JACKSON -- The six-month investigation into the slaying of snowboarder Benjamin "Ben" Bradley could go before a grand jury regardless of the findings of clues gathered from his remains, Sweetwater County Sheriff's Lt. Bob Myzel indicated this week.

"At this point there's no magic DNA bullet," Myzel said when asked whether blood evidence seized from one-time suspect Tommy Bowman's apartment had proved conclusive.

The lieutenant added that additional analysis by the state's crime lab of evidence collected from Bradley's body, clothes and other sources could shed new light on how the well-traveled adventurer died.

Last spring, after hitchhiking over half of the 485-mile journey between his Tabernash, Colo., summer home and his Jackson get-a-way, Bradley vanished outside Rock Springs, two days before his 29th birthday on June 4.

On Oct. 1, nearly four months later, tourists discovered Bradley's mummified remains beside a Red Desert volcano core known as Boar's Tusk. Missing among Bradley's few possessions were his prized snowboard and sturdy backpack.

Friends say Bradley rented a room in Jackson and loved to spend his winters "carving snow" in the mountains. On June 2, 2006, Jesse Meunier says, Bradley left a cell phone message around 9 p.m. asking if someone could drive to Pinedale, about two hours north of Rock Springs, to pick him up.

"We were heading for a party in Kelly," Meunier said recently. "But I told him: 'Just give us a call back, and we'll see if someone can come get you.' But he never called back."

After Bradley failed to make his scheduled birthday bash of snowboarding in the Tetons, his friends became suspicious and drove from Jackson to Rock Springs, hanging missing-person posters of Bradley along U.S. Highway 191.

Witnesses later reported spotting the 6-foot-3 Bradley in the Rock Springs area toting a snowboard and flashing a sign that read, "Jackson." According to the National Center for Missing Adults' Web site, a man matching Bradley's description was seen running across a parking lot toward Highway 191 "as if he was getting a ride."

The night he vanished, detectives say, Bradley wore brown wool cargo pants, a blue hooded sweatshirt and a gray T-shirt. But for Myzel, locating Bradley's missing, custom-made snowboard would provide a big missing piece to solving his puzzling death.

"This case is like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle when you have pieces in your box from three different ones," Myzel said about the many bad leads investigators have chased, including conflicting tips and statements regarding Bradley's highly publicized snowboard.

Authorities describe Bradley's snowboard as a black "Never Summer" model depicting a bald eagle grasping white ribbons with the words "Denver" and "USA" above five yellow lightning bolts. Officials say it also splits into two short skis to climb slopes and can be reassembled into a downhill snowboard. Meunier said his friend's prized toy was unusual in another way, too.

"A short or average (sized) person is not riding that thing," Meunier said about Bradley's 173-centimeter snowboard.

Friends say Bradley never went anywhere without his cherished 'board, which cost more than $1,000. By last January, investigators reported checking more than 1,400 snowboards at equipment "swaps" and other events without finding Bradley's.

Asked Thursday whether Bradley's snowboard floated, Myzel said "yes" -- eliminating the possibility of it having sunk in the waters near where Bowman said he found a backpack later identified as having belonged to Bradley.

In an interview in November, Bowman, 35, professed his innocence before describing how he found Bradley's backpack while jet-skiing last June around Flaming Gorge National Recreational Area, about 70 miles southwest of where at the time Bradley likely lay dead and undiscovered at Boar's Tusk.

Last fall, Bowman went on Fox's "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren" and maintained his innocence in Bradley's unsolved death.

Days before authorities learned of Bradley's homicide, Bowman said he visited police to report that his computer had been stolen while he was on vacation. At the police station, Bowman said he noticed a poster illustrating Bradley's missing snowboard and backpack. It was then, he said, that he first heard of the missing man and decided to retrieve the backpack from his car and give it to police.

After finding the backpack weeks earlier, Bowman said he planned on mailing some of its contents to Bradley, who at the time he insisted he did not know was missing. However, Bowman said he was injured while camping near Santa Cruz, Calif., and hospitalized, preventing him from dealing with the backpack sooner.

After Bradley's body was found Oct. 1, Bowman said, he became a suspect in his murder. A copy of a warrant provided by Bowman last fall shows that police seized evidence, including blood samples, from his apartment.

Bowman said the blood police found at his place came from a man who had been in a fight. Bowman, who says he now lives and works near Sacramento, Calif., said a friend, who was staying at Bowman's Rock Springs apartment, let the bloody man crash on the couch while Bowman was out of town. Bowman has also said that the FBI had given him a polygraph test, which he believed he had passed.

Though Myzel stopped short of clearing Bowman or anyone else as a suspect in the investigation, the lead investigator said he considered Bowman "a witness" for turning in Bradley's backpack.

"He's kind of christened himself a suspect," Myzel has said about Bowman's media appearances proclaiming his innocence.

Regarding how many others beside Bowman had taken a polygraph in the Bradley investigation, Myzel would only say "more than one.

"I could be wrong," Myzel added cautiously, "but in this investigation we've (probably) already questioned whoever is involved in the crime."

Asked whether more than one person could have killed Bradley, Myzel said that because Bradley's body wounds "were close together" and he had suffered a "skull fracture," he thought it likely that Bradley was already "incapacitated" when he was stabbed multiple times in the torso.

"I don't think he fell out there at Boar's Tusk," Myzel said about other ways Bradley could have conceivably fractured his skull.

Myzel said a posting of Bradley's case on the popular "America's Most Wanted" Web site in January had yet to produce useful leads. However, he added, a much-anticipated TV show on Bradley's killing, expected to be shot later this year, could help crack the case once America's Most Wanted broadcasts it.

About his pushing the county attorney to empanel a grand jury inquest into Bradley's homicide, Myzel said his aim in taking the unusual step was to "nail down" people's contradictory statements under oath and get new information. The lieutenant added that anyone who avoided cooperating with a grand jury proceeding could wind up in jail for its duration.

"Other than myself and my wife, everybody is a suspect," Myzel said. "That's the way you've got to look at it."