A Huntington woman is looking to raise $4,400 to identify a woman who was found dead in a Fort Wayne home more than 30 years ago.
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A Huntington woman is looking to raise $4,400 to identify a woman who was found dead in a Fort Wayne home more than 30 years ago.
Lisa Needler, co-founder of IGGnite DNA, hopes the money will cover necessary lab work to uncover Mary Jane Doe’s true identity. Doe, who was later found to be pregnant when she died, has remained unidentified since she was found in the flooded basement of a Fort Wayne home in 1992.
When it was found, not much of Doe’s body was left because water in the basement had drastically sped up decomposition, according to Allen County Deputy Coroner Chris Meihls. Discovering the woman’s identity has been difficult because of the lack of information available.
The information available has led to some success.
And that’s where Needler hopes to come in.
Needler said she first became interested in the case when she read a Journal Gazette news story from April about the county’s unidentified decedents and recognized Meihls’ name from previous cases he had been involved with. The locality stood out to her, she said, and working on a local case would be special.
“It’s always an honor to be able to be some sort of help for these agencies,” Needler said. “But to be on something that would be local to me would be even more important.”
Doe’s local tie, Needler said, makes her want to work even harder to identify her.
“Every case is important. For every person that’s unidentified, somebody is out there and either doesn’t know that person is missing or doesn’t realize that their family member may be laying there somewhere waiting to be identified,” Needler said. “But when you bring it closer to home, or in a city you’ve lived in, there’s a personal tie to that.”
“She may have shopped at the same grocery store; she may have been a part of your family or friends, or possibly your coworkers, family and friends.”
Doe was likely between the ages of 20 and 25 and in the second or third trimester of pregnancy. Her remains indicate she was likely 4-foot-6 to 5-foot-2 and possibly had an altered posture or back pain.
Likely with blonde or light brown hair, Doe was found with a gray or light blue Windcrest jacket, a knit shirt with white and dark–colored cross stripes, a black bra and white underwear, black sweatpants, size 10 pink Reebok tennis shoes and two gold-colored necklaces – one braided and the other with three star charms.
Evidence found in the basement suggests the woman was transient at the time of her death, which most likely happened in late 1991 or early 1992.
IGGnite DNA is a Hartford, Connecticut-based company that assists law enforcement agencies with cases, including unidentified victims, by offering Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy services. IGGnite DNA also provides Genetic Genealogy consulting services to people, including adoptees, searching for family members or seeking answers related to their ancestry.
As a female-owned business, IGGnite’s team also felt it would be important to work on Doe’s case because she was pregnant at the time of her death, Needler said.
“Most of us are mothers and when somebody is carrying a child, that’s when they should be the most protected,” Needler said. “That’s what makes her case even more tragic.”
So, Needler decided to ask Meihls what could be done. What she found was a need for funding lab work and uploading the DNA file to workable databases.
With the work completed, Needler and her team would be able to give their time to the cause. IGGnite DNA would try to find connections between the unidentified woman and others with DNA in the database to track down relatives of Doe.
“Once we get that file in one of those databases, we can start building genealogical trees with records,” Needler said. “That way we can try to build a family tree that would eventually lead to who this Mary Jane Doe is.”
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