Mohave County Sheriff investigators seek to identify cold case victim

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]New information is bringing new hope to a decades-old homicide cold case in Mohave County.

[00:00:06]>> Our goal at this point is is to identify him and locate his family.

[00:00:12]>> A man was found shot to death inside of a sleeping bag on the shoreline of a secluded cove on Lake Havasu in October 2000. Investigators were never able to identify him, instead referring to the victim as sleeping bag man for more than 25 years.

[00:00:27]>> We've been working the genetic genealogy and to to date we just don't have anybody who is close enough as a most recent common ancestor.

[00:00:39]>> But Mohave County Sheriff investigator Lori Miller tells me they're now closer to identifying the man than ever before.

[00:00:46]>> He is our our credible viable lead.

[00:00:48]We're just trying to follow up on to see if in fact he could be our John Doe.

[00:00:55]>> Investigators say the man possibly went by the name of Joseph or James Cain, but they believe his real last name began with a P. He may have worked as a jet ski painter in the mid-90s and later sold real estate. It's believed he was living on a boat at the time of his murder. Investigators hope this new picture of his T-shirt will jog someone's memory.

[00:01:16]>> He had received uh the the T-shirt that he was found in at an event in around 1994 uh that Hot Boat magazine put on.

[00:01:29]>> Miller says they need some more facts to prove they're on the right track, but she's confident they're closer to giving sleeping bag man a real name.

[00:01:38]>> They were someone. They lived a life.

[00:01:40]They impacted people's lives. Um they mattered to people and we just want to to bring them home back to those people.