Hurricane Katrina victim identified through DNA testing nearly 2 decades later
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (WKRG) — For many, a name is one of the most distinctive things a person can have. After nearly 2 decades of being unknown, a Hurricane Katrina victim was finally reunited with her name.
Hurricane Katrina shook the Gulf Coast down to its core, claiming 236 lives. An additional 67 people were reported missing.
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Tonette Waltman Jackson, 46, also known as ‘Tonie,’ was among the victims. She was from Biloxi.
Her body was found in St. Martin one week after the storm on a concrete slab, trapped under the rubble of two houses. She was wearing a Michigan State University T-shirt. At the time, she was an unknown victim.
Recent DNA testing by Othram Inc., a Texas-based DNA laboratory, connected Jackson to the remains found under the two houses nearly 20 years ago.
In the immediate shadows of the storm, Jackson’s husband, Hardy Jackson, approached former WKRG reporter Jennifer Mayerle.
“The house just split in half,” Hardy Jackson said in 2005. “We got up in the roof, all the way to the roof, and water came in the house and just opened it up. Devoured it.”
Hardy Jackson was likely the last person to see his wife alive. He said the couple was holding onto each other before Mother Nature ripped the family apart.
“I tried. I held her hand as tight as I could and she told me, ‘You can’t hold me.’ She said, ‘Take care of the kids and the grandkids,'” Hardy Jackson said.
Although Hardy Jackson died of cancer in 2013, the efforts to find his wife continued. Much like he held his wife’s hand in her final moments, the Gulf Coast community held his hand during the search.
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“We searched for her for so long and for so many years,” Mayerle said.
Mayerle kept in contact with the Jackson family.
“We called hospitals; we searched morgues,” Mayerle said. “We did everything we could to try to find Tonie.”
Before he died, Hardy Jackson added Tonette’s name to the headstone of his daughter as way to reach some sort of closure.
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Meanwhile, Jackson’s remains were buried at the Machpelah Cemetery in Pascagoula. Her headstone displayed the name “Jane Love.”
“To know now that she was so close all these years is just heartbreaking,” Mayerle said. “What investigators had always told he family and told us was that they thought she was lost in the storm surge and that she wouldn’t be found… Didn’t know that she could have been there.”
Pascagoula Police Lt. Darren Versiga said Jackson’s body was exhumed in February for DNA samples.
Versiga said the technology used by Othram has helped identify 27 unknown human remains in Mississippi.
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“I wish Hardy would have known before he died,” Mayerle said.
Jackson’s daughter did not want to comment at this time.
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