Overview
- Coconino County authorities announced that DNA testing by the Arizona Department of Public Safety confirmed the remains belong to 65-year-old William Anthony Ott.
- Members of the Hualapai Tribe located the remains in December 2025 and handed them to the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office and the county medical examiner for examination.
- Ott disappeared during a planned three-week solo hike on the Hualapai Indian Reservation in April 2012 and earlier multi-agency searches by the National Park Service and state and local agencies found no trace of him.
- Officials have not publicly released a cause or manner of death and no additional investigative findings have been detailed in the news releases so far.
- The identification relied on modern DNA testing and NamUs records and highlights the role of tribal reporting and interagency cooperation in resolving long-standing missing-person cases in remote Grand Canyon terrain.