Yearslong search for man who vanished in 2022 ‘ends in tragedy,’ WV officials say
.jpg "Officials confirmed the identity of a man who’s been missing in West Virginia for nearly two years, according to a news release.")
The identity of a man who went missing in West Virginia nearly two years ago and was recovered from a river was confirmed using a DNA test, authorities said.
The man, identified as Mark Coles, was reported missing in November 2022 by family members who told authorities they hadn’t spoken with him for days, the Kanawha County Sheriff’s Office said in an Oct. 23 news release.
Video evidence showed Coles, then 68, getting off a regional transportation bus near Hughes Creek on Oct. 30, deputies said.
Carrying a walking stick, Coles walked several miles before being seen again on surveillance around 11 p.m. near the Montgomery bridge, WOWK reported in 2022.
This was the last time Coles was seen, authorities said.
In January 2023, a body was recovered from the Kanawha River in Montgomery, which deputies believed to be Coles, according to the release. But because of the conditions and the time that had passed, the body was not immediately identified, authorities said.
Instead, it was taken to the West Virginia Office of Chief Medical Examiner for DNA testing, the sheriff’s office said. This week, the results confirmed the body matched Coles’ DNA, with the sheriff’s office saying the search “ends in tragedy.”
“Unfortunately, this is never the outcome we hope for in a missing person’s case and our hearts go out to the Coles family,” the sheriff’s office said.
More than 600,000 people go missing annually in the U.S., according to the World Population Review. As of 2024, the missing person rate in West Virginia is an average of 8.1 missing for every 100,000 people, the organization said.
Friends of Coles said they were heartbroken over the news.
“Mark Coles was a dear friend of mine; he was a great person who would give you the shirt off his back,” Eugene Johnson said in an Oct. 24 Facebook post. “He will be sadly missed.”
