Police have finally been able to identify a mysterious Jane Doe whose remains were discovered by a driver in March 1985.
Michelle Lavone Inman vanished from her Nashville, Tennessee home two to five months before she was discovered near a creek in Cheatham County.
And it took nearly 40 years, and considerable advances in DNA testing techniques, before police were finally able to put a name to the remains detectives had come to refer to as Jane Doe.
The only identifying marks they found at the time the body was discovered were a white collared shirt decorated with small red flowers and a baseball cap featuring tropical imagery.
The cause of death was never confirmed but police have long believed the 24-year-old was murdered.
The investigation laid cold for decades, and an earlier attempt to identify the unnamed victim failed.
The University of Tennessee Forensic Anthropology Center initially tried to find a match in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) but to no avail.
In December 2022 Tennessee detectives sent her DNA to Othram Inc, a private lab specialized in genealogical research and testing.
The scientists were ultimately able to locate relatives of the unidentified woman in Virginia and tested a man believed to be her brother for a match.
According to DNASolves: “Agents contacted a Virginia man who confirmed that he had a sister whom he had not heard from in more than four decades.
“Agents obtained a reference DNA sample from the man to be compared against the victim’s DNA profile. The reference sample was returned to Othram for additional DNA testing and for comparison to the unknown woman’s DNA profile.
“This testing confirmed a sibling relationship between the man and Cheatham County Jane Doe, subsequently confirming the identity of the woman as Michelle Lavone Inman.”
While the cause of death has never been confirmed, police listed Inman’s case as a homicide.
Anyone with information about the 24-year-old’s whereabouts in the days leading to her death has been urged to contact the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI-FIND.
Follow our social media accounts here on facebook.com/ExpressUSNews and @expressusnews
