{"id":1314430,"date":"2024-04-16T16:11:19","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T21:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1314430"},"modified":"2024-04-18T16:31:39","modified_gmt":"2024-04-18T21:31:39","slug":"smith-county-sheriff-identifies-cold-case-victim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1314430","title":{"rendered":"Smith County Sheriff identifies 1985 cold case victim"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"TYLER\u00c2\u00a0 — On Tuesday, Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith announced that through DNA testing, skeletal remains discovered in 1985 had been identified as Sindy Gina Crow, a 27-year-old from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. According to our news partner KETK, a mowing crew discovered the skeletal remains in a brush-covered gully 75 feet from I-20 east of Highway 69 in October 1985. The crew then contacted the Lindale Police Department who got in touch with the Smith County Sheriff\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Office. During a search of the area, officials reportedly found a lady\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shirt, earrings and a watch.<\/p>\n

The remains were then reportedly taken to the Southwestern Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas for an autopsy. There, officials believed the body belonged to a white or Hispanic female approximately 25 years of age with reddish-brown hair tied in a ponytail. They estimated she was between 5 feet 5 inches \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighed around 110-125 pounds. Forensics believed, due to the condition the remains were found, they had been in the location for nearly 12-15 months and had been \u00e2\u20ac\u0153purposely concealed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The case went cold for nearly 40 years after multiple leads all failed to identify the female. In 2021, the sheriff\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office partnered with the DNA Doe Project (DDP) for assistance in identifying the Jane Doe.<\/p>\n

The DDP is a national nonprofit organization that partners with law enforcement agencies to identify John and Jane Does using investigative genetic genealogy. The DDP worked with specialty labs and produced a DNA profile that was then uploaded to ancestry databases.<\/p>\n

DDP said 15 volunteer investigative genetic genealogists worked together on a weekend in October 2023 and analyzed the DNA matches to the Jane Doe and built her family tree.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We happened to be working together in person for this case and, as the night wore on, it felt like we couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take a break until we were confident she was our candidate,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d team member Emily Bill said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ultimately, we returned to the same conclusion again and again, and we all went to bed that night knowing Gina was our Smith County Jane Doe.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

In November 2023, the DDP notified Smith County Detective David Turner, who was assigned to the case back in 1985, of the possible match relating to a white female from the Dallas Fort Worth Area.<\/p>\n

Officials said the victim had married in January 1984 and had a child in July of that year. They also discovered the daughter to be living in Alabama and with the help of the Fort Payne Police Department, investigators were able to obtain DNA from the daughter.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our team was able to build the family trees of matching DNA relatives,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rhonda Kevorkian, with the DNA Doe Project, said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Common ancestors were found amongst them suggesting that these ancestors were also in the tree of our unidentified person.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

After a positive confirmation, the sheriff\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office confirmed the daughter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s DNA to be a positive match to the Jane Doe and identified the victim as Sindy Gina Crow.<\/p>\n

The sheriff\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office said on Tuesday that the next step would be to have a proper burial, however the cause of Crow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death was not released.<\/p>\n

Turner spoke during the press release thanking the DDP for their hard work.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always said before I passed through the gates I wanted to identify her,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Turner said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Thank goodness to the DNA Doe Project. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thank them enough.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TYLER\u00c2\u00a0 — On Tuesday, Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith announced that through DNA testing, skeletal remains discovered in 1985 had been identified as Sindy Gina Crow, a 27-year-old from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. According to our news partner KETK, a mowing crew discovered the skeletal remains in a brush-covered gully 75 feet from I-20 east … Continue reading Smith County Sheriff identifies 1985 cold case victim<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":1314434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2024\/04\/SCCOLDCASE-225x195.png","fifu_image_alt":"Smith County Sheriff identifies cold case victim","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1314430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-28 01:23:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2024\/04\/SCCOLDCASE-225x195.png","fifu_image_alt":"Smith County Sheriff identifies cold case victim","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1314430"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1314660,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314430\/revisions\/1314660"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1314434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1314430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1314430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1314430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}