23 years later, killer of man dumped on Zemel Road remains unidentified

CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. — Behind every face and every action, there's a name. The search for those names is where the journey begins.

Fox 4's Senior Reporter Kaitlin Knapp is on a mission to get to know the names we know, and perhaps find the ones we don't, along with the detectives working in the same communities you call home.

In Fox 4's award-winning series "Sunshine Crimes," we are going across Southwest Florida to tell the stories of people waiting for justice.

When detectives try to piece together a cold case murder, they rarely start at the beginning.

"You're putting the puzzle together backwards basically, starting from now and trying to go back 20 years," said Charlotte County Cold Case Detective Mike Vogel.

But going back that far, sometimes they start a case, not knowing who the victim is.

In this case, they had a date: January 6, 2002. That's when two people leaving a shooting range made a disturbing discovery.

"As they were driving by down on Zemel Road, they saw an animal come across the road. Kind of peaked their curiosity to see what was going on," said Charlotte County Cold Case Kurt Mehl.

Instead of an animal, they found human bones.

"Been there long enough that a good percentage of the body mass were gone," Mehl said.

There was one clue — a gold watch on the wrist of the remains. But detectives discovered at least 30,000 of those watches were sold in Southwest Florida, so that didn't turn up any leads.

Charlotte County Sheriff's Office

"An autopsy took place and that's kind of where it stayed for a long time," Mehl said.

For years, all they knew was that the victim was a man who had been murdered.

"You have bones. You don't know who it is," Mehl said.

As the years went by and technology advanced, the detectives got help from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office to create a 3D model of what the unknown man might have looked like based on the skull. Despite this effort, they still couldn't identify him.

Charlotte County Sheriff's Office

But then, they had another idea.

"We submitted his remains, part of the bones, through NAMUS, who submitted the information of the bones to BODE labs," Vogel said.

BODE is a private DNA lab that helps law enforcement identify people.

"They extracted the DNA and submitted it to the database and came up with a match for a missing person that had been reported out of Miami," Vogel said.

The victim was identified as Alejandro Narcisso Lago. His DNA was in CODIS, which is a national database of DNA profiles.

"You're feeling as an investigator, hey now we have something to go on," Mehl said.

Lago's mother reported him missing in Miami on November 27, 2001. She hadn't seen him for about a week – no one had – until his remains were discovered off Zemel Road in January 2002.

"Just like trash. Thrown off of some kind of vehicle, we're assuming, as like a piece of trash," Mehl said.

The question that remains is what brought Lago to Charlotte County.

"We have nothing that ties him to our local community," Mehl said.

Investigators know Lago had a criminal past in Miami. They say he was in and out of prison for a few years.

"His prior behavior was involved in some criminal activity involving drugs, distribution. Perhaps smuggling," Mehl said.

But how did Lago end up in Charlotte County? Detectives believe the killer probably knew the area because back then, people wouldn't normally drive down Zemel Road, like they would now. It now connects US 41 to Burnt Store Road.

"They're probably from our area, it's probably someone local," Vogel said.

Detectives believe Lago was likely killed in Charlotte County rather than transported from the east coast.

"There's no reason we could think of that would make any sense of him being killed on the east coast where he was from and being driven all the way over here to the west coast of Florida to be dumped," Vogel said.

Mehl and Vogel say they are working on some leads and will continue until the killer or killers are caught.

"We're hoping that someone who was here back then may have run across him or have had contact with any individuals that may have bragged about being involved in his homicide," Vogel said.

"If we find the evidence, we are going to find you and we will arrest you and we will incarcerate you for this crime," Mehl said. "Nobody deserves to be murdered."

Anyone with information is asked to call the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office or CrimeStoppers at 1-800-780-TIPS.

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