PANAMA CITY BEACH — Police recovered the property and identification of a missing person along with the human remains discovered earlier this week, according to documents released Thursday.
Investigators recovered the skeletal remains from a wooded, vacant acre of land south of Back Beach Road (U.S. 98) between Gardenia Drive and Fernwood Street on Monday afternoon. A contracting crew came across the unidentified human remains, including a shoe with a bone protruding from the top, while clearing the dense undergrowth from the lot. Decomposition and exposure to the elements have made it difficult for officials to establish an identity or timeline of events, but other personal effects collected on the scene could reveal who the person was and how they ended up in the woods off a heavily-trafficked highway, police said.
Among the items Panama City Beach Police collected was a Veterans Affairs ID for Michael Allen Lane, a man missing in Panama City Beach since 2010, according to police reports.
While Bay County Medical Examiner officials expressed caution in concluding the ID card corresponded to the remains before DNA results are in, relatives of Lane were convinced the DNA samples would result in a match.
Stephen Lane said Thursday that despite not having a positive DNA identification, he was certain the remains belonged to his brother.
“I know that was my brother,” Stephen Lane said. “Nobody else would have that ID on them.”
Stephen Lane further explained that he hopes state law enforcement would pursue a homicide investigation once his brother’s identity is confirmed.
“What do you think your chances would be of getting the wallet off a 200-pound, Navy special ops, Iraq War veteran?” he said. “The reason my brother was lying where he was lying was because someone he trusted turned on him.”
Officers sifted topsoil and gathered ribs, vertebrae, long bones, the jaw and human skull late into the evening of the discovery. Prior to Thursday’s release of the agency’s case report, Beach police said they did not find any identifying items at the scene. However, PCBPD also found a bag containing clothing, personal photographs, a wallet, a Nokia cellphone and charger, according to police reports.
Michael Lane was reported as a missing and endangered person in December 2010. He was 48 years old at the time, according to the U.S. Department of Justice database. A dental record for Lane was not included in DOJ’s database, but the agency documented DNA samples.
He was last known to be at his Panama City Beach residence on or around June 20, 2010. He may have been en route to a rescue mission, but the Panama City Rescue Mission did not have any record of him. That was the last contact made with Michael Lane, DOJ reported.
Medical examiners will be comparing DNA and dental samples taken from the remains against missing persons records while other samples are analyzed by anthropologists of Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers. A timeline has not been released for when, or if, officials have a positive identification.
MISSING PERSONS DATABASE