After more than 30 years, the "Apache Junction Jane Doe" has been identified by the DNA Doe Project.
Video in the player above includes previous coverage on the "Apache Junction Jane Doe"
The DNA company put out a release Thursday, stating that "Jane Doe" has been identified as 15-year-old Melody Harrison, who was reported missing out of Phoenix in June 1992.
Apache Junction police say that since people had told the family they had seen Harrison since her disappearance, her family believed she started a new life and didn't want to go home. Harrison was ultimately removed from the missing person's database in August 1996.
Harrison's body was found near Baseline Avenue and Idaho Road on August 6, 1992. Investigators believed she had been dead for approximately 3 to 5 weeks before her body was found.
In 2018, the Apache Junction Police Department submitted Harrison's DNA to GED-match, the national public DNA database as a part of the DNA Doe Project.
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According to DNA Doe Project, it took five years to positively identify Harrison due to adoptions in the family and being of Mexican and African-American descent, "both populations that are underrepresented in the databases."
Stephanie Bourgeois, who has been investigating the case since 2008, says the Apache Junction Police Department is still trying to determine a cause of death.
“There is peace of mind having found Melody’s identity and sharing with her family, but there isn’t closure surrounding the circumstances of her death,” said Bourgeois in a release from the department. “We are still searching to find out how she might have passed away.”
Anyone with any information regarding this case is asked to contact Silent Witness at 480-WITNESS or 480-TESTIGO for Spanish speakers.
