ATLANTA — A body found on the side of a North Carolina highway decades ago has finally been identified as a Georgia woman.
Investigators with the Orange County Sheriff's Office said road crews found the body of Lisa Coburn Kesler 33 years ago. Officials announced her identity Wednesday.
According to a news release from Astrea Forensics, who powered the technology that helped identify Kesler, it is believed she was strangled and that her body was dumped along the side of Interstate 40 East near the New Hope Church Road exit. Sheriff Charles Blackwood said she was 20 years old and spent most of her life in Jackson County, Georgia.
Murdered in 1990, the emerging science of DNA could not identify the body at the time.
"Throughout the decades, some of our finest investigators kept plugging away," Blackwood said in a news release. "When you can't close a case, it gets under your skin."
It was a degraded hair fragment that was sent to the forensics company for DNA extraction. After tracking down potential family members, they were able to identify Kesler.
"I believe we collectively demonstrated the value of a dogged determination, which we will now apply to the task of identifying her killer. There is no statute of limitations on murder, and no time clock on justice," the sheriff said.
Anyone who remembers Kesler and has any recollection of her actions, habits, behaviors, hopes, associates, travel plans, etc. in August or September 1990 is asked to call Investigator Dylan Hendricks at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. His number is (919) 245-2951. People can also report anonymous tips at http://www.ocsonc.com/anonymous-tip.
