

Officials in Kentucky say new DNA technology has enabled them to identify a body that was found 25 years ago in a lake as a Fort Smith man who was wanted by the FBI for sexually related crimes dating back to the late 1990s.
According to the FBI office out of Louisville, Kentucky and the Kentucky State Police, the remains that were wrapped in a chain and anchored with a hydraulic jack in Lake Barkey on May 6, 1999 by fishermen have been positively identified as Roger Bell Parham. Parham went missing in March of 1999 and was thought to have left the area to avoid prosecution for rape and failure to appear charges.
Lake Barkley is located in Trigg County near the city of Dover located on the far southwestern border of Kentucky with Tennessee.
According to court records, Parham was arrested in November 1998 on charge of a rape involving a minor and was later released on bond with conditions. The bond was later revoked after he failed to appear in court and a federal arrest warrant was issued for the then 52-year-old in September of 1999 for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
Parham has been regularly featured on Today in Fort Smith in our "FBI Crimes Against Children" listings since October of 2017, appearing as a wanted fugitive nearly three dozen times.
The remains were found in the lake by the fishermen and the identity has been a mystery ever since that day. The Kentucky State Police said that there have been multiple efforts to identify the remains but until new technology by a company called Ortham, Inc. was made available they had little to go on to identify the body.
Police say Parham's cause of death remains undetermined and that the investigation is continuing. The press release from the Kentucky State Police says his death is being investigated as a homicide "given the suspicious circumstances in which remains were located".

