Identity confirmed

The identity of a man found dead April 20 in a field next to the Trestles Condominiums has been confirmed.

William “Bill” Ray Griffin, 68, was killed by a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to preliminary results.

The report brings an odd and prolonged case near a conclusion.

Bill Griffin’s family said he left Jan. 12 without saying anything to anyone or leaving any explanation of where he’d gone.

“He was a private person,” said 64-year-old Polly Griffin, Bill Griffin’s wife since June 2004.

Polly Griffin said she last saw him before she began her errands that morning, getting her dog’s hair clipped. She said she came home several times that day, but he wasn’t there.

“I left him a note,” Polly Griffin said. But she said she never talked to him again.

Polly Griffin’s sister Reba McHaney called the home the morning he was last seen and is the last person known to have spoken with him, investigators said.

“He sounded normal,” McHaney said. “He seemed totally normal to everyone who knew him … That was why we were so shocked when he didn’t come home.”

After being reported missing to Odessa police Jan. 13, McHaney, who lives near the complex, discovered Bill Griffin’s vehicle Jan. 28 in the southwest portion of the Trestles parking lot, facing Eastridge Road. McHaney said she contacted her sister, who confirmed Bill Griffin’s belongings were locked in the vehicle, including his glasses, a Town & Country coffee cup and the keys to the vehicle itself.

Polly Griffin said she’d found her husband’s keys to everything else dropped in a separate clip in their front yard.

Polly Griffin said they contacted Det. Mike Liverett, who had been working the missing person investigation. Liverett interviewed people at the complex, but no one reported seeing Bill Griffin.

Polly Griffin said police watched the vehicle for a while because they thought he might have moved into the apartments, but Bill Griffin never appeared, so Polly Griffin eventually got a locksmith to let her into the vehicle and take it.

Finally, April 20, a man searching for rocks and desert plants found the body in the empty lot on the east side of Trestles, which by then was badly decomposed and considered unidentifiable by visual means.

“I couldn’t even look at him and tell there was a gunshot wound,” said Shirley Standefer, chief investigator for the Ector County Medical Examiner’s office who personally worked the case.

Standefer said Elizabeth Miller, who has since left the Permian Basin Forensic Center, discovered the bullet wounds during her autopsy April 22 and 23, and Bill Griffin’s body was sent to the University of North Texas’ Center for Human Identification.

Indirect evidence pointed to the identity of Bill Griffin almost immediately.

Polly Griffin said all of the clothing and jewelry she described “down to his underwear” matched what investigators found, and the pistol found near the scene came from the Griffin home. To authorities, however, that wasn’t enough.

Liverett said authorities couldn’t confirm identification without test results. Liverett gave the hypothetical of someone paying a homeless person to wear his clothes.

Sgt. Larry Bartlett of the major crimes unit said investigators have to follow procedure.

“We had a reasonable suspicion, but that didn’t confirm it,” Bartlett said.

That confirmation was made difficult not just by the state of the body, but because of Bill Griffin’s own history, investigators said.

“(Polly Griffin) didn’t have a whole lot to give us,” Standefer said, but said even Bill Griffin’s former wife, who divorced him in 1998 after more than 30 years of marriage, couldn’t provide much.

Standefer said Bill Griffin lacked a driver’s license and didn’t have any fingerprint or dental records available, so even when the PBFC managed to get two useable prints May 13, there was nothing to compare them to.

Bill Griffin had served decades in the U.S. Air Force, but Standefer said Liverett found the military unwilling to release his records to help the investigation.

Instead, Liverett had to get DNA samples from Bill Griffin’s sister May 18 and on May 28 from his daughter, who lived in California. But it wasn’t until this week that the CHI’s results came in.

“I am really angry at the system,” Polly Griffin said Wednesday as police released Bill Griffin’s belongings to her. “It’s been four-and-a-half months of torture.”

Standefer said she understood how Polly Griffin felt, but the CHI’s work for government agencies meant they were always backlogged with requests from all over the state. Standefer said Polly Griffin had pointed out that a private company could get the results much quicker, but Standefer said it would cost about $5,000 that the county budget didn’t have.

“This process is a long process,” Standefer said, and the case still needed the completed report of Miller, who now lives in Lubbock, before Medical Examiner Nathan Galloway could make a final ruling on the cause of death and issue a death certificate.

Bartlett said compared to other cases, he was relatively pleased with how quickly the DNA tests had come back.

“A lot of times it takes longer than this,” he said.

As for why the 68-year-old husband, father, retired veteran and Texas State Federation of Round and Square Dancers official chose to shoot himself, there was only supposition.

Polly Griffin said he’d gone through bouts of depression most of his life, close family members of his had recently died, and he’d had financial problems, but when he’d gone missing, even after his vehicle was found, they had assumed he’d just left town. Polly Griffin described his military service as something like a spy, assigned to wear plain clothes and blend in when he was stationed in places like Iceland and India. Liverett, too, said there were times he had thought Bill Griffin would be found living on a beach in Mexico.

As inexplicable as the lack of explanation, Standefer said Bill Griffin’s debit card was charged at a Town & Country in Crane after he had gone missing. Polly Griffin said he didn’t know anyone in Crane.

“He just — everyone would say, ‘Bill is such a nice guy,’ ” Polly Griffin said. But, she said, he was a private person.