The family of Paul Miller is hoping remains found last week in Joshua Tree National Park are those of the missing Guelph man.
On Friday of last week, skeletal remains were found by Joshua Tree National Park rangers in a remote, rocky, steep location away from any trails.
“My gut tells me it’s him,” Miller's sister Dawne Robinson said by phone on Monday. “We are kind of in a holding pattern at the moment, just really hoping it’s Paul and that we can finally bring him home.”
The family has sent Paul's dental records to investigators for a positive analysis.
"They said it would probably be a couple of days before they will know for sure if it’s Paul,” said Robinson.
Paul was last seen July 13, 2018, before going on an early morning solo hike at Joshua Tree National Park before he and his wife Stephanie were to fly home to Guelph later in the day.
Since then the family has been desperately waiting for word on what happened.
In May, Robinson was among a group of friends and family who searched the park for the missing man, but they ultimately came up empty.
In the months since the ground search, an effort was underway to receive a permit allowing drones to search the area. It took some time for the approval because drones are not permitted to be flown in National Parks in the United States.
“We had been trying for quite some time to bring in some trained drone pilots because there are a lot of areas in the park we couldn’t really get to because of the steepness of some of the canyons and the cliffs,” said Robinson.
When the drones were finally allowed to search the park, they took over 10,000 high resolution photographs in three days.
Since the photographs were collected they have been analyzed by a team of volunteers looking for telltale evidence of human remains.
Late last week the volunteers found an area that seemed promising and on Friday the rangers hiked to that spot and found human skeletal remains and personal belongings.
“We don’t officially know it’s Paul, but those remains were found in an area not too far from where he was hiking,” said his sister.
The area where the remains were found was within about 20 metres of where the search party in May were hiking.
“Because of the nature of this place and all of these boulders — you could walk within a metre of somebody and not see them,” said Robinson. “We were so close.”
She acknowledged it might sound funny to some that the family are hoping the remains belong to Paul.
“It’s been a year and a half and the not knowing has been worse than anything,” said Robinson. “It’s been really hard on Stephanie and the kids and I think they are trying hard not to get their hopes up too much.”
“It would be a wonderful Christmas present,” she added.
