PROVO, Utah, March 20, 2025 (Gephardt Daily) -- A cold case mystery involving the disappearance of a Provo teen dating back to 1982 has been solved.
According to a Provo Police Department news release, Robby Peay, 17, ran away from a Salt Lake City youth treatment center on Oct. 11 of that year.
Five months later, in February of 1983, Peay's unidentified body was discovered in the Three Gossips area of Arches National Park. At the time, investigators determined he had a gunshot wound to the head.
Although his dental records were filed in a national missing persons registry, and the body appeared similar to Peay's, decomposition kept investigators from making a positive ID, the Provo PD news release said.
The body was buried "in an unmarked grave outside of Moab, under the name of John Doe."
While police records revealed Peay's truck was found abandoned in Lake Powell months after the teen's unidentified body was discovered, no other leads were forthcoming, "and eventually the case went cold."
In 1990, eight years after the 17-year-old's disappearance, family members asked a judge to have their loved one officially declared deceased. Their request was granted and the family had a gravestone was placed in the Provo Cemetery.
Through the years, Provo investigators continued to review the case, and "in 2018 a detective added Peay’s information to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).
A forensic dentist however reviewing cold cases in NamUs noted an error with Peay’s dental records. The records were corrected, but odontologists with the Office of the Medical Examiner (OME) determined because Peay's dental X-rays were from his youth they could not be used for any form of comparison.
It was then decided, a DNA comparison would be required to positively identify Peay's remains, but there was a problem: the OME had no DNA left from the original autopsy.
Investigators tried to find a source for "familial DNA" to provide the DNA match but there was another unexpected hurdle; Peay had been adopted at birth. That meant detectives had to convince a judge to approve the release of the confidential adoption records, which finally happened in 2022. Investigators thought that at long last they were on their way to solving the case, when it was revealed there were no surviving direct-biological family members to whom Peay could be connected.
Disappointed, but undaunted, investigators carried on, and through further genealogical searches located a maternal uncle related to the missing teen. Once the maternal uncle's DNA was retrieved detectives embarked on the final step in their investigation, requesting exhumation of the unidentified body found in Arches so they could see, if indeed, the two sets of DNA would match, effectively solving the case.
It was during this process detectives learned the surprising, if not confounding news, that Summit County investigators had already obtained a DNA sample from Grand County’s John Doe remains, while investigating an altogether different death years before. That DNA had been sent to NamUs, and ultimately forgotten.
In the end, the DNA from Peay's maternal uncle matched the DNA of the Grand County remains collected by Summit County investigators. The Office of the Medical Examiner confirmed the findings, officially certifying the John Doe remains as those of Robby Lynn Peay.
While the actual murder investigation remains in the hands of the Grand County Sheriff's Office, Provo’s missing person case is finally closed.
Provo Police Detective Sergeant Patterson summed up the investigation, in a statement included in the Provo PD's press release.
“Working cold cases as a detective is both challenging and time-consuming. Sifting through old files and photos, trying to reconstruct the past, can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. But the moment you uncover that long-awaited lead - the one that has eluded investigators for years - makes all the effort worthwhile," Patterson said.
"Robbie Peay had been missing for over 40 years when the breakthrough finally came through dental records and DNA testing. With this crucial evidence, we were able to identify an unknown individual, bringing long-awaited answers to a family that had spent decades in uncertainty. Moments like these are among the most rewarding aspects of the job.”
