Remains Found in Cambodia Identified as Newsman’s
Human remains dug up in Cambodia last year have been identified as those of an American NBC correspondent who disappeared 23 years ago while covering the war in Southeast Asia, an NBC official said Saturday.
Welles Hangen’s remains were positively identified Friday night by the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Honolulu, said Arthur Lord, a senior producer for NBC News in Burbank.
Hangen was one of five television journalists believed executed by Khmer Rouge guerrillas following their disappearance in the Cambodian jungle May 31, 1970. He was 40.
His body was one of four dug up from a riverbed during a U.S.-Cambodian excavation last March. The other three were identified last October, but Hangen’s medical records were unavailable and positive identification was delayed pending a DNA blood test.
Hangen’s wife, Pat, said Saturday that she had still held a slim hope her husband would be found alive.
“One would rather continue to hope, but it is important to have finality,” she said from Alameda.
Hangen’s remains will be cremated and then buried at Arlington (Va.) National Cemetery on Jan. 29.
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