After 37 long years, the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office in New Mexico is able to finally able to put a name to the remains found in a shallow grave off a county road in Doña Ana County. On August 10th, 2022, 16-year-old female, Dorothy Harrison, was identified as the homicide victim found deceased in 1985. Dorothy was last seen in Wichita, Kansas during the summer of 1984 but her remains were found in March 1985.

The identification was possible due to the use of advanced DNA testing and genetic genealogy and through collaborations between NCMEC, Astrea Forensics, Innovative Forensic Investigations, and investigators from the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Office.

Carol Schweitzer, Program Manager, Forensic Services Unit at National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, shared the following in a Linkedin Post:

The NCMEC team was able to connect the Sheriff’s Office with innovative DNA technology through Astrea Forensics, and investigative genetic genealogy through Innovative Forensic Investigations. After genealogists identified the lead to Dorothy, NCMEC’s analysts provided assistance locating living relatives. NCMEC’s Family Advocate Specialist provided emotional support to the family members as they received and processed the weight of the information they were learning, and NCMEC’s Communication team guided the Sheriff’s Office through organizing the press conference.

While there are still many unknown questions surrounding Dorothy’s death, Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office is committed to getting justice for her, and we're glad NCMEC was able to be a part of the team to give Dorothy her name back.

About Astrea Forensics

Astrea Forensics™ is a Santa Cruz County based organization that was founded in 2019 by paleogeneticists to apply ancient DNA techniques and direct genome sequencing to difficult-to-solve forensic casework and the identification of human remains. Astrea’s proprietary methods make it possible to recover genetic profiles from rootless hair and other highly degraded samples that otherwise fail traditional forensic DNA testing. The Astrea™ technology will help empower law enforcement and genetic genealogy investigators in their mission to solve cold cases, and determine the identify of unknown individuals, whether days or decades old.