45-year-old mystery: Genealogists working to identify Jane Doe with Clearwater and North Carolina ties

It's a mystery more than four decades in the making.

Joanne English

Joanne English

Investigators in Brevard County and the team at DNA Doe Project are trying to identify an unknown homicide victim.

About ‘Jane Doe’

The backstory:

There is not much known about this Jane Doe, but she spent some time in Clearwater in the '70s. 

Genealogists are doing what they can to create a family tree that hopefully connects her with a name and her identity.

Janel Daniels with the DNA Doe Project said the woman lived in Clearwater in the 1970s and may have stayed at a shelter called ‘The Quest.’

'The Quest' shelter in Clearwater.

'The Quest' shelter in Clearwater.

In October 1980, her body was found along a rural road in Brevard County, a few hours away.

She had been shot in the head. 

"She was estimated to be about 21, 25 years of age, maybe as old as 30. She had brown hair, but the roots of her hair were black," said Daniels. 

Investigators learned that about a week before she was killed, she had been arrested in the Clearwater area and taken to the Pinellas County Jail.

‘Jane Doe’s’ real identity

But she gave them the fake name of Joanne English, a fake date of birth, and a fake social security number. 

That’s where the trail went cold. 

"It's a pretty challenging case," said Daniels. "We want to give her back her name, her identity, and (the) dignity that she deserves."

About Joanne English

Using publicly available DNA on GedMatch, they are meticulously piecing together fragments of her story, working through distant relatives and genealogical records.

They’ve traced a branch of her family tree to Anson County, North Carolina.

Snapshot of GEDMatch's website.

Snapshot of GEDMatch's website.

"If we had some better matches of maybe people would consider uploading to that match or (using) their DNA, we could find closer connections," she said. "They lived on this earth. They deserved their name back."

Community help

What you can do:

Daniels is hoping someone in the area may recognize her.

The homicide also remains an open, cold case.

Being able to identify her could be a key piece in trying to catch her killer.

The Source: FOX 13's Genevieve Curtis collected the information in this story

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