Authorities have identified the skeletal remains recovered in northeast North Carolina in December 1977 as a Maryland teenager who ran away from home that year, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation said Tuesday. The remains — found near a former Firestone plant in Wilson — were long classified as unidentified before modern DNA methods produced a match.
Cold case revisited with new forensic tools
In late 1977, investigators recovered skeletal remains and clothing in a wooded area outside Wilson. At the time, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner estimated the remains belonged to a white female between 16 and 23 and concluded the body had likely been in the woods for six months to two years. Although the manner of death was listed as undetermined, detectives noted circumstances that suggested foul play and treated the matter as a homicide.
“This time with forensic tools that didn't exist in 1977,”
The case went cold for decades. Early efforts included comparing dental records against missing-person reports, which produced no match. In 2010, a state anthropologist submitted the victim’s teeth for DNA testing and uploaded the resulting profile to CODIS and NamUs, again without results.
It was not until 2024 that the SBI’s Cold Case Investigative Team assigned Special Investigator Andy Murr to reexamine the file. Murr determined the remains were suitable for advanced DNA testing. A bone sample was sent to a forensic DNA laboratory, where technicians were able to extract sufficient genetic material to build a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) profile — a technique that can link bone tissue to relatives or identify an individual when traditional methods fail.
Identification and local connection
The DNA profile ultimately matched the remains to a girl who had run away from her home in Monkton, Maryland, in 1977 at age 15, law enforcement officials said. The discovery connects a family in Maryland to a case long investigated in North Carolina and raises new questions about where the young woman traveled and what happened to her in the months before her death.
The SBI reiterated that while the original medical examiner’s report listed the manner of death as undetermined, the circumstances where the remains were found led investigators to treat the death as a homicide. With an identity now established, authorities say they will continue investigative work to determine the events that led to the girl’s death.
What changed: forensic advances that solve cold cases
The case highlights how improvements in DNA science have enabled law enforcement to solve long-unsolved cases. SNP testing — which examines genetic variation at single base locations across the genome — can be effective when traditional STR-based profiling is not possible because of degraded material.
Investigators in this case moved from dental record comparison to DNA extraction from teeth in 2010, and finally to advanced bone-based SNP profiling in 2024. That sequence reflects the incremental ways forensic science can yield new leads over time.
- 1977: Skeletal remains and clothing found near former Firestone plant, Wilson, N.C.
- 2010: Teeth submitted for DNA testing; profile entered into CODIS and NamUs.
- 2024: Cold Case team reopens file; bone sample sent for SNP profiling.
- 2026: SNP profile produces match to 15-year-old who ran away from Monkton, Md., in 1977.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Location of recovery | Wooded area near former Firestone plant, Wilson, N.C. |
| Estimated age at death (1977) | 16–23 (medical examiner) |
| Runaway’s age | 15 (from Monkton, Md.) |
| Investigative milestones | Dental comparison, 2010 DNA teeth test, 2024 SNP profiling |
Next steps and public interest
With the match confirmed, North Carolina investigators will pursue leads aimed at establishing the manner and circumstances of death and identifying any persons of interest. The identification may provide family members and the wider community with answers about a disappearance that spanned more than four decades.
Families with historical missing-person reports are often encouraged to check whether cold-case units have used genealogy or advanced DNA testing that could produce new connections. For relatives seeking information, police departments typically provide a contact line through their cold case or major crimes units; in this instance, the North Carolina SBI is handling the investigation.
As forensic capabilities continue to evolve, experts say more cold cases may be solvable. This case underscores both the persistence of investigators and the value of scientific advances in bringing closure to long-standing mysteries.
(Reporting from the North Carolina SBI statement and case history.)
