How Nora Castillo’s Body Was Identified After 35 Years

This long-delayed discovery was revealed late last month by the Baca County Sheriff’s Office and Sheriff Aaron Shiplett, whose jurisdiction is located in Colorado’s southeast corner. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, Baca County covers more than 2,500 square miles but boasts a population of just over 3,500.

The account shared by the BCSO begins with a farmer’s June 1988 discovery of human remains on his land, located approximately twenty miles southwest of Springfield, the county seat. Former Baca County Sheriff Willard Goff, accompanied by several deputies and coroner Robert Morrow, responded to the scene and subsequently determined that the remains had been in place for between one and three years.

After several days on the scene, officials found nothing that aided them in identifying the victim, but they didn’t give up. “Dental impressions were made and dental records were submitted to the National Crime Information Center,” a branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the sheriff’s office reported, “to try to obtain a match with any missing persons. DNA samples were taken and submitted for analysis even though DNA was only beginning to be used in identifying persons. An anthropological study was completed in an attempt to find something useful in identifying the deceased person and to find any evidence that might be on the remains. Facial reconstruction was completed to get an idea what the person may have looked like. Even the fillings in the teeth were analyzed in an attempt to determine where the unidentified person may have been from.”

None of these efforts bore fruit, and eventually “the case became cold,” the sheriff’s office acknowledges. Yet authorities clung to the belief that a breakthrough might be possible, even burying copies of case information with the remains at Springfield’s cemetery “in hopes someday something would happen that would make it possible to identify the deceased person and bring closure for the family.”

Progress came by way of an intern working for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which reached out to the sheriff’s office and the coroner in May 2021 “asking permission to submit the data from our 1988 Jane Doe case into NamUs, a national missing and unidentified persons clearinghouse and resource center for missing and unidentified remains cases that was launched in 2007.” That July, the coroner’s office followed up by contracting with Solved by DNA, a Castle Rock-based company “dedicated to helping law enforcement agencies across the country solve violent crimes and identify human remains,” its website states.

The old DNA records from the case were located, but owing to antiquated technology, they weren’t usable. So on December 13, 2021, the remains were exhumed and new DNA was acquired and sent to the CBI offices in Pueblo, where personnel entered the samples into NamUs.

In the months that followed, Solved by DNA located a person whose DNA markers indicated a familial connection with the victim, and NamUs confirmed the match on September 26. Then, just over a week later, on October 6, agencies in Baca County were notified about another connection: The police department in McAllen, Texas, revealed that the DNA had been linked to a profile submitted in 2004 by a woman searching for her mother, Nora Castillo, who’d been missing since the 1980s. The last known contact from her was a collect call placed from Colorado “in 1986 or 1987,” the BCSO recounts.

Since then, the identity of the human remains has been confirmed, and Castillo’s family has been notified. “After almost 36 years, the family of Nora Elia Castillo finally knows where she is!” the sheriff’s office notes.

During recent weeks, Castillo’s family members have visited her burial site, as well as the location where her remains were found. But mysteries remain. The sheriff’s office points out that “it is still unknown why Nora Elia Castillo was in Colorado or the circumstances of her death…. The Baca County Sheriff’s Office will continue to investigate this case as a potential homicide.”

Anyone with information about the death of Nora Castillo can contact the Baca County Sheriff’s Office at 719-523-4511 or the McAllen, Texas, Police Department at 956-681-2221.