Hunters came upon the fragments, later identified as belonging to University of Utah student Douglas Brick, in October 2024
- Douglas Brick, a University of Utah student, left his dorm room and disappeared on Oct. 13, 1973
- The case went cold for almost 50 years until it was reopened after bone fragments found by hunters in the foothills above the school in October 2024 belonged to the missing man
- “Those who knew him said he was depressed when he went missing, and possibly suicidal,” read the university’s statement
The family of a University of Utah college student who went missing for over 50 years now has closure after skull fragments found last year were identified as belonging to their loved one.
In a Tuesday, May 13, news release, the University of Utah Police announced the major development in the cold case surrounding Douglas Brick, 23, who walked out of his dorm room and disappeared on Oct. 13, 1973.
“Results from an out-of-state lab that specializes in extracting DNA from weathered bones confirmed last week that skull fragments found in the foothills above the U in 2024 were a 99.9 percent genetic match with one of Brick’s living relatives,” read the university’s release. “Brick was no longer missing.”
Brick was a graduate of Pocatello High School in 1968 and studied physics at the university, the release stated.
“The last time his mother saw him was in September [1973], when he packed up his car and headed off to start his fourth year at the U,” it added. “Those who knew him said he was depressed when he went missing, and possibly suicidal.”
The university noted a “stunning sequence of events” and coincidences that later led to Brick’s identification.
Before she died in 2010, Brick’s mother, Donna, noted in a journal investigators came across that she had an encounter in 1990 with a clerk at a Salt Lake City department store who was also a psychic. The psychic told Donna that her son had gone to the foothills above the university and considered ending his life, until he got scared and slipped and fell.
“He really wants you to find him,” the psychic told Donna at the time.
The university’s press release said that the skull fragments were eventually discovered in 2024 near the summit of Black Mountain.
The University of Utah also stated that its police department hired a crime data analyst, Nikol Mitchell, in 2022, who discovered that the school had a cold case that had been lost for almost 20 years.
Mitchell then told Maj. Heather Sturzenegger, who was the investigation’s lieutenant at the time, and she agreed to reopen the case. She and Det. Jon Dial had little to go on surrounding Brick’s disappearance, including the identities of those who knew him at the school or who reported him missing.The investigators learned that Brick’s sister called the university in 2018 to inquire about her brother’s case. They visited the sister in California and took a DNA swab of her cheek. At the time, the sample didn’t generate any hits in the national system of missing persons.
