Cold case reopened for DNA test

LEWISTON – Authorities in North Idaho are reopening the cold case of a slain man found nearly 30 years ago in the Snake River and will have the body disinterred for DNA testing, the Nez Perce County sheriff’s office said Wednesday.

The man’s body was discovered by a fisherman on June 26, 1982, about 25 miles upstream from Lewiston. The water was high then, and law enforcement officials speculated the body could have gone into the water many miles up the Snake or Salmon rivers two or three weeks earlier.

The man was wearing designer jeans over blue swimming trunks and was described as between 18 and 22 years old with straight brown or black hair. He had bullet wounds in his neck and left shoulder from a Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver manufactured before 1967.