Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 13, 1991 TAG: 9103130378
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The body of Dennis Wayne Nunn, 36, was found March 3, 1990, by a group of people looking to buy a mobile-home site. His body was discovered lying partially inside a dog house.
Authorities in Kittitas County, Wash., estimated the man had been dead about a week. They did not know his identity and treated the death as a John Doe case. The county's coroner determined that the man had died of hypothermia.
Ellensburg lies east of the Cascade Mountains at the foot of a valley that funnels cold air into the region. Nighttime temperatures dipped into the teens and lower 20s in late February and early March last year.
Nunn had been buried in a cemetery for indigents until his body was identified recently from photographs shown to relatives, said Carl Christensen, undersheriff of Kittitas County.
A funeral for Nunn is scheduled for Friday in Pulaski County.
Christensen said Kittitas County officials had tried without success to identify Nunn by taking fingerprints from the body.
Christensen said he had no idea why Nunn was in Ellensburg. A shirt on the body had the name "Nunn" roughly stenciled on it with ink. A bus ticket from Virginia was found in Nunn's trouser pockets, he said.
The break in the case came late last year when the Salvation Army sent a missing-persons flier to the Ellensburg Police Department. The flier said Nunn's parents believed he was in Ellensburg the last time they talked with him in February 1990, Christensen said.
Kittitas County officials then requested Nunn's dental information and fingerprints from the Pulaski County Sheriff's Department before providing the photographs that led to the identification of the body.
Pulaski County officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.
by CNB