Police release name of man whose skeletal remains were found in 2016 on Hilton Head
The Beaufort County Coroner’s Office is asking for the public’s help to find family members in Mexico of a man whose skeletal remains were found on Hilton Head in 2016.
Paciano “Shorty” Lopez-Morales, 54, of Hilton Head, was reported missing in May 2015 while staying in a makeshift room at a house on Bluebell Lane, according to a Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office alert.
Normally, per policy, the Coroner’s Office does not release the identity of those who have passed away until family members have been notified. Until Wednesday, Lopez-Morales had not been named publicly as the person to whom the skeletal remains belonged.
Lopez-Morales was from Mexico and had lost contact with family members around the same time he went missing. Though he did not have any known medical conditions, he had allegedly complained to friends of his ears hurting him before he went missing, police said in the alert.
On Spanish Wells Road, after Hurricane Matthew in December 2016, an orthopedic surgeon found a human skull while clearing trees off his property. Spanish Wells Road is about a one-minute drive from where Lopez-Morales had been staying. There were no signs of trauma found during an osteological examination, an assessment of bones or skeletal remains, and the cause and manner of his death are undetermined, police said in the alert.
The remains were confirmed to belong to Lopez-Morales after the FBI helped in finding his sister, Cylvia Lopez-Morales, who gave a DNA sample in 2018 that came back as a match, Beaufort County Coroner David Ott said. The sister has since lost contact with the FBI and officials from the coroner’s office.
In October, Ott said Wednesday, he tried sending a letter to the sister at her last known address in San Luis Potosí, a city in central Mexico, but has not heard back. The coroner’s office is trying to find her in order to deliver the news and facilitate in the return of her brother’s remains.
Anyone with information may call the Beaufort County Coroner’s Office at 843-255-5150 or 843-255-5153.
