The Bones In The Box: Joseph Mulvaney.

Joseph Junior Mulvaney

He was born on January 3rd, 1921 in Illinois to Joseph Henry Mulvaney and Kathryn Goar Mulvaney. He was the only child for the couple. He was very loved and adored, especially by his mom. She beamed with pride, that boy was her life!

On April 8th, 1929, Joseph fell from the barn loft at his grandpa's house and broke his left arm below the elbow.

On March 27th, 1939, He was 18-years-old when he almost died in a mud/gravel slide. He was saved by 2 friends.

On September 21st, 1940, after the near death from the mudslide he enlisted in the national guard to serve his country. His father and his grandfather, come from a long line of soldiers that fought for our country.

His uncle Dore Mulvaney was killed in World War 2. Even with all of that, he signed up and become brothers with the men from Decatur national guard 130th division 133rd.. Enlisted on March 5th, 1941 and was honorably discharged in 1945.

His mama became sick with tuberculosis and passed away while he was overseas in Australia on June 4th, 1945, she was 50 years old. 

He then worked for the railroad in Illinois in 1945 and moved to California and continued to work for the railroad as a brakes man from 1946 to 1960. He met and married Mary Alyce McLees and they had 3 children. Mary Alyce had a child from a previous relationship named John David Morris.

They moved to the Des Moines area around 1961 and purchased a home of their own. Shortly after they signed the paperwork to buy their house, Joseph Mulvaney disappeared. He was never reported as a missing person.

Fast forward to April 1992. Newell Sessions decided it was time to open the old trunk on his property in Thermopolis, Wyoming. The padlocked footlocker sat in a shed that had been given to him in 1987 by an acquaintance, John David Morris, with the agreement Sessions would move the shed off Morris' property. Sessions took the shed, but never bothered to open the trunk. 

When Sessions cut through the lock with a torch and opened the footlocker, he found a human skeleton, wrapped with a piece of plastic, along with a belt and a rotted grocery bag. His wife told him to call the sheriff.

When questioned, Morris claimed that he had purchased the trunk at a yard sale and local law enforcement believed him, except sheriff John Lumley. He thought that Morris knew more than he was saying, but had no proof.

Authorities would later discover a bullet lodged in the skull and evidence that the victim had been shot in the chest. They had no clue as to the victim's name, age, time of death or a location where the crime was committed.

The bag inside the trunk with the bones was from a Hy-Vee, which led authorities to wonder if the remains were of an Iowan.

A computer rendering of what the homicide victim might have looked like was released by the Hot Springs Sheriff's Office in Wyoming.

When Shelley Statler saw the story in a local paper her father told her that the bones might belong to Shelley grandfather. Shelley and her mother, Kathy Mulvaney Guynn, tried to contact authorities for years to no avail. Finally, in 2017, officials agreed to test Guynn's DNA against the bones. It was a 99 percent match. These were the bones of Joesph Mulvaney.

Shelley believes her grandfather was shot and killed in Des Moines, put in the trunk and buried in the backyard of her grandmother's home, until Morris dug them up and took them with him to Wyoming.

"I don't think my grandparents had a very good marriage, and I know it affected my mom and her siblings growing up," Shelley said. "My grandmother wasn't always easy to get along with."

Mary Alyce died in 2009.
No charges have been filed for the murder of Joseph Mulvaney.

Joseph's remains were released and his family had a military service for him march 2019 at Ballard funeral home in Cody, Wyoming.