This individual was recently confirmed to have been identified. Some details may change as more information is released publicly.
| Keith Bamford | |
|---|---|
| |
| Name | Keith Bamford |
| Sex | Male |
| Found | February 2002 |
| Location | Lake City, Florida |
| Missing from | Lulu, Florida |
| Identified | June 2020 |
| Span | 18 years |
| Age | 39 |
| Cause of death | Undetermined |
Keith Bamford is a man who was reported missing by his mother in 1996 after leaving a mental health facility in Lake City, Florida. He was found in 2002 and identified in 2020.
Case
Keith Bamford was last seen leaving the Gateway Mental Health Facility on Michigan Street in Lake City on May 13, 1996 around 11:00 AM. Authorities searched for Bamford around the State Road 100 because that was the most direct route between the facility and Bamford's family home. A man matching Bamford's description was seen by a deputy around 1:00 PM on the State Road 100 near the County Road 245 intersection, but Bamford wasn't found. Investigators sent photographs and a description of him to surrounding law enforcement agencies and received his DNA from relatives.
In February 2002, a hunter in Lulu, Florida found a partial human skull. Searches by Columbia County deputies and Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators found additional remains. In January 2003, the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory concluded the bones belonged to a Black woman between the ages of thirty and forty and there was no evidence of trauma on the bones. For the next sixteen years, the remains would be stored at the Medical Examiner's Office in Jacksonville, Florida.
In early 2019, it was realized the remains were not sent to the University of Northern Texas Center for Human Identification. So the CCSO sent the remains to the laboratory, hoping it could resolve the case of a Black woman who disappeared in 1988. On June 2020, the lab stated in a report for the CCSO that the remains did belong to the same person, but they were of a man, not a woman. The report also confirmed that the remains belonged to Bamford. On July 16, 2020, the CCSO made an announcement of the identification over Facebook.
Bamford's family have been notified of his identification and his cause of death remains undetermined.