Mystery Severed Legs Found During Montana Hike Identified After 11 Years

A mysterious "John Doe" murder victim, whose severed legs were found by hikers 11 years ago, has finally been identified.

A father and son on a hike just north of Butte, Montana, in June 2012 stumbled across the gruesome find, which detectives now believe to be the dismembered remains of 46-year-old drifter Michael Wayne Canada. His legs were found inside a plastic bag on Moulton Reservoir Road, still clothed in jeans and Red Wing hiking boots. The breakthrough in the case was announced by Butte-Silver Bow County Sheriff Ed Lester on Monday afternoon.

Lester is appealing for the public's help as he works to learn everything he can about Canada, in the hope of tracking down his associates, last-known movements, and eventually his killer.

"Somebody out there knows what happened," Lester told Newsweek. "We aren't going to stop working on this case. We are asking anyone who has any information to call. Even if it's a rumor, we'll run it down."

According to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), some 600,000 individuals go missing in the U.S. every year and an estimated 4,400 unidentified bodies are recovered. Unsolved murders and missing person cases are never closed but become "cold" as leads dry up. Investigators in Nevada and Arizona hope to solve several cold cases of missing people after a number of bodies were found when water levels dropped in Lake Mead on the border between the two states.

Since the grim discovery of the human legs in Montana more than a decade ago, no further body parts have been found, and the victim's identity and that of his killer remained a mystery. All that was known at the time was that the victim was a white man, who had most likely been killed elsewhere three or four days earlier, with his legs brought to the Montana site to be dumped. An autopsy by a state pathologist revealed that the victim suffered extensive leg injuries at some point in his life because he had a metal rod inserted in one leg.

Lester and his team approached the Montana Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation hoping to attempt forensic genetic testing to try to crack the cold case. A comprehensive DNA profile for the mystery victim was created, and Lester said in a statement released to the press: "Working collaboratively, the law enforcement agencies reached out to possible relatives of the unknown man and slowly pieced together the man's probable identity."

Eventually, a close relative of Canada agreed to undergo DNA testing, which confirmed his identity. The news, and a photo of Canada, were shared by various news outlets, including NBC Montana.

Further investigations have filled in some gaps, revealing that Canada had never been reported as a missing person and had been estranged from his family for at least two years before his death. He had once been in a serious motorcycle crash, which necessitated surgery to insert a metal rod into one leg.

Canada is thought to have briefly lived in Butte, working in a local Safeway grocery store. He was 6-foot-2 and about 185 pounds, and had brown hair and blue eyes.

Anyone who knew Canada, or who has any information about him or his death, should call Captain Jeff Williams of the Butte-Silver Bow Law Enforcement Department at 406-497-1157 or Agent Ryan Eamon at the Montana Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation at 406-444-3874.

Update 8/15/23, 10:45 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Sheriff Ed Lester.