July 8, 2020 – In early April 2020 detectives with the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit developed information regarding a possible homicide that had reportedly taken place in March of 2019 at a rural property located in 11000 block of Lime Kiln Road in Nevada County. Detectives with the Major Crimes Unit and Special Investigations Unit continued to seek information regarding the potential homicide and ultimately served a search warrant at the property where the homicide was believed to have occurred.
During the search warrant service, more investigative leads were developed and a crime scene was located. With assistance from Anthropologist from the Chico State Human Identification Laboratory, the scene was processed uncovering human remains. Through several more search warrants and extensive investigation, the victim was preliminarily identified as Nathan Alwin (30 years old). Alwin was a transient that had been living in Nevada County for several months before his disappearance in March of 2019. Before that Alwin had resided in Oregon and Utah. Earlier this week the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office received confirmation from the California Department of Justice DNA Laboratory the remains located were positively identified to be Nathan Alwin’s by a DNA match.
Through continued work by detectives with the Major Crimes Unit and investigators with the Nevada County District Attorney’s Office, the suspect was identified as Aaron Sullivan (42 years old) of Grass Valley. Sullivan was already incarcerated in the Wayne Brown Correctional Facility on unrelated charges of assault with a deadly weapon and a parole hold. This morning, the charge of 187pc was added to Sullivan’s booking record for the murder of Nathan Alwin.
The Nevada County Sheriff’s Office would like to acknowledge the extensive amount of work conducted by multiple agencies to bring this investigation to a close. Although this is a very tragic ending, we are comforted that we were able to bring some closure to Alwin’s family.
Anyone with additional information regarding this case is encouraged to contact the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit at (530)265-1471.