‘Maury County Jane Doe’ identified as Memphis teen missing since 1974

MAURY COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — After nearly five decades without answers, a woman known only as the “Maury County Jane Doe” has finally been identified.

On Wednesday, May 8, the Maury County Sheriff’s Office and DNA Doe Project announced they had successfully identified the remains as 19-year-old Annie Carolyn Jenkins of Memphis.

The teen’s remains were initially discovered on Valentine’s Day in 1975 by a couple of hunters on Joe Brown Road near I-65 in eastern Maury County. At the time, officials could only tell that she appeared to be in her late teens or early 20s and showed signs of trauma.

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Her remains were sent to the University of Tennessee Department of Anthropology in Knoxville, where they have been stored for more than 48 years. The case has been looked at multiple times over the years, but the sheriff’s office said no clues were ever discovered as to her identity.

In 2012, the case got a breath of life when Lt. Jerry Williams, who is now retired, had more forensic tests done and began re-interviewing as many people as possible. Numerous tips and leads were chased of missing persons that fit the description, but nothing matched.

Then, in 2019, investigators brought the case to the DNA Doe Project, a volunteer-driven nonprofit organization working to identify Jane and John Does, to try a new technique called investigative genetic genealogy.

Donors to the nonprofit organization funded the expensive lab work needed to produce a DNA profile from the Maury County Jane Doe’s “severely degraded remains,” officials said.

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It took the efforts of four forensic labs over three years, but by summer of 2022, there was a breakthrough. Astrea Forensics and Kevin Lord successfully created the DNA profile, and it was uploaded to GEDmatch.com, an online database used by law enforcement.

“It was particularly difficult to extract enough DNA to build a workable profile for this case,” said Kevin Lord, Director of Lab Logistics. “We worked through three samples over two years to get enough data to build a profile. Astrea Forensics really came through for us on this case.”

The volunteer investigative genetic genealogists with DNA Doe Project were able to piece together one side of the Jane Doe’s family early on in their work. However, their research stalled when they tried to find the parents on the other side of her family tree.

“We were working with too few, too distant matches—sort of like trying to do a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle with only 20 of the pieces,” said Lorrie Burns, a volunteer who has worked on the case since its beginning. “The picture was incomplete, and we couldn’t tell how they connected.”

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After more than 530 hours of genealogical research, they were eventually able to narrow the search down to a handful of the closest family members. Then, Maury County Detective Keith Wrather made contact with a woman that was the final piece of the puzzle.

The woman told authorities she had a sister who vanished in the fall of 1974 but was never officially reported missing. Her sister, Annie Jenkins, had been visiting with relatives in Chicago, and in the fall of 1974, she left on a flight bound for Tennessee.

That was the last time Jenkins’ family ever heard from her. Researchers were later able to confirm that the woman was a full sibling by DNA match.

“It’s an honor and a privilege to be a small part of this incredible team effort to return the identity of Annie Carolyn Jenkins, and to ensure that her family has some answers,” said team leader Traci Onders. “The pain of the ambiguity of a missing sister or daughter is hard to even imagine, and our hearts are with the family as they absorb the news of Annie’s loss.”

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Now that she has been identified, Jenkins’ remains will be returned to her family. Many of the people that were connected to the case in 1975 have now passed away. However, the sheriff’s office said there is still an active homicide investigation surrounding her death.

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