Who killed Kraig King? Three years after remains IDed, White Bear Lake man’s 1982 death still unsolved

It’s been three years since human remains found in rural Barron County, Wis., in 1982 were identified as a man from White Bear Lake.

But the mystery of who killed Kraig King remains unsolved.

King, a 1979 graduate of White Bear Lake High School, was found on Sept. 21, 1982, by loggers working in a wooded area on private land just off Wisconsin Highway 25, about four miles north of Ridgeland.

An autopsy determined that King, who was never reported missing, had died by homicide in either April or May 1982. He suffered “three puncture wounds to the chest area with a sharp object that were so deep they left cut marks on the victim’s thoracic vertebra,” according to police reports. His skull and lower jaw were found about three feet away from his skeleton.

On Jan. 7, 2020, the Barron County Sheriff’s Department announced that law enforcement officials and volunteer DNA genealogists had identified the remains. Volunteers with the DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit volunteer organization formed to identify unidentified remains using forensic genealogy, are credited with discovering King’s identity. After uploading King’s DNA to a GEDmatch.com database on Dec. 12, they had a match almost immediately, DNA Doe Project officials said.

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Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said this week that King’s killer remains unknown.

“You never give up hope. We learned that with the (Jayme Lynn) Closs case,” said Fitzgerald, referring to the case of the 13-year-old girl who was abducted from her Barron, Wis., home shortly after midnight Oct. 15, 2018, with her parents, James and Denise Closs, left behind dead, both shot by her captor. Closs was held captive for three months in a rural Gordon, Wis., home before escaping on Jan. 10, 2019.

“No matter what, you never give up hope,” Fitzgerald said. “We know that better than anyone.”

Anyone with information about King’s disappearance or death is asked to call the Barron County Sheriff’s Department at 715-537-3106.

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