Authorities have identified a body found 40 years ago in a Utah landfill as that of missing New Milford High School graduate David Arthur Stack.
Stack, 18, disappeared from his home in Colorado in June 1976. Days later, his body was uncovered in a landfill in Wendover, Utah, but went unidentified for decades. DNA analysis has only recently allowed investigators to put the pieces together, according to Sheriff Paul Wimmer of Tooele County, Utah.
Stack graduated from New Milford High School in 1975, a year before he vanished, Hearst Connecticut Media reports.
Stack was last seen leaving his home on Laurel Street in Broomfield, Colorado, with the intention of hitchhiking to California, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation Cold Case Files. He may have been heading for one of his siblings’ homes in Truckee or Berkeley.
Stack never arrived and was never heard from again.
It's not clear how he died, but Hearst Connecticut Media reports Stack was found shot in the head.
Wimmer said the department plans to release more information Thursday.
