, John David Morris, Mary Alyce's son from a previous relationship, was also involved. Statler theorizes that Morris later dug up the remains, placed them in the footlocker, and transported them to Wyoming.
Despite the identification of Joseph's remains and the strong suspicions held by his family, no one was ever charged with his murder. Law enforcement officials reportedly interviewed John David Morris but did not consider him a suspect in the killing itself, given his age at the time of Joseph's disappearance. Morris, who later died by suicide, never faced charges for his possession of the remains. The full story of what transpired in that Des Moines home in 1963 and the precise roles of Mary Alyce and her son may never be known, leaving the final chapter of Joseph Junior Mulvaney's life tragically incomplete. After decades spent in an evidence locker, his remains were finally returned to his family.
