[Update] Remains of Joshua Miller (missing since 2013 in St. John's, Newfoundland) Found At Golf Course
The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary has confirmed that the remains found near the Bally Haly golf course on January 9th are those of Joshua Miller. Miller, age 20, disappeared in the Stavanger Drive area in February 2013. At this time police do not believe foul play was involved.
Miller's disappearance has been something of a running mystery around here - I'm localish to the area, by Canada standards - since he vanished in 2013, and was the subject of at least one very good writeup on this sub several years ago. Newfoundland has more unsolved missing persons cases than you'd generally expect from a province with a population of half a million (concentrated down into one American metropolitan statistical area, that would put us somewhere between Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky and Springfield, Missouri), but a pretty low actual murder rate. The circumstances surrounding Miller's disappearance were somewhat odd as well: after a night drinking with friends, he took a taxi to an address on Blue Puttees Drive that none of his friends were familiar with. But investigation of the last people in contact with him as well as an individual he'd apparently had an altercation with earlier that night all led to dead ends. Searches of the area he was dropped off at also revealed nothing.
Three possible witness sightings were also recorded, near the Avalon Mall and a nearby residential area, on RCAF Road, and on Mt. Scio Road. With his body being found now at Bally Haly, I believe those can likely be discounted. RCAF Road is possible as it's within a couple kilometers of Blue Puttees Drive, but I'd call it unlikely, with the caveat that the western part of the Bally Haly golf course/country club isn't far from it and I'm uncertain what part of the course his remains were found at.
Now, to put a bit of context to all this: February in Newfoundland is generally pretty vicious weather-wise. Joshua was wearing jeans and a t-shirt at the time he disappeared, and at the time wind chills were hitting -20°C. St. John's is also a bit unusual as cities go for having some very sharply-defined edges, and the Stavanger/Blue Puttees Drive region is one of them. If you take a look at this Google Earth map of the relevant area, you can see that Blue Puttees Drive backs right onto a large swathe of undeveloped land surrounding the Bally Haly Country Club and golf course. The general environment would be dense scrubby forest punctuated with bog, and not the kind of stuff I'd want to traverse in the day sober to be honest.
The one mystery left is what Miller was doing in the Blue Puttees Drive area to begin with, but whatever his intent was, I think based on the released information it's fairly easy to infer what happened: he gets out of the taxi (and apparently stiffs the driver) probably somewhat drunk, starts rapidly suffering from hypothermia and becomes even more disoriented, and wanders into the woods, where he died of exposure.
And yes, I did post this yesterday, but it was deleted for not having enough of a summary. Hopefully this is enough.