Family members of Tiffany Nelson, the girl who vanished without a trace from an Augusta gas station 11 years ago, can finally stop wondering what happened.
But the job of finding who killed the 9-year-old is just beginning.
It's a mystery we intend to solve," said Sgt. Richard Roundtree, of the Richmond County Sheriff's Office. His agency is assisting the Burke County Sheriff's Office and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in the homicide investigation.
On Friday, the GBI concluded DNA test results of skeletal remains suspected to be Tiffany's matched mitochondrial DNA samples taken from female members from her mother's family, said Gary Nicholson, the special agent in charge of the GBI's Thomson office.
Although the test results do not positively prove the remains belong to Tiffany, the fact that they are those of a young child and have been buried for the same amount of time that Tiffany has been missing indicate she finally has been found, he said.
"There's very, very strong evidence that it is her," Agent Nicholson said.
The GBI is reviewing the 11-year-old missing person case, which became a homicide investigation once the bones were discovered May 16 in a wooded area off Farmers Bridge Road in Burke County, he said.
Citing the ongoing investigation, Agent Nicholson would not say whether authorities had developed a list of suspects, but said officials are looking at all the information brought forward in the case during the years. He also would not discuss how Tiffany might have died.
According to Sgt. Roundtree, Richmond County sheriff's deputies treated Tiffany's June 6, 1994, disappearance as a missing persons case and therefore had no reason to suspect foul play.
"There were no suspects developed back then," he said.
Tiffany was last seen that day filling the tires of her ten-speed bike at a convenience store at Lumpkin and Richmond Hill roads.
Family, friends and law enforcement searched Getzen Street, where Tiffany lived with her aunt, Ora Parrish, and surrounding neighborhoods, but the little girl was never found.
According to a June 8, 1994, article in The Augusta Chronicle, a woman called investigators after her 11-year-old grandson claimed to have seen Tiffany the afternoon she vanished in the Barton Chapel area.
The woman said the boy told her he saw Tiffany sitting in the back seat of a car driven by a man wearing a hat , the article said.
That lead was a dead end.
Ten days after Tiffany disappeared, officials brought in cadaver dogs to search but found nothing.
Family members have waited for more than a month to receive official verification that Tiffany had been found. But Georgia Kelly, 21, a cousin and playmate of Tiffany's, said the family knew from the beginning the remains belonged to Tiffany.
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