Ward Raymond Thomas went missing from the Chillicothe VA Medical Center in 1972. Decades later, his family has closure with the help of genetic genealogy testing.
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Ohio World War II veteran, Ward Raymond Thomas, was laid to rest in April in a traditional military service in Chillicothe.
Thomas had been missing for more than 50 years.
In 1942, when Thomas was 24 years old, he joined the U.S. Army at Fort Hayes in Columbus and went to serve overseas in World War II.
He returned home three years later with a long list of accolades, including the Purple Heart, and was honorably discharged from service.
Years later in 1972, Thomas was being treated at the Chillicothe VA Medical Center when he disappeared.
His family searched for him, but for decades, what happened to Thomas would be a mystery, until his niece Carolyn Grandstaff got a phone call last year from investigators at the Ross County Coroner’s …