BREAKTHROUGH IN COLD CASE: Illinois Victim Identified as Ohio Woman After Nearly 50 Years

Officials revealed Thursday a lady was discovered dead on the side of a rural road roughly 50 miles southwest of Chicago in 1976.

The dead woman from Grundy County had gone unnamed. On Thursday, officials found JoAnne “Vicki” Smith, only twenty years old dead.

Detectives said that surviving relatives were found via her DNA. A DNA match earlier this year let officials determine the body to be Smith’s.

Her family has been wondering for almost 50 years what happened to their loved one who disappeared from their Ohio residence in 1976.

“The case went cold,” declared John Callahan, the coroner for Grundy County.

But the coroner’s office investigated once more in 2018 and the remains of the unnamed woman were exhumed. The woman’s DNA profile guided researchers to the Smith family, Ohio-born originally.

Her brother Ronnie Smith claimed, “I remember that morning she went missing.” Ronnie stated JoAnne was his older sister and the “apple of my mother’s eye.” She vanished from their Cincinnati family home in 1976 and never heard from again. Ronnie’s sister vanished when he was just eight years old.

“That wasn’t usual in our household,” Ronnie Smith stated. ” Nobody stayed late at night. That simply didn’t happen—not at my mother’s house. Nothing more terrible than to be buried in an unmarked grave seems to me.

Smith said, his attention is now on identifying the individual accountable, even though he feels closure knowing what happened to his sister.

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“We will always believe, and we will believe, that whoever perpetrated this crime against her if they are alive, they will be brought to justice,” he declared.

Back in 1976, Grundy County coroner William Button remarked on the identification as “amazing.”

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Unbelievable, I’ll tell you the truth,” Button remarked. “Because, look at what DNA’s accomplished.”

According to CBSNEWS Jo Anne “Vickie” Smith was adopted, according to investigators, and her name changed multiple times, which contributed to the difficulty of the case and finding loved ones.

Her late parents will be interred with her remains in a future service.