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Samantha Hayes reporting Three weeks ago we reported the gruesome discovery of a man's body parts near the Utah-Wyoming border, just off I-80. Tonight, detectives are close to solving the mystery. And, in the process, they've unraveled disturbing information about the victim's past.
Detectives say now that they have identified 50-year-old John Mayo, they are pretty sure they know who killed him.
John Dean Mayo was probably living a lonely life when he disappeared last year, never returning to a Salt Lake City home at 2353 S. 500 East.Nobody, not even his mother or father, reported him missing.
Chief Deputy Dave Booth/ Summit County Sheriff's Office: "He just wasn't that close to his family."
A few weeks ago, on April 18, a worker for Union Pacific Railroad was driving near the Utah-Wyoming border when he spotted a hand near the roadway, and there was more.
Chief Deputy Dave Booth/ Summit County Sheriff's Office: "All the parts we found had been intentionally dismembered with some type of saw or cutting type instrument."
Chief Deputy Dave Booth/ Summit County Sheriff's Office: "The medical examiner's office gave us a window of eight to 11 months that they figured the body had been out in the sun for."
When a body is badly decomposed, forensic experts often use dental records to make an identification. But in this case, when police searched for the body parts in this area, they were never able to locate the head.
Chief Deputy Dave Booth/ Summit County Sheriff's Office: "We identified him through fingerprints by rehydrating the hands we found."
The fingerprints matched those of 50-year-old John Mayo, a registered child sex offender convicted in 1991. Detectives are not sure what the motive behind the murder was, but they are closing in on who did it.
Chief Deputy Dave Booth/ Summit County Sheriff's Office: "We think we have a good idea of the individuals involved in this."
Deputies aknowledge that the man's past would certainly create many enemies, but they are not telling us the connection between the suspects and the victim at this time.
