Human remains found in northern Dunn County identified as man reported missing more than 10 years ago

By LeAnn R. Ralph

MENOMONIE  —  Human remains found by hunters in northern Dunn County in October of 2016 have been identified as Douglas L. Poach.

Poach was last seen by family members on January 3, 2006.

Hunters notified the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department of suspected human remains found in the Town of New Haven north of Connorsville October 16, 2016.

Investigators from the sheriff’s department responded to the scene and were directed to an area where a human skull was located next to clothing and hunting-type boots, which when examined, also were found to contain skeletal remains, according to a news release dated July 25 from the Dunn County Sheriff’s Department.

Based on where the remains were found and what was found at the scene, investigators reviewed a missing person report from a case in 2006 and believed the remains to be that of Douglas Poach.

The remains were taken to the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s office for an autopsy, and although the results of the autopsy were unable to determine a cause of death, no trauma was observed to the skeletal remains, according to the July 25 news release.

According to the “Find The Missing” website (www.findthemissing.org), Douglas Poach was last seen at approximately 9:45 a.m. January 3, 2006, at a family member’s residence in the vicinity of the 800 block of 100th Street in Amery.

“There are concerns about his mental well-being, regarding statements he has made. He may be in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, area,” according to Find The Missing.

At the time of his disappearance, Douglas Poach was 53 years old. He was 5’2” tall and weighed 130 pounds.

According to on-line court records, Judge William C. Stewart Jr. issued a bench warrant for Poach’s arrest on June 19, 2006, after he failed to appear for a court hearing in Dunn County on a charge of operating a vehicle while his driver’s license was revoked.

Poach’s address in June of 2006 was listed as Clear Lake. Earlier court records going back as far as 1993 at various times listed Poach’s address as Colfax, Boyceville and Wheeler.

The skeletal remains were submitted to the National Missing Persons Program at the University of North Texas for comparison with family member DNA samples collected in the Douglas L. Poach case, according to the sheriff’s department news release.

Examination and testing results from the National Missing Persons Program state the genetic information obtained from the skeletal remains was 7.9 billion times more likely to have originated from a biological sibling of members of the Poach family as opposed to remains from an individual not related to the Poach family.

As a result of the information from the National Missing Persons Program, in combination with the investigation conducted by the sheriff’s department, Dunn County investigators are “confident in concluding that the skeletal remains discovered on October 16, 2016, are those of Douglas L. Poach.”