**After 25 Years, Pueblo County Detectives Bring Long-Sought Closure to Family**

PUEBLO, Colo. (KKTV) - A family now has closure after nearly 25 years and it’s a big thanks to Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office detectives.

Last week, the sheriff’s office identified remains found in Pueblo back in 2000 as Marvin Majors .

In November of 2000, a woman found human remains in a field northeast of Walking Stick in Pueblo County.

Despite their efforts, investigators could not figure out who these remains belonged to, so they were forced to move on.

But, in 2021 a detective, who’s a cold case investigator from the sheriff’s office, re-opened the case and Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office Detective Vanessa Simpson was determined to find out who Marvin Majors was.

“We were able to obtain some things to get DNA from that individual to try to create a new DNA profile,” Simpson tells 11 News.

Simpson continues saying, “So that was sent to CBI, which they did create a new DNA profile and then submitted that to another company called Autumn (DNA) and they were able to do the forensic investigative genetic genealogy (FIGG).

“They were able to do that and actually located some of his family.

“So with the help of the CBI cold case unit, their genealogist kind of led us in the direction, gave us the family member’s contact and we were able to get a hold of them, collect buckle swabs from them.

“I was actually at a training where the sister lives and so I got to stop by and meet her and collect her buckle swabs and then we submitted those back to CBI and it took about six months.

“So unfortunately DNA is not as quick as people may believe it is so that took about six months and then we were able to say 100% that this was Marvin Majors.”

Explaining how Majors and his sister became estranged, Simpson says, “It’s great to to be able bring that family closure, you know, the sister said he was basically a drifter.

“They would see him once every couple of years when he would stop at their mother‘s house and then their mother had moved and they hadn’t seen him since because obviously he didn’t know where she was living.”

While this case was unable to be solved for quite some time, Simpson tells 11 News the technological advances they have now helped them tremendously with identifying Majors.

“I would say that DNA is the is the biggest thing,” Simpson said.

“It takes a while, but it’s worth the wait.

“It’s worth the wait to get that closure.

“The other thing, they use the database on GEDmatch, so that’s the genealogy database where we were able to upload his DNA profile and try to search for him.”

Furthermore, with Major’s parents being dead, Simpson says it created a challenge for them.

Simpson tells 11 News, “The best buckle swabs, family DNA that you can collect to do the confirmation would be a parent of child.

“So, you share 50% of your DNA with your parents and you share 50% of DNA with your child.

“Well in Marvin‘s case, his parents were deceased and he didn’t have any children that we know of, so the sister was the next best thing however she only shares 25% DNA.

“So then it had to be sent out to a separate lab in order to get that comparison made.”

Also, Simpson says funding was somewhat of a barrier for them when it came to matching his DNA, so in the future they hope they can have more access to this technology so they don’t have to rely on paying other agencies for this information.

Solving a cold case can be extremely rewarding to numerous people and Simpson tells 11 News why she doesn’t give up when it comes to these cases saying, “That person has loved ones out there that deserve to know what happened to them.

“Whether they didn’t talk to that person ever, or they had a falling out, it’s still important to be able to tell them what happened.

“And it’s important also to get justice or whatever for that person.

“In this case there was no justice to be had. He died naturally, but in a different case, maybe that would be important to get justice for that person to give that person back to their loved ones.

“Sometimes, even if you’re strange from your family, they still deserve to know.”

As far as how bringing a family closure by solving a cold case goes, Simpson tells 11 News, “I was very proud that I could do that for them.

“It’s a great feeling, it’s not the first time that I’ve been able to do that and I hope that it’s not the last.

“I don’t want to say that it happens very often.

“We don’t have very many cold cases to work.

“I know we have a couple of missing person’s cases that are unsolved and a couple other cases that we’re still working on, so it doesn’t happen very often but when it does like we don’t give up on it.

“It may be a while before we get to work on it, but we don’t give up on it.

“If it’s further down the road something else might come up that we’re going to follow up on, if it goes somewhere then it goes somewhere, but we’re going to follow up on it no matter what.”

The Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office also wants to extend a huge thank you to CBI for helping them find Majors’ sister and match their DNA.