Skeletal remains discovered behind the Bashas’ complex in Camp Verde on April 20, 2025, have been identified as Jeremiah Christian Mason, 40, a Verde Valley resident, the Camp Verde Marshal’s Office announced on May 1.
Mason’s remains were found originally by a hiker walking a dog off-leash on April 20, 2025, at 3:45 p.m. in a vacant field behind the Bashas’ Shopping Center near W. Viceroy Lane on the north side of the Verde River — at GPS coordinates 34.57264, -111.86629 — according to the case’s profile on the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
“The dog comes back to his owner with a shoe in his mouth. He’s like, that’s weird ‘My dog never messes with shoes,'” CVMO Sgt. Dustin Richardson said. So the hiker took the shoe away from his dog and noticed that there were bones inside of the shoe.”
Dark-colored shorts, blue pants, plaid boxer shorts and a pair of black-and-red Air Jordan size 10 shoes were found near the remains, according to NamUs, a national resource center for information on missing people.
“There was no trauma to the bones that we could see — any type of broken bones, any type of knife clips in the bones,” Richardson said of the remains. “No gunshot, nothing. It was just, a pile of bones out there.”
“Due to the condition of the remains, only a partial skeleton was recovered, and investigators were initially unable to determine the identity of the individual,” CVMO wrote in the initial announcement. The Yavapai County Medical Examiner’s Office estimated Mason had been deceased for approximately 12 to 18 months. “The remains were transported to the Yavapai County Medical Examiner’s Office for further examination. Over the course of the past year, Medical Examiner investigators conducted extensive DNA testing utilizing multiple national databases.”
Yavapai County Death Investigator Francisco Morales took the remains and was able to identify Mason through DNA in early April 2026. Mason’s next-of-kin was notified before the public announcement.
Richardson said that investigators do not know if where Mason’s remains were found by the hiker is also where Mason died, and that CVMO does not know Mason’s cause of death. CVMO hoping that someone will come forth with more information.
“While it is possible that Mr. Mason’s death resulted from natural or accidental causes, the case remains under active investigation,” CVMO wrote.
If you have information about Mason’s death contact CVMO’s Criminal Investigations Unit at 928-554-8300 or Yavapai County Silent Witness at 1 (800) 932-3232.
The identification of Mason’s remains is the second time in less than a year that a previously unidentified person has been named in Camp Verde. In July 2025, forensic genetic genealogy firm Othram identified Michael Wayne Mest, whose skeletal remains had gone unidentified for more than nine years after being discovered along the Verde River in May 2015.
Camp Verde currently has one outstanding unidentified person through NamUS of the body of a man found on Oct. 31, 2022, in a tent near Interstate 17 and the State Route 260 junction, the deceased is “believed to be part of the transient community,” the NamUs report reads.
