Human remains found along Mendocino County coast

A skeleton found over the weekend along the Mendocino coast may be that of a man reported missing in 2018, after a CHP officer pursuing him in connection with a hit-and-run crash found his abandoned Jeep about a quarter-mile from where the remains were found, Mendocino County Sheriff’s officials said Tuesday.

A forensic dentist will examine the skeleton’s teeth and compare them with those of Lewis Compton, a 44-year-old Westport man last seen Nov. 13, 2018, when he drove away from an officer investigating a daytime hit-and-run crash into a piece of property north of the town. The officer followed the man north on nearby Highway 1 and found the empty Jeep Grand Cherokee he had been driving on the side of the road a short time later, CHP Officer Olegario Marin said.

Compton’s mother alerted authorities that he was missing six days after the chase, and Compton’s wife filed another missing person’s report on Nov. 21, 2018, Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Shannon Barney said. The Sheriff’s Office decided against sending civilian, volunteer search and rescue teams out to look for Compton, who was 44 when he disappeared, after learning from the man’s wife that he may be armed, Barney said.

“For the sake of the family, we’re hoping to make an identification,” Barney said. “I don’t want to call it closure for the family, because I don’t think it’s accurate, but at least they’ll know.”

The skeletal remains were reported to authorities at about 6 p.m. Saturday by a man who said he was a former schoolmate of Compton. He had read a story on a blog called Cold Case Mendocino about his disappearance and decided to look for him in the area where Compton’s car was last seen, Barney said.

The search turned up a scattered, partial skeleton, some clothing and two shoes 200 to 300 feet away from Highway 1 and about a quarter-mile from where the Jeep was found, Barney said. No obvious signs of foul play, such as trauma to the bones or skull, were located, he added.

A local search and rescue team and a group with Chico State University’s Anthropology Lab were sent there the next morning to recover the body.

Compton’s wife, Helen Compton, 49, drove to the location Saturday after learning about the skeleton’s discovery through a friend, she said. While the remains brought hope to her family, they remained skeptical about whether the skeleton would be identified as her husband’s, she said.

Search teams dispatched over the weekend did not find the Jeep’s car keys, nor Compton’s wallet. Helen Compton had searched the nearby area herself on a few occasions after her husband went missing, though she never made it down the steep embankment where the remains were found Friday.

“Nothing thus far has led me to believe that it was Lewis,” Helen Compton said of the remains. ?“On the one hand, I’m not sure. On the other hand, it’s really heartbreaking if he was right there all this time.”

She added that she was on vacation when her husband disappeared and didn’t realize he was missing until a few days later, upon her return. The pair had moved back to the Westport area a few months before after a 20-year stay in Texas. The move marked a stressful period for her husband, who was diagnosed with mental health issues, she added. They have two children, a 26-year-old son and 15-year-old daughter, and he enjoyed fishing.

Helen Compton eventually went to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office to file a missing person report when she was unable to track down her husband.

“They said he wasn’t missing, that he’s a fugitive and I said, ‘Well, no, he’s not, nobody has seen him,’?” Helen Compton said. “He would have made his way back home; he would have made contact with me.”

A forensic dentist will examine the skeletal remains later this week to determine if they match Compton’s dental records, Barney said. If not, the Sheriff’s Office will attempt to extract DNA from the remains and submit the sample into a national database of DNA from relatives of other missing people to see if they can make a match.