Oklahoma remains identified as missing teens Molly Miller and Colt Haynes

The human remains recovered from a Love County search site on Feb. 18 were identified as Molly Miller and Colt Haynes, finally putting names back on a disappearance that started with a July 2013 police chase and never let go of two families. The Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed the identification on March 31, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs Missing and Murdered Unit and Chickasaw Nation made the news public on April 6. Investigators still have not said how Miller and Haynes died, or who is responsible, so the breakthrough answers one question while reopening the harder one.

The search that led to the identification covered more than 1,000 acres in southern Oklahoma, in a stretch of Love County between Oswalt Road, Pike Road and Long Hollow Road. Officials said the area had not been searched before and was identified only after new information surfaced and access to the land was obtained. The operation pulled in the FBI, Oklahoma Department of Corrections, Oklahoma Highway Patrol, the Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Chickasaw Nation Emergency Management and Texas Search and Rescue. The Bureau of Indian Affairs said the case remains active and that investigators are still pursuing multiple leads.

Miller was 17 when she vanished, and Haynes was 21. Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation cold-case files say both were passengers in a vehicle driven by James Conn Nipp on July 7, 2013, when Wilson police tried to stop the car and a chase followed through Love County. The vehicle was later found wrecked near where the pursuit ended, and KOSU reported that no blood was found inside it. The car was found abandoned two weeks later, but Miller and Haynes were never located. Court records show Nipp’s Love County criminal case was filed on Feb. 27, 2014, and that he later pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of a vehicle. News reports have also said he previously served time for eluding police, assault with a dangerous weapon and unauthorized use of a vehicle.

For Miller’s family, the identification brought a brutal kind of closure. Her cousin, Misty Miller-Howell, said the news “hit home,” and told reporters the family had been informed that Miller’s cell phone was with her. She said the family now wants justice and answers about how the pair died. Miller, a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, would have turned 30 at the end of April if she were alive. For investigators, the remains are a turning point, not an ending, and the case now hangs on whether the evidence can support a homicide case after more than a decade in the cold.