Remains identified as missing man
Human remains discovered on the side of a road in east Neshoba County in April have been identified, according to Neshoba County Sheriff Eric Clark.
The remains have been identified as 48-year-old Zachary Burrage of Noxapater, according to Clark.
The discovery and identification of the remains have shifted the focus to Neshoba County, Kemper County Sheriff James Moore said.
Clark said the remains are an almost 100-percent match based on DNA submitted by a family member.
Burrage was originally reported missing in Kemper County in January 2021, although the investigation has since shifted to Neshoba County since that is where his car and remains were found.
“We stand ready and able to assist in any way we can,” Moore said.
Neshoba and Kemper law enforcement authorities have been searching for clues since the March 2021 disappearance of Burrage.
Clark said in April that his office had received a call from a woman reporting that she had found what she believed to be skeletal remains on the side of Road 729 in the Shady Grove community near the intersection with Road 733 below the Mars Hill Cemetery.
Deputies verified that what the woman found was, in fact, a piece of human bone.
That weekend on Saturday, April 22, a resident near the intersection of County Road 729 and Count Road 733 reported their dog had brought them bone fragments.
The first set of bone fragments were believed to be part of a human skull and the pieces the dog found were later identified as a human femur bone fragment.
Last week Clark reported they received laboratory results from Scales Biological Laboratory that confirmed the identity of the human remains to be Burrage based on a DNA sample his daughter had provided.
On May 18, 2023, Scales matched a DNA profile from the sample his daughter provided, Clark said.
The femur was a 99.998% match to the submitted swabs of DNA. The results listed Zachary Burrage as the biological father to the DNA sample.
On June 30, Scales matched the DNA profile from Zachary Burrage’s femur to the skull that was recovered from Road 729, Clark said.
Zachary Burrage was last seen on January 31, 2021. His silver 2009 Honda Accord was found wrecked and abandoned in a ditch on Road 729, near the intersection of Road 733 at 7:30 p.m., Clark said.
Several searches were made at the time of his disappearance that include K-9s with cadaver dogs, use of drones, and an overland grid.
Kemper SO, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations and Neshoba SO deputies have worked together to help locate Burrage, Clark said.
If you have any information concerning this or any criminal activity in the Philadelphia or Neshoba County area, call (601) 656-1414 or East Mississippi Crime Stoppers at 1-855-485-8477.