Fifteen-year-old Tracy Walker's remains were found in Campbell County in 1985. She disappeared from Indiana in 1978.
www.wbir.com
September 5, 2022
"Breakthroughs in forensic science can't bring a homicide victim back to life. But they can give that person a name.
Like Tracy Sue Walker, who at age 15 in 1978 disappeared from Lafayette, Ind. Seven years later, her bones turned up 400 miles away in steep woods above the Big Wheel Gap area of Elk Valley in Campbell County.
But nobody knew who she was.
Authorities held onto her skull and necklace -- and other pieces that animals hadn't dragged away -- and tried every trick they could think of to identify her."
"New techniques in forensic science allowed
othram Inc. to create a DNA profile from the scantest remaining material, which had been contaminated by exposure to the elements for who knows how many years. Digital information was then uploaded to genealogical databases used by law enforcement and specialist researchers to try to match remains with living relatives.
"It's necessary that these people get their names back. It's necessary that their stories be told. It's necessary that their family can start with the investigators to go toward the steps of getting justice," Kristen Mittelman, Othram's chief development officer, told WBIR."
"In just a few short years, Othram in The Woodlands, Texas, has made a name for itself helping to crack genetic mysteries once thought unsolvable.
It's helped identify people cut up and dumped in lakes, found in fires, stuffed in sewage tanks. Mittleman said Othram was able to put a name to the bones of someone who turned out to be a 23-year-old schoolteacher from 1881."
"Their profiles feature thousands of telltale markers that can be used to narrow the person's identity and link it to stored data of known human sources.
Their process usually costs $5,000 to $7,500, and it can take about 12 weeks to come up with the unknown person's genetic profile, Mittelman said.
"We were confident that we could build a profile, we proceeded with the sequencing, and we were able to build a high-performing DNA profile," Mittelman said.
Genetic genealogist Carla Davis, a native Mississippian who works with Othram, paid for the Baby Girl case, Mittelman said. She's covered the costs to identify other unidentified victims in her home state."
