Forensic genealogists followed a trail built on decades-old DNA evidence to help determine the identity of a woman whose body was found near a Lake Tahoe hiking trail in 1982 and her killer, investigators said Tuesday.
Washoe County Sheriff Darin Balaam announced he has closed the investigation into the shooting death of the victim identified for the first time publicly on Tuesday as Mary Silvani. She was born in Pontiac, Michigan, in 1948 and attended high school in Detroit before moving to California.
For decades, the victim was known only as "Sheep's Flat Jane Doe," named after the popular hiking trail where her body was found with gunshot wounds near Tahoe's north shore just off the Mount Rose Highway above Incline Village. Balaam said they involved the same techniques that were used to find a suspect in the "Golden State Killer" investigation last year. He said the 37-year-old cold case at Tahoe was solved through a combination of the DNA evidence, new advances in forensic genealogy research and old-fashioned detective work.Roadblocks along the way included the fact Curry was born out of wedlock and raised under a different name in the Dallas area.
Based on the GEDMatch results, the DNA Doe Project working with Indentifinders International was able to determine the victim was the biological daughter of a now-deceased couple in Detroit. They suspected it was Mary Silvani and were able to confirm her identity based on a set of fingerprints provided by Detroit police from a 1974 misdemeanour.
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