Human remains that could be a man reported missing four years ago have been found in a wooded area in rural south Sabine Parish, Sheriff Ronny Richardson said.
Hunters found the remains, and a team from the LSU Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services (FACES) Laboratory was on the scene off Shadows Landing Road Wednesday afternoon recovering the skull and other bones to take to Baton Rouge for positive identification and cause of death.
However, Richardson said investigators suspect the remains belong to Shannon McCullough, a 39-year-old Many man who was reported missing in August 2015.
“We feel like it’s him,” Richardson said.
McCullough’s family has been notified just in case the remains are identified as their loved one, he said.
One piece of the puzzle causing investigators to lean toward the remains being McCullough is that his car, a 2001 white Mitsubishi Montero Sport, was found about a mile away not long after he was reported missing.
McCullough’s wife said she last saw her husband on Aug. 7, 2015 when he left home to look for work. At the time, McCullough had a criminal case pending against him in Sabine Parish District Court, leading investigators to initially suspect he skipped bail.
But after months went by and no one heard from him, the case of his disappearance went cold. A year later, the McCullough family bean questioning how hard investigators were working to try and solve the case.
In an interview with KTBS in September 2016, McCullough’s father, Randy, expressed frustration with the lack of progress. The family even resorted to doing its own investigation and learned a witness in a separate case reportedly said Shannon McCullough had been murdered in a secluded area in the Sabine National Forest in Texas.
Sabine detectives were not convinced that’s what happened but continued to work closely with Texas Rangers in following up with any additional information.
“We need closure, we need Shannon’s remains found for his children and for his family and we just seem to not be able to get that done,” Shannon’s stepmother JoAnn McCullough, told KTBS in the 2016 interview.
