Quote:Thomas McNally, a former homicide detective who was investigating Casias’ disappearance for her family, told the Daily Mail that the mom of one’s “skeletonized” corpse was propped up against a tree — with a gun lying nearby.

McNally said Casias’ body didn’t show any signs of animal activity or disturbance, despite being left to rot in the forest.

Quote:Casias worked as an administrative assistant at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which was created during World War II for the groundbreaking Manhattan Project and has been closely tied to US nuclear weapons research ever since.

On the day she disappeared, the married mother wiped all records from her phones before leaving them and her identification behind and walking out of her home in Ranchos de Taos, a remote community some 70 miles northeast of Santa Fe.

She dropped her husband, Mark, another Los Alamos employee, off at the facility before allegedly claiming she’d forgotten her badge and had to return home.