Pima County Sheriff's Department has identified the man whose remains were discovered in late 2024 as 55-year-old Ronald Woolf.
In a press conference held Friday, Sheriff Chris Nanos said Woolf's family reached out to detectives within ten hours of an AI-generated image of Woolf being sent to local news outlets last week.
PCSD first found Woolf's remains when responding to a call near the San Joaquin Trailhead, after a passerby found a body in a remote desert area on Dec. 28.
Deputies confirmed the discovery of a dead adult male. The remains were partially decomposed, and no clothes were found.
After months of dead ends, PCSD detective Pedro Carranco used AI to determine what the man's face looked like alive, based on an sketch artist's rendering.
Woolf's family reached out shortly after.
"What's clear is that without that AI-generated photo, I don't know if we would have ever identified Mr. Woolf," Sheriff Nanos said in the press conference. "We ran his finger prints and DNA and got no hits in the last ten months."
Det. Carranco said in the conference it was not the kind of news the family wanted to hear, "but they were thankful to have some answers."
Sheriff Nanos said they are looking at the case as a possible homicide, but the investigation is ongoing.
