Human remains found near Kingman, Arizona, on Sept. 9, 1982, have been linked to a California man.

The deceased was Virgil Renner of Humboldt County, California, the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office wrote on Facebook Tuesday.

Renner was at least 55 when he died anywhere from 1979 to 1981, according to the autopsy soon after he was found. His cause of death was unable to be determined, the sheriff’s office explained.

From 1982 to 2020, the body remained at an office in Tucson, Arizona, before being moved to the Mohave County Medical Examiner’s Office in Lake Havasu.

This past February, investigators sent a sample from Renner’s remains to Texas-based genetics laboratory Othram, which put a name to the deceased.

Investigators learned that he left California for Nevada in order to search for gold in the early 1970s, but they do not know what brought him to Arizona, law enforcement wrote.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.