Authorities have confirmed that skeletal remains found last year in a remote wooded area of Jackson County are those of a 19-year-old woman who was last believed to be with Scott Kimball.

FBI forensic experts confirmed that a skull and other bones discovered by a hunter Sept. 30 in deep snow in northwest Colorado were those of Kaysi McLeod, who has been missing since 2003 when she was 19, Jackson County Sheriff Rick Rizor said.

Kimball, 41, is a suspect in the death of McLeod, and the disappearances of Jennifer Marcum, Leann Emry and his 60-year-old uncle, Terry Kimball.

Kimball is in Jefferson County jail on an unrelated weapons charge.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation found a receipt among Kimball''s belongings from a Walden grocery store dated August 2003, when Kaysi McLeod disappeared, said McLeod''s father, Rob McLeod.

The FBI called in early April and asked whether a body had been discovered in the area, Rizor said. The FBI took custody of the skull and leg bones and compared DNA from them to DNA from Kaysi McLeod''s mother, Lori McLeod, Rob McLeod said.

A 99 percent match was made, Rizor said. A more conclusive DNA test subsequently confirmed they could only be Kaysi''s remains, Rob McLeod said.

Rizor said he would not say where the bones were found because he doesn''t want anyone going to the area.

The area is still covered with 4 to 6 feet of snow and it will take several weeks before officials can return to the site and search for additional remains and evidence, he said.

Kimball is a convict with a lengthy history of financial crimes who was released from federal custody in December 2002 after contacting the FBI to say he had information about a murder-for-hire case, an affidavit says.

James H. Davis, special agent in charge of the Denver FBI office, said he could not discuss the Kimball case or why the FBI decided to use Kimball as an informant.

Davis said informant files that detail contact with agents are "reviewed periodically."
The FBI calls informants "confidential human sources" and Davis said there has to be a determination that the person is suitable to work with.

"If an individual is a public danger, they would be unsuitable," Davis said. "The key is to identify that the person is in fact a danger, and sometimes you don''t know that."

A supervising agent must approve the use of the source, and additional approval from a higher authority may also be required depending on the sensitivity of the case, Davis said.

"Every time a source is contacted, that is documented, either a positive or negative contact," Davis said.

The information provided by the source is reviewed every 60 to 90 days, he said.

"Sources are not employees; they are individuals who come to us and provide us information and come to us as often as is necessary," he said.

Davis said that when he was a street agent, some informants provided information several times in one day, seven days a week. Other sources provide information to the FBI more sparingly.

Information from a search warrant issued for Kimball''s laptop computer in 2007 showed that photographs and other information about three of the four missing persons were in his computer. Also found in his computer were images of bondage, sex acts and rape as well as photos of four other unidentified women.

Marcum, a dancer at a Glendale strip club, disappeared Feb. 17, 2003. Her car was found abandoned at a remote Denver International Airport parking lot.

The documents say that Kimball''s and Marcum''s cellphones both went three days without any calls around the time she disappeared.

In June 2003, Kimball told FBI Agent Carle Schlaff that a drug dealer had killed Marcum. He said that a friend of a former cellmate had shown him a photograph of Marcum with her hands and legs bound and her mouth taped shut, according to an affidavit.

Kaysi McLeod was reported missing in August 2003. She was never seen after Kimball was supposed to pick her up from a Thornton hotel. Kimball married Kaysi''s mother, Lori, later that year.

Terry Kimball, 60, disappeared in late 2004, shortly after he began to stay with Scott Kimball. Scott Kimball told people that his uncle won a lottery, then went to Mexico with a woman.

Emry, 24, disappeared between Moab and Washington state in 2003. In January 2003 she told her father, Howard, that she was planning a camping trip. Her car was found in Moab.