Authorities say human remains have been found on a northwest Missouri farm that has been the focus of a search for two missing Wisconsin brothers.
Clinton County Sheriff Larry Fish announced on July 31 that the remains were found on a farm near Braymer.
He says the remains have not been officially identified. No cause of death has been determined.
Authorities have been searching a farm near Braymer for 35-year-old Nicholas Diemel and his 24-year-old brother, Justin Diemel.
The brothers haven’t been seen since July 21 when they missed a flight back to Wisconsin after visiting northwest Missouri on a trip for the livestock business they operate in Bonduel.
Authorities are searching for missing Wisconsin brothers Nicholas Diemel and Justin Diemel who disappeared while on a business trip in Missouri. Their truck was found abandoned on the side of a road in Holt, police say: https://t.co/f3JlAkcjUC pic.twitter.com/uAWBW5UKsW
— Tom Cleary (@tomwcleary) July 26, 2019
Nicholas Diemel’s wife, Lisa Diemel, filed a petition Tuesday in Shawano County, Wisconsin, Circuit Court asking a judge to appoint her as a special administrator for the estates. It lists the brothers’ date of death as July 21.
Tonight a vigil was held for Nicholas Diemel and Justin Diemel. Investigators are now classifying the case of two brothers who went missing as a death investigation. Garland Nelson is charged with tampering with their rental truck. Update on @KCTV5 News at 10PM pic.twitter.com/WG1i8ooZqy
— Emily Rittman KCTV5 (@EmilyRittman) July 27, 2019
The Diemel brothers traveled to Clinton and Caldwell counties in Missouri for business deal related to their livestock company. Authorities said Monday they didn’t know the details of the deal.
Authorities on Monday charged Garland Joseph Nelson, 25, of Braymer, with tampering with a vehicle. Charging documents say Nelson abandoned the Diemel brothers’ rental truck in a commuter parking lot near Holt after they visited one of his farm operations. Deputies found the truck in the lot on July 22. The court documents say Nelson admitted to leaving the truck there.
Nelson has been held without bond at the Caldwell County Detention Center.
Online court records do not name an attorney for him.
Nelson was sentenced in 2016 to two years in prison for selling more than 600 head of cattle that did not belong to him. Federal prosecutors said at the time that Nelson pleaded guilty to cattle fraud that caused more than $262,000 in losses. He was released from prison in March 2018.
He also pleaded guilty in August 2015 to two misdemeanor counts of passing bad checks.
Missing Person Reports Drop to Lowest in Decades
According to FBI data, reports of missing persons, especially missing children reports, have decreased in 2018—the lowest shown in available records going as far back as 1990, as previously reported by The Epoch Times.
Nearly 613,000 Americans were reported missing in 2018, more than 424,000 of them were under the age of 18, an almost 6 and 9 percent fall respectively from 2017.
Robert Lowery, vice president for the missing children division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, surmised that the downward trend may have to do with technology.
Most of the missing children are runaways between 13 and 17, Lowery told The Epoch Times in a previous interview.
“A lot of these children now have, frankly, cellphones or smartphones. They’re also using social media. … The point being that parents are able to find their children themselves much quicker than they had been, before they have to engage law enforcement,” Lowery said.
The data also shows an obvious steep fall between 1997 to 2013, where more than 980,000 missing reports in 1997 fell to less than 628,000 in 2013, before picking up again and once again falling in 2018. There has not been a clear explanation for the latest fall in reports.
Epoch Times reporter Simon Veazey contributed to this report.
