Lincoln police search home for human remains that could belong to Regina Bos
HAVELOCK, Neb. (KLKN) — At 9 a.m. on Oct. 22, Lincoln Police Department (LPD) technicians and investigators from Nebraska State Patrol arrived at a home in Havelock, hoping to start the process of what may end the 26-year-search for Regina Bos.
Channel 8 News was on the scene outside of the home that possibly holds Bos’ remains.
Lt. Brian Agnew with LPD told Channel 8 News that this search on Thursday stems from a tip. The tip reported that Regina Bos may be buried inside.
Channel 8 News was told that police had previously brought cadaver dogs and sonar equipment.
“We’re following up on a tip from a few months ago about some possible remains in the residence of a home here in Havelock,” Agnew said. “Some preliminary tests that we ran a few months ago were inconclusive and so what we’re doing is following up with a little bit more extensive search of that area. The only way that we can determine one way or another whether or not there are remains is to remove a portion of the basement.”
Around 10 a.m., a crew with a truck and trailer full of equipment arrived at the residence in Havelock. The crew began to unload the equipment into house. The equipment that was unloaded is being used to break up the concrete and dig beneath the surface of the floor.
Agnew told Channel 8 News that the room they are digging in is a small room, similar to a bedroom, in the basement of the home.
“It’s something that we don’t do often, clandestine burial sites are not something that we deal with on a routine basis obviously. You’ll recall earlier this year one out in Malmo, so we do have a little bit of experience doing it. I believe that our crime scene technicians both from the Lincoln Police Department and the Nebraska State Patrol here are well trained in this area and we’ll have some expertise from the University of Nebraska too, an anthropologist, from there assisting us and identifying if there any remains there and if they are human or not,” Agnew said.
The anthropologist is there to determine how, if any remains are found, they should be handled.
“The anthropologist is essentially to tell us any methods of removal that we should be doing to give us some advice there but the anthropologist will identify that these remains are human or not human,” Agnew said. “Beyond that, those remains will be sent off to a laboratory to test for DNA. Depending on what evidence we do have, depending if there’s dental or mandibles or skull, that we can compare to later on. So it just kind of depends on what we find from that point to test.”
Throughout the day, investigators remained inside the home as the crew worked on the basement floor of the house built in 1948.
Additional investigative units arrived in the afternoon.
“As far as getting to the area that we need to get to obviously some heavy work that needs to be done,” Agnew said. “Once we get to the area in question, we’ll slow down quite a bit and we’ll take our time with that area so that we make sure we preserve any type of evidence that could still be existing with any of those remains.”
The current owner of the house has been cooperative with the police. They did not own the home until after Regina Bos disappeared.
It could take weeks for a lab to receive results from DNA testing.
Background of Regina Bos’ case
Regina Bos is the oldest unsolved missing persons case in Lincoln.
Bos was last seen on Oct. 17, 2000, just over 26 years ago. She was at an open mic night at Duggan’s Pub in Lincoln. Around 1 a.m., with her guitar and music, she left.
On Oct. 18, 2000, Bos’ car was found across the street from Duggan’s Pub. Her guitar and music was in the trunk, but she was nowhere to be found.
A new lead developed in August 2026 that prompted active investigation.
SEE ALSO: Lincoln Police investigating new lead in Regina Bos missing person case
Police said the new lead prompted the investigation in July and August. At the time, police said the results of those efforts were unknown.
