Mulvaney Service Tomorrow

The public is invited to a military funeral tomorrow for a man who served his country in World War II, but whose disappearance was shrouded in mystery until just a few years ago.

The funeral for Joseph Mulvaney is happening tomorrow here in Cody – miles from where Mulvaney was murdered in the early 1960s. His remains were discovered in a footlocker in a shed in Thermopolis in 1992, but weren’t identified until 2017, when DNA evidence produced by his granddaughter in Iowa proved who he was.

Mulvaney served his country in World War II, fighting in the Philippines, then returning home to Illinois. According to his granddaughter, Shelley Statler, the family was told that he “wandered away” in the early 1960s – but she believes that her grandmother, Mulvaney’s wife, shot him in the head, and that her uncle placed the body in a trunk, which he then carried around the country with him before leaving it at the Thermopolis residence.

The funeral is open to the public, according to Jona Vanata, who, along with Ballard Funeral Home, has organized the service.

Vanata points out that Ballard Funeral Home is donating all of their services for the funeral, which Mulvaney’s granddaughter from Iowa is planning to attend, as are military representatives from all over the region.

The service will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Ballard Funeral Home.