Georgia Woman Murdered 33 Years Ago But Never Reported Missing Finally Identified

A North Carolina cold case from 1990 has finally seen the victim identified thanks to updated forensic technology

A 33-year-old cold case in North Carolina has been solved, following a local sheriff's announcement Wednesday that the remains of a Georgia woman, whose body was found in 1990, have been identified.

According to the press release from the Orange County, North Carolina Sheriff's Office, investigators have identified the remains of Lisa Coburn Kesler, a resident of Jackson County, Georgia, who went missing more than three decades ago at the age of 20.

“Throughout the decades, some of our finest investigators kept plugging away," Orange County Sheriff Charles Blackwood said per the press release.

Local law enforcement, who believe the victim was strangled and her body dumped, spent years attempting to identify the woman's remains using traditional methods. Officials even made a bust of Kesler using forensic facial reconstruction techniques modeled from her skull.

Related: 1995 Cold Case Murder of a 14-Year-Old Atlanta Girl Solved After More Than 25 Years

"When you can’t close a case, it gets under your skin," Sheriff Blackwood continued. "You might set the file aside for a while, but you keep coming back to it, looking to see something you didn’t notice before, or hoping information gathered in ensuing cases has relevance to your cold case."

The discovery of Kesler's remains in 1990 was made by a road crew alongside Interstate 40 near the New Hope Church Road exit, about 35 miles west of Durham.

ABC11 reported that, according to investigators, Kesler's family didn't know she was missing at the time of her disappearance, noting that the victim left Georgia willingly to go to Michigan. When Kesler left Michigan, her family there believed she left willingly to return to Georgia.

In 2018, updated technology allowed investigators to circulate a digital illustration of the deceased in the hopes of identifying her, although despite their best efforts, Kesler's identity remained a mystery.

"Investigators also monitor new techniques and technologies in the field," Sheriff Blackwood explained, "which is what eventually led to the breakthrough in Ms. Kesler’s case.”

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In 2020, following two decades of the victim remaining unidentified, forensic investigators took over and began working with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation to solve the case. Updated technology allowed for a degraded hair fragment from the victim to be used for DNA extraction, which investigators were able to link to a paternal cousin of the victim using genealogy databases.

Related: Woman Who Died 37 Years Ago After Being Found Unconscious on Ga. Highway Identified as Missing Mom of 4

According to the Orange County Sheriff's Office, investigators requested DNA from a second maternal relative to Kesler, with analysis of this genetic material providing additional confirmation.

While the case remains open, authorities in North Carolina are now hoping further DNA analysis will allow them to identify Kesler's killer.

Sheriff Blackwood concluded, “I am very happy we solved the three-plus-decades-old mystery of this young woman’s identity, and I hope it provides solace to her family members. We are grateful to the many investigators, passionate volunteers, and talented professionals who assisted with this effort. I believe we collectively demonstrated the value of 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.”

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