Skeletal remains found in McKeesport ID'd as missing Penn Hills man

McKEESPORT, Pa. — Skeletal remains found Thursday night in McKeesport are those of a Penn Hills man who disappeared in 2012, family members told Channel 11 News on Saturday.

Dominick Brown-Hill, 21, was last seen by a jitney driver who dropped him off at an apartment in McKeesport on March 22, 2012.

Brown's mother, Lisa Zellars, told Channel 11 News Saturday morning that his remains were discovered Thursday night. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office later confirmed the news.

"I prayed for years that this day would come," Zellars said. "It's come and I don't know what to do with it."

Police were called shortly after 7 p.m. Thursday to the 900 block of Washington Street, where the skeletal remains were found in a trash can, officials said.

Neighbors told Channel 11 News that the trash can with the remains came from somewhere else and was placed on Washington Street the night before garbage day.

Zellars said she can't fathom how someone could do this to her son and she's hoping someone saw the person or people who dumped his remains in the trash.

"To see on the news that somebody put my son in a garbage can and had him out for trash ... . It's just so hard," she said. "I'm angry. I'm sad."

She said she got the news that she longed for -- that her son was found -- but it was the outcome she always feared.

"Alive or deceased, I wanted my son back either way. My prayers were answered. We got him back in one of the ways," she said.

Zellars spent the last five years searching for her son, posting billboards, offering rewards and pleading for someone to come forward with information. She said she has a small bit of closure, but she's banking on swift justice for whoever did this to her son.

"Everybody pays in life, and they'll pay one way or another," she said.

The medical examiner’s office said the cause and manner of Brown’s death is pending. Anyone with information is asked to call police.

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