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Woman found dead in Austin identified
DNA Doe Project Volunteers resolve 2020 cold case
Austin, Texas – A woman found dead in Austin in 2020 has been identified by volunteers from the DNA Doe Project. Working with the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office, the DNA Doe Project used investigative genetic genealogy to resolve this case, utilizing a DNA profile developed from the remains and uploaded to a public database to build a family tree for the unidentified individual. The name of the formerly unidentified woman is being withheld.
On April 12, 2020, a man walking his dog through the neighborhood of South Austin came across the body of a woman in a wooded area. She was White, thought to be between 40 and 55 years old, and stood around 5’2” with long gray hair. But with no identification on her and no matching missing person reports, her case was brought to the DNA Doe Project, whose expert volunteers work pro bono to identify John and Jane Does and restore their names.
A team of volunteer genealogists began working on this case in October 2022, but their research was complicated by the highest DNA match of the Jane Doe being an adoptee. Despite this, they were able to construct a family tree using more distant DNA matches of the unidentified woman, which led them to ancestors in Kansas, Missouri, and Texas. Less than a month after research on the case commenced, the team found a woman who was descended from all of the ancestors they’d identified, and she was born in Travis County.
“We could tell from the woman’s DNA that she was connected to a few specific families,” said team co-leader Kevin Lord. “After a few weeks of researching these families, we made connections between them that led us right to her parents, which is when we came across the name of their daughter.”
With all the DNA evidence pointing to Slaughter Creek Jane Doe being this woman, her name was provided to the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office in November 2022. A few days later, her identity was confirmed through a fingerprint analysis.
Rhonda Kevorkian, team co-leader on the case, said “This woman may have remained unidentified to this day if her distant cousins hadn’t uploaded their DNA to GEDmatch. Every time someone uploads their DNA profile to GEDmatch, Family Tree DNA or DNA Justice, it makes our mission to identify John and Jane Does a little bit easier.”
The DNA Doe Project is grateful to the groups and individuals who helped solve this case: the Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office, who entrusted the case to the DNA Doe Project; Genologue for extraction of DNA and whole-genome sequencing; Kevin Lord for bioinformatics; GEDmatch Pro for providing their database; our generous donors who joined our mission and contributed to this case; and DDP’s dedicated teams of volunteer investigative genetic genealogists who work tirelessly to bring all our Jane and John Does home.
Description:
On the afternoon of April 12, 2020, a resident was walking his dog along a trail in a wooded area behind his apartment complex in Austin, Texas. As they descended a hill, the dog began wandering off of the path and discovered the decomposed body of an adult woman.
She was estimated to be between 40-55 years old,approximately 5’2” tall with brown and gray long hair. Surgical clips were present in the woman’s right breast, and most of her teeth were missing. An autopsy detected methamphetamines in her system.
She was wearing a pink Express camisole, size extra-small, Hollister size 0 jeans and size 7 ½ men’s Adidas sneakers.
NamUs ID: UP72619
Date Body Found: 4/12/2020
Race: Uncertain
Sex: Female
Estimated Age: 40-55
Estimated PMI: Unknown
Agency of Jurisdiction:
Travis County Medical Examiners Office
Sandra Call
(512) 854-9599
More Information:
https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/72619
https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1620uftx.html
Status: Research in Progress
Last Updated: December 3, 2024
