Analysis of bones finds no connection to Messier case

Dec. 9, 2022  |  By Lisa Scagliotti

Volunteer investigator Bill McIntosh looks over photos of found objects from the Winooski River in early November. Photo by Gordon Miller

A follow up analysis of objects found along the Winooski River between Duxbury and Waterbury has determined that bone fragments turned over to investigators are not human remains, according to Vermont State Police. 

State police Detective Lt. John MacCallum on Monday confirmed that analysis has been completed on bones found along the Winooski River by volunteers in early November. 

“They were identified as non-human,” MacCallum said in an email to Waterbury Roundabout. 

That conclusion adds no new information to the missing person case of Donald Messier whose pickup was pulled from the river on Oct. 6. 

Messier went missing in October 2006 along with his red Ford F-150 pickup truck after he left a party in Waitsfield in the early morning hours. Despite widespread search efforts at the time, no trace of the then-34-year-old Waterbury man or his vehicle were found. 

A team from the Oregon-based private underwater search and recovery team Adventures With Purpose took an interest in the case last year around the time of the 15th anniversary of Messier’s disappearance. They visited Vermont in October 2021 and searched the Waterbury Reservoir in vain. They returned again this October for several days and, working with local volunteers, they searched other bodies of water in the Mad River Valley and Waterbury and located Messier’s truck in a deep pool of the Winooski River near the Duxbury Community Garden. 

A team led by Vermont State Police divers searched the interior of the vehicle and pulled the pickup from the river but failed to turn up any traces of human remains. 

Volunteer investigator Bill McIntosh from Rhode Island whose work takes him to Central Vermont became interested in the case over the past year. He assisted the Adventures team ahead of and during their October visit. He returned again several weeks later when the river was particularly low to search exposed areas of the riverbed and banks downstream from the spot where Messier’s truck had been recovered. He found numerous objects, some believed to come from the vehicle including music CDs along with several bone fragments that he turned over to state police investigators. It was those bones that the state medical examiner analyzed and determined not to be human. 

After McIntosh along with another local volunteer contacted police in late October with their new information, the Vermont State Police Underwater Recovery Team returned to the river to search the vehicle recovery site in early November.

Dive team leader Capt. Matt Daley told Waterbury Roundabout that the team found some items including a cell phone believed to have been Messier’s but he did not say whether any other potential remains were collected. 

State police spokesman Adam Silverman on Wednesday said analysis was completed on any bones collected. And while that did not yield any new information, investigators are still involved in the case.  

“There is still active investigative work that’s ongoing after the discovery of the truck, but we’re not going to be able to get into the weeds with details on every step of the detectives’ work,” Silverman said in an email to Waterbury Roundabout.   

Contacted this week, McIntosh said he is considering returning to the Winooski River in the spring to continue to search for traces of human remains. 

For now, the Vermont State Police consider the matter an open case. “The status of the case will continue to be listed as a missing person, unless and until additional evidence is found to provide a conclusive answer to what happened to Mr. Messier,” Silverman said.