Skeletal remains discovered alongside a Texas highway nearly four decades ago have been identified as belonging to a mother whose death was a cold case mystery.
The Smith County Sheriff’s Office and the DNA Doe Project announced on Tuesday that bones a highway mowing crew found in October 1985 matched Sindy Gina Crow.
Crow was a 27-year-old wife and mother-of-one when she mysteriously died. She had been dead for about 14 months when her remains were found, investigators believe.
Her cause of death is still unknown, but the identification is a breakthrough in the longstanding cold case.
‘We were all in tears,’ said Rebecca Somerhalder, an investigative genetic genealogist with the DNA Doe Project, told WFAA.
‘It was quite a moment.’
The nonprofit project determined that the remains were of a white woman aged 20 to 25, 5’5″ to 5’7″ tall, and 110 to 125 pounds. That was entered into two consumer websites, GEDmatch Pro and FTDNA, and volunteers with the project created a family tree.
In November, the project found a potential lead to identify the remains and gathered DNA from possible family members. The samples were studied at UNT Fort Worth and identified as Crow.
‘Multiple leads in the last 38 years failed to identify the young female,’ stated Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith on Tuesday.
‘We feel that it is our obligation that she gets a proper burial.’
Crow’s husband has since died, and her daughter resides in Alabama. Crow’s last address was in Arlington.
Her father said he feared she had been murdered by a serial killer.
‘He said she hitchhiked all the time, and he felt like Ted Bundy got her,’ said Detective David Turner.
Crow was identified about six months after DNA evidence led to the arrest of a man in the cold case murder, also 40 years ago, of former California beauty queen Noelle Russo.
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