1981 ‘Buckskin Girl’ murder victim identified thanks to DNA technology

Cold case murder solved with Arkansas woman being identified after more than 30 years. On April 24, 1981, the body of a female homicide victim was discovered on Greenlee Road, in Miami County, Ohio. She was fully clothed and was estimated to have been dead for only hours. According to an April 11, 2018, release from the Miami County Sheriff’s Office, the victim was wearing jeans and a fringed buckskin jacket with a Native American design.

The unidentified murder victim hence became known as “The Buckskin Girl.”

The autopsy, conducted at Montgomery County Coroner’s Office, concluded the victim was killed by strangulation and blunt force trauma. The case has remained assigned to a detective as an active investigation since the victim was discovered. The female’s identity was not able to be determined at the time, though fingerprints were obtained and later entered into the FBI’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). The victim had no dental fillings, but had a crown on her upper right front tooth.

As DNA technology came available, the Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab generated the victim’s nuclear DNA profile in 2001. In December of 2008, the profile of “Buckskin Girl” as she became known was entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). In 2009, her mitochondrial DNA profile was developed at the NamUs DNA lab at the University of North Texas. Both the nuclear and mitochondrial genetic profiles of the deceased were entered into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). In January of 2010, NamUs case management was assigned to Dr. Elizabeth Murray, a forensic anthropologist and Professor of Biology at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, who has assisted in the investigation since then.

The victim remained unidentified for nearly 37 years, despite continued efforts. Identification efforts included a new facial image generated by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in February 2016; pollen studies on the victim’s clothing by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency in April 2016; and stable isotope studies on her hair in June 2016 in an effort to trace the victim’s location and geographic movements in the last year of life.

Yesterday, the Miami County Sheriff’s Office announced that Marcia L. King of Arkansas has been identified as the Miami County Jane Doe who became known as the Buckskin Girl. She was twenty-one years of age at the time of her death. The DNA confirmation was made on Monday, April 9, 2018 by the Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab. The Miami County Coroner, Dr. William Ginn, will issue the death certificate.

ABC News reports that King was never reported as a missing person. The Miami County Sheriff’s Office reports that investigators are now concentrating on finding her killer.

The scientific assistance that finally led to King’s identification was conducted by the DNA Doe Project, a nonprofit organization recently created to apply genetic genealogy tools to the identification of unknown persons. The victim’s DNA was obtained from a blood sample that had been in storage since 1981; it was processed using advanced DNA techniques and uploaded to a public genealogy database.

The DNA Doe Project was founded in 2017 by Colleen Fitzpatrick and Margaret Press.

The Miami County Jane Doe case was accepted as one of the first cases for the project. The DNA Doe Project relies on genetic genealogy tools similar to those used by genealogists for analyzing DNA results normally provided by direct-to-consumer testing companies.

The identification of the victim is critical in advancing the investigation towards finding the person or persons responsible for this crime. The family of Marcia King has requested that their privacy be respected by the media and public.

Anyone with information can contact the Miami County Sheriff’s Office Tip Line at (937) 440-3990 or leave tips at www.miamicountysheriff.org/contact-us-1

For more on Marcia’s story, see the video accompanying this aticle.

~ Posted by: Richard Webster, Ace News Today   /   Connect with Richard on Facebook and Twitter