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AMW Case File

Erik Kohler fugitives,Erik Kohler

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Erik Kohler police Police Identify More Bodies In Fla. Mass Grave

Erik Kohler, 21, was missing for a dozen years. Family members said he vanished without a trace, and that they had no answers. Now, they have an answer: Erik was killed with seven other men, his body dumped in a mass grave in Fort Myers, Fla.

Sex:
Male
Race:
White
Current Age:
38
Hair (Color, Description, Facial Hair):
  • Brown
Eyes:
  • Brown
Last updated September 23, 2008

Recovered; Mar 2007

DNA Links Mystery Skeletal Remains


Family members considered Erik Kohler to be a troubled soul. By his teenage years, they say he stopped going to school, took drugs and got into trouble. When he disappeared in 1995, Erik was only 21, and his family feared the worst.

For years, Erik lived with family members in Florida and Wisconsin. By 1995, he had settled in the Fort Myers, Fla. area, but one day, he simply vanished.

Erik's family reported him missing in the National Registry for Missing Adults. They feared he had died in some horrible way, but twelve years went by with no answer.

Then, in 2007, Erik's family got the call that his DNA matched one of the skeletal remains found in a mass grave in Fort Myers. To Fort Myers police, he was known as "Victim E."

Now, they have a name and a story. For the family, they have the answer they have expected for all these years.

Still, there are many unanswered questions. Who killed Erik? How? Why? Investigators are also trying to identify the remaining skeletal remains found in March 2007 in a wooded area in Fort Myers. A surveyor stumbled across a human skull, only to learn later that eight white men were killed and left behind.

So far, DNA has linked three of the eight men. Victim C is missing Florida man Jonathon Tihay, and Victim D has been identified as John Blevins. Police say they need your help to identify the others.





Photos

A forensic artist created this sculpture in 2007 to show what Victim E may have looked like. Victim E is Erik Kohler.

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