Melissa Mondragon Casias, a 53-year-old administrative assistant employed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), vanished without a trace last June, leaving her family searching for answers.
Nearly a year later, on May 28, 2026, a hiker discovered her body alongside a firearm in the McGaffy Ridge area of Carson National Forest in New Mexico.
However, this discovery has raised more questions than it has answered.
In a Facebook statement last month, her daughter, Sierra, insisted that Casias “did not own” a weapon.
This detail, per an ex-FBI agent Chris Swecker, has cast doubt on whether Casias took her own life or became a victim of an ill-planned homicide.
Melissa Casias’s missing persons case took a perplexing turn, with investigators now facing complex questions
According to Sierra, Casias “could not legally purchase a firearm.”
She said that every firearm in their home was owned and purchased by her father and Casias’s husband, Mark, adding, “At no point did I ever see her carry a firearm or keep one in her vehicle,” as her highly secure workplace strictly prohibited it.
LANL is a facility founded by the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic weapon during the Second World War.
Swecker, the former FBI assistant director in charge of the bureau’s Criminal Investigative Division, speaking to the Daily Mail on June 2, flagged questions that the presence of a firearm beside Casias’s body has left for investigators to answer.
The questions included: “The g*n that was nearby, was it a g*n owned by her? What was the cause of d**th? Was this a s**cide, or was this a crime?”
The New Mexico State Police told the outlet that investigators are in the process of tracing the firearm’s origin, while the Office of the Medical Investigator is working to determine Casias’s cause of demise.
Swecker said that while the case may ultimately be determined to involve no foul play, “given the publicity in this case, there are certainly investigators out there looking for some evidence of a crime.”
The former FBI agent also suggested that Melissa Casias’s passing may have occurred only recently
While the potential date and timing of Casias’s departure have not yet been released by law enforcement, Swecker believes the speed at which her identity was established indicated her remains had not significantly decomposed.
According to Trauma Services, a biohazard remediation company’s statement to the Daily Mail, most of the body’s mass is broken down within the first three weeks of demise.
All that remains after that are bones, dried tissue, and residual fluid.
“It could very easily have been a visual identification,” Swecker said about Casias’s body.
He noted that the area’s animals and predators, as well as the climate, would have worked against preserving Casias’s body for more than a few weeks.
New Mexico’s Carson National Forest is known for its population of bears, mountain lions, coyotes, and bobcats — animals that may have found and consumed a body if it had been there for an extended period.
The region’s climate, meanwhile, is known to be humid, which accelerates decomposition.
Casias had lied to her family before her disappearance.
She dropped her husband, also an LANL employee, at their workplace at 6:15 a.m., claimed she had to drive to another location on the LANL premises for a task, and promised to return the car by 11 a.m.
However, she drove back home instead.
When Sierra asked why she was back, Casias said she would work from home that day because she had forgotten her badge.
Mark told NBC Dateline in July that Melissa had her badge when she dropped him off, as she was required to show it to gain entry to the premises.
Melissa vanished without her work or personal phones, her identity cards, or other belongings.
The phone was later discovered to have been wiped clean, with a factory reset performed.
Melissa Casias’s case has been compared to other cases involving missing or deceased U.S. government employees
Three laboratory employees have gone missing under circumstances similar to Casias’s within the last few years.
Anthony Chavez, 79, a former LANL employee who retired in 2017, walked out of his home on May 4, 2025, and never returned.
Steven Garcia, 48, a government contractor working for the Kansas City National Security Campus, a facility involved in critical background work for U.S. national defense, went missing on August 28, 2025.
He was seen walking out with a firearm and no other belongings.
On February 27, 2026, retired U.S. Air Force Major General William McCasland, 68, disappeared.
He had been in charge of the Air Force Research Laboratory, which worked closely on projects involving the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Frank Maiwald, involved with detecting signs of alien life, and Carl Grillmair who worked on infrared telescopes, meanwhile, were announced deceased in July 2024 and February 2026, respectively.
While no explanation was provided for the former’s demise, the latter was assassinated outside his home.
The family members of these missing and deceased individuals have rejected social media theories that they may have been targeted to keep sensitive information from being leaked.
Swecker, in a March 2026 statement to the Daily Mail, however, said the theories may have substance, adding that Casias’s case could be part of this larger pattern.
“In a classified lab, or just a high-clearance lab, they would basically be in the know on what’s going on,” he said. “And it wouldn’t be the first time an administrative assistant has been targeted.”
“When I look at the missing scientists in critical technology areas, what I come up with is — it has to be investigated fully by the FBI. They can’t have these examined in isolation and compartmentalize them as individual missing person cases.”
“She was abducted,” a netizen said about Casias
Andrew Neil Hopper, a former consultant vascular surgeon, was sentenced in 2025 after admitting to multiple offenses linked to the double amputation of both his legs.
Prosecutors alleged that Hopper deliberately concealed the true reason behind his actions, while the case drew widespread attention due to claims that the procedure was connected to a f*tish.
Now, months into his prison sentence, a major new development has thrust the former surgeon back into the headlines and reignited public fascination with the bizarre medical scandal.
“I guess he took it to heart when his guidance counselor told him to find a way to make money doing what he loves,” a netizen wrote.
Andrew Neil Hopper reportedly arranged for both of his legs to be amputated over what many netizens have described as a “sick f*tish”
Andrew Neil Hopper is a 49-year-old former consultant vascular surgeon who worked at Royal Cornwall Hospital in the UK prior to the scandal, a role that involved performing amputations on patients.
In April 2019, Hopper purchased 20kg of dry ice pellets online and submerged his feet and lower legs in the dry ice for eight hours, causing irreversible tissue damage.
He then called paramedics, claiming to be in sudden, agonizing pain. Medical colleagues reportedly believed he was suffering from severe, life-threatening sepsis and performed a double below-the-knee amputation to save his life.
Just six months later, the surgeon returned to work using prosthetic legs.
He even gave multiple media interviews about his “inspirational” recovery, won an award for bravery, and campaigned to become the first disabled astronaut in space.
In October 2020, Andrew was named the “Against All Odds” national champion at the annual Amplifon Awards for Brave Britons, recognized for his story of resilience and his advocacy for better emotional and psychological support for amputees.
In March 2020, Hopper made a live appearance on the popular UK daytime show This Morning.
During the interview, he told the presenters that he and his daughter had fallen ill during a family camping trip. While his daughter recovered, he claimed his condition rapidly developed into life-threatening sepsis, forcing him to undergo amputations.
Andrew’s explanation was widely accepted for years until an unrelated criminal investigation into a dark web website shed light on the true story behind the incident.
The former surgeon was sentenced to almost three years in prison last September following his guilty plea
Using the sepsis diagnosis, Andrew successfully filed critical illness claims with two insurance companies and was reportedly paid a total of roughly $630,000.
However, during an investigation into Marius Gustavson, a Norwegian national who ran a pay-to-view website called EunuchMaker, the Metropolitan Police discovered that Hopper was a registered user who had paid to watch videos on the site.
More importantly, according to official records, investigators uncovered more than 5,000 text messages and emails exchanged directly between Andrew and Gustavson.
Gustavson’s operation allegedly filmed and streamed illegal procedures, including castrations and limb removals, which were carried out in hotel rooms and viewed by paying subscribers.
As part of the investigation, detectives examined Hopper’s bank records and digital receipts, which showed that he had purchased 20kg of dry ice pellets.
They also reportedly found messages in which Hopper told a friend that he intended to “milk” his disability for as much as possible.
He was arrested in March 2023. In September 2025, at Truro Crown Court, he pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud by false representation and three counts of possessing extreme p**nography depicting severe bodily mutilation.
During the proceedings, Hopper’s defense argued that he had suffered from body dysmorphia since childhood and harbored a deep-rooted hatred of his lower limbs, viewing his feet as an “unwelcome extra” and a source of constant discomfort.
Experts at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service deemed Hopper to pose an “extremely high level of risk to public protection”
Following his guilty plea, Andrew was sentenced to 32 months in prison and handed a 10-year S*xual Harm Prevention Order.
At the time, Richard Parkhouse, a Senior Crown Prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), condemned Hopper’s actions and described the case as “highly unusual and shocking.”
He said, “Hopper has a s*xual f*tish linked to amputation, and paid to access these images for his own gratification… and fraudulently pocketed almost half a million pounds.”
The case is back in the headlines after Andrew was officially struck off the UK medical register on May 29.
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) concluded a multi-day disciplinary hearing, ruling that Hopper’s actions and criminal convictions rendered him permanently unfit to practise medicine.
Tribunal chair Samantha Gray stated that Hopper posed “an extremely high level of risk to public protection.”
According to a tribunal decision cited by The Sun, “This means that Dr Hopper’s registration will be suspended from today.”
“The substantive direction, as already announced, will take effect 28 days from the date when written notification is deemed to have been served upon him, unless an appeal is made in the interim.”
Andrew has now been struck off the UK medical register after the tribunal deemed his actions a “blatant disregard for the wellbeing of the public”
The tribunal concluded, “If an appeal is made, the immediate order will remain in force until the appeal has concluded.”
Addressing his removal from the medical register, Hopper told the BBC from prison, “I attended the tribunal not to change the outcome but to prove I understand the seriousness. I felt obliged to face the consequences in person. I do have principles, so I chose to face justice head on.”
He further added, “It’s taken me years to come to terms with what I’ve done. I’m a man of deep reflection and conscience. I’m not only ashamed of my actions, I’m appalled I was part of the machinery.”
“I cannot convey how sorry I am. Its behaviour I find impossible to understand. I’m so, so sorry. I’ve never tried to excuse my actions; they were inexcusable. At the time, I had no understanding of the motivations.”
Andrew’s permanent removal from the UK medical register means he can no longer legally practice as a doctor, physician, or surgeon in the country.
Moreover, he is prohibited from practicing medicine anywhere in the UK, including within both the NHS and private healthcare sectors.
The ruling has also reportedly been shared with medical regulators abroad, potentially making it significantly more difficult for him to relocate and practice medicine in other countries.
“As a genuine sufferer of sepsis… and now a double leg amputee, I find this individual disgusting…” one social media user fumed online
