Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Teen Girl Body Dumped off I-65, Haunts Sheriff

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

The body of Margaret "Maggie" Sniegowski is found by a farmer, dumped along a central Indiana highway.  Police say the teen had been dead for several days. At the time, however, no one knew who the girl was and it would be 20 years before the 17-year-old was identified,  thanks to DNA technology.  Boone County Coroner Justin Sparks said an autopsy ruled her cause of death as undetermined.  Sheriff Mike Nielsen said there were indications Sniegowski may have been strangled. The focus now is to find who killed her.   Joining Nancy Grace Today: Sheriff Mike Nielsen - Boone County Sheriff’s Office (Boone County, IN) David Mittleman - DNA Expert, CEO: Othram Inc, www.othram.com Jim Elliott - Of Counsel, Butler Snow LLP, www.butlersnow.com, Instagram: JimElliott1957 Dr. Jorey Krawczyn [KRAW-ZIN] - Psychologist (Panama City Beach, FL), Adjunct Faculty with Saint Leo University; Research Consultant with Blue Wall Institute, Author: "Operation S.O.S. - Practical Recommendations to Help “Stop Officer Suicide”, bw-institute.com Dr. Tim Gallagher - Medical Examiner State of Florida PathcareMed.com, Lecturer: University of Florida Medical School Forensic Medicine, Founder/Host: International Forensic Medicine Death Investigation Conference  Richard Essex - Investigative Reporter, WISH-TV, Twitter: @RichardEssexIII, Facebook: RichardEssexTV See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Imagine this, a teen girl, a teen girl. I have a teen girl. A teen girl. I have a teen girl. This teen girl dumped by the side of the interstate. Her body discovered

and in years past the case never solved. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to our friends at WRTV. Investigators in Boone County are not giving up on a 22-year-old unsolved mystery.

They hope this new sketch will help identify a woman found dead in Lebanon in 1992. A farmer found the woman's body at the bottom of a hill near I-65 and State Road 47. Police believe she was between 17 and 22 years old when she died. She was around 5 foot 6 with short reddish brown hair. The woman had a tattoo that said mom, one that said love, and a tattoo with two hearts on her right breast. If you have any information about the case, call the Boone County Sheriff at 865-482-1412. Imagine a teen girl thrown by the side of the interstate like she's trash. I have flown up and down the interstate a million times and seen somebody in front of me typically throw out trash.

And it always irritates me because I hate litter bugs. These people dump out a teen girl and leave her on the side of I-65. And then to add insult to injury, to rub salt in the wound, no one can identify the girl. Years pass. Somewhere out there, someone is missing. A daughter, a sister, a granddaughter. Again, I'm Nancy Grayson. This is Crime Stories.

And I want to thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Series 6 and 111. Also joining us, an incredible panel to break down what we know right now. First of all, DNA expert, the CEO of Authoram Inc., David Middleman. Jim Elliott, high-profile lawyer joining us out of Warner Robins, Georgia, with Butler Snow LLP. Dr. Jory Crawson, renowned psychologist joining us, faculty at St. Leo University and author of Operation SOS. Dr. Tim Gallagher, the medical examiner for the state of Florida

at PathCareMed.com. Also, professor at University of Florida Medical School of Forensic Medicine and the founder and host of the international forensic medicine death investigation conference now that's a good time joining me the founder and director of the cold case research institute you can find her at coldcase.org cheryl mccullum weighing in but first I want to go to investigative reporter with WISH-TV. You know him well, Richard Essex. Richard, tell me about the discovery of this girl's body.

Well, this is my own county. This happened when I was in my late 20s. I remember this very, very clearly. We didn't have this type of crime in our county. It was very, very rare. So 1992, Farmer is out inspecting his fields and he comes across a human leg sticking out of a creek. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, Richard Essex. Okay.

You got me drinking from the fire hydrant. You got to slow it down. I bet you've told this story and thought about this story. I mean, Cheryl McCollum, when we weren't trying cases together, I was thinking about the case and talking about the case ad nauseum to anybody that I would come in contact with. Do you remember that? Oh, absolutely. Nancy, I can remember you spreading the case file out and looking at every single page and every single detail. And we'd talk about it over and over and over until you had it as clear as anybody could understand that case. Over and over and over.

So Richard Essex joining me, investigative reporter WISH-TV. Oh, you can find him on Twitter at Richard Essex the third. Richard, so slow down because I know not only have you reported on this, you've studied it and probably thought about it a million times. Was the farmer on his tractor or not? And I've got a reason for asking. I think he was on foot. On foot. Because, you know,

you can go on foot in places where you can't reach with a tractor. So, he's on foot and he sees a leg protruding from, was it the earth, or did you say a creek? It was from a creek. Okay, go ahead. And at that time, things like this were very, very unusual in Boone County.

We're north of Indianapolis, and on occasion you would have a body would be dumped in some of the rural areas. But along Interstate 65, in a somewhat public area, very unusual. Now, you're saying, did you say Interstate 55 or 65? 65. Okay, good. Okay, I got that part right. Where does 65 run, Richard Essex?

It runs right through the center of the state. I mean, we are the crossroads of America, as you probably well know. And this runs right through my home county from the southeast corner to the northwest corner. Okay, let me understand something. We're talking about Boone County, Indiana. That is where Richard is joining us from where Richard is joining us. You know, I've made this analogy, this point to a jury a million times. And I'll be talking about, for instance, drug murders and drug trafficking. I-75 goes from Florida, where the dope comes in at the port, all the way up to New York City. And Atlanta is the first big, big stop along 75, hence the high crime rate in Atlanta. So, Richard, you're saying 65, I-65 goes all the way across Indiana.

It's a state route? Oh, yeah. It's a I-65 runs almost all the way down, well, almost into tennessee and ah okay gotcha and my point for asking that uh and joining me right now is sheriff mike nielsen boone county sheriff joining us from indiana sheriff thank you so much for being with us and we're just talking about i-65 so bottom line when a body is discovered by a local farmer that could have been near i-65 that could have been any anybody from tennessee all the way up to the tip of indiana yes ma'am this is one of those uh interstates that um travel it's a main

interstate between chicago and indianapolis So we see a lot of human trafficking. We see a lot of drug running. We do everything that we can to try to curb that. And this was one of those cases back in that time period. Jim Elliott, joining me, high-profile lawyer out of Warner Robins, Georgia. Jim, that makes solving the case that much more difficult. Because unless someone can visually ID this girl, this teen girl thrown off I-65, don't know how much she had been decomposed, but let's just pretend she wasn't decomposed.

If nobody can ID her, then you're left with a Jane Doe teen girl that could have been dumped by anybody up and down the interstate from Tennessee to the tip of Indiana. Well, of course, I mean, just a highly traveled area. I mean, that's the perfect place for someone to dump a body, whatever, and then take off. And I mean, you got to think about it too, Jim Elliott. The idea of someone, I mean, when I drive by a car stopped on the side of the interstate and your neck of the woods, it'd be 75 or maybe even 16. I don't think anything about it. I think they've just pulled over because they're tired or they're eating or they've got a tire problem. I don't think, hey, they're out in

the woods dumping a body. So there could have been a million witnesses or no witnesses, Jim Elliott. Well, you know, and it was right at, I believe, an entrance exit ramp. And so again, someone could have easily pulled off, done whatever they chose to do. And then as the sheriff shared with us, taken off north or south. You know what? That's a really good point. That's why you win all those cases, Jim Elliott, because he's right, Cheryl. Entry, exit. That makes it a whole nother can of worms. That's somebody that intentionally pulled off the interstate at that spot and dumped a body. No question about it. And in that area, you're talking about a situation that was probably very, very fast. But when he came into contact with her in Ohio to Indiana,

you're talking about several hours in a vehicle together. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. You know, just think about it. Somebody's little sister, somebody's daughter, thrown on the side of the road like trash. To Dr. Jory Croson, joining us, renowned psychologist, faculty, St. Leo University, and author. Dr. Jory, that's just a whole other mindset to first kill somebody because if she died of natural or accidental, then rush her to 911, right? That's what I always say about Tot Mom and Kelly. If she really died in the pool in the backyard,

the father, George Anthony, former cop, would rush her to the hospital, right? Or call 911. He wouldn't go, oh, wow, I'll just put her in a trash bag and throw her in the woods. No, that's why this teen girl's body is disposed of. Because she died of a nefarious reason. She was murdered. But think about it, Dr. Jory Crawson. Not only is it the mindset of killing somebody, but then throwing them out like trash. Just push them out of the car and keep going. Well, the other part of that mindset is looking for the perfect place in their mind to dispose of the body.

That's smart. Okay. And so you look at, and I saw the pictures, you can see the off ramp, and it's not a very well-traveled spot being in the country, and also plus if it were at night, secluded by the darkness. But still, the perpetrators got to get that body out quickly and be gone. And that's still a part of his operational pattern, his behavior. Or not.

If it's 2 o'clock in the morning, they may not feel that they're in so much of a hurry. I will never forget the story it's a case it's not a story david eisenhower is the defendant the little girl nicole lovell had just been thrown out of the car and they had wiped her body down with like alcohol wipes and then just thrown her out and i always always think of this little, I believe she was 13 years old when she was murdered by this college guy that had started a sex affair with this little girl. And I think of her body lying out on the side of the road, discuss it than Richard Essex with Wish WISH-TV and special guest Sheriff Mike Nielsen, the Boone County Sheriff. Sheriff, what was it like at the time when this little girl's body was found? How

did you first learn about it? Well, we had pagers back then and I was paged out for road coverage. I'd been a police officer at that time for about seven years. And it was interesting to show up at the scene and see the devastation. It was really one of the first major violent crimes that I had ever encountered because it's such a rural area. So it was quite traumatic, not only for the fireman that found her, the farmer that found her, but also just moving on and trying to put yourself in the shoes of her parents, her brothers and sisters, and just trying to figure out who this person was. Was she clothed or unclothed? Partially clothed, had a top on and underwear and some socks.

Which means she was probably raped. Don't know that. We, the autopsy did not reveal that, but we feel that that probably was the case. Sheriff, if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck and it looks like a duck, I typically would suggest to a jury,

it is a duck. So Richard Essex, reporter, Wish wish tv how long has she been out there she's been out there for a couple of days if i remember correctly so the temp at that time she's found may 3 i'm sure it was extremely warm sheriff nielsen with me when you saw the body, was she decomposed? She was partially decomposed at that time. And the autopsy was hard to be at. But yeah, she was partially decomposed at that time, Nancy. Can you still picture this in your mind, Sheriff? Oh, like it was yesterday. Like it was yesterday. And that's the whole thing that we see things in law enforcement that are traumatic events.

And, you know, it has a long-lasting effect on us. I've always wondered this, and I've talked to you, Cheryl McCollum, about it quite a bit. I still have in my head murder cases, rape cases, child molestation cases like they were yesterday. And the victims and the witnesses all seem just as real to me right now as they were at the time when I was meeting with them and talking to their families. Autopsy photos in my mind, crime scenes in my mind.

It never goes away. When you say when you got there, Sheriff Mike Nielsen, that you could tell she was partially decomposed. What do you mean by that? What did you observe? Well, when she was dumped like trash, one of the things that happened was her face was face down in a puddle of water. And with the heat over those few days and that water, her face was fairly decomposed. And there was some other exposure to the elements that made it obvious to us that she had been there for a few days. Dr. Tim Gallagher, Medical Examiner, State of Florida at PathCareMed.com.

I think what he's trying to say in a nice way is bug activity. And that itself is a euphemism. That's when bugs and animals start eating you, eating your flesh. And it's not anything I ever want to talk about with my children. Or let's just say we're not talking about it over the supper table. But this is a murder and these are the facts. Whether we like them or not, this is the truth. That is true, Nancy.

So Dr. Gallagher, the fact that there may be, as I like to say, bug insect activity, that's actually very probative. For instance, certain types of fly, blowflies, take X number of hours to incubate. So if you find a body with that type of insect festering there, you can tell how long the bugs have been there and age back to the time of their murder. Or it helps you anyway. It's somewhat of a gauge. So now that we've learned from the sheriff, Sheriff Mike Nielsen, that her face was down in the water, how difficult is that going to be to get a COD cause of death or make an identification? And why the hay didn't they do a rape kit?

Well, it's difficult to say why they didn't do one back in the day when they got her. They may have actually done one, but it may not have been processed or her DNA could be on some shelf somewhere. But you're right, Nancy, being outdoors, being in an area that has moisture, water, you are very prone to insect activity, insect scavenging. Insects, typically blow blow flies usually find you within an hour or two after you die and start laying their eggs on these soft and moist parts of your body and they take a couple of hours to hatch and after the eggs hatch the larvae do go through growth phases and growth spurts that a forensic entomologist or bug expert can narrow down how many hours these maggots are in age and then track down when the time of the murder was.

So that would be a forensic entomologist. And they do very good work there at the University of Florida at Dr. Bird's lab. They really do. Sheriff Nilsen, can I ask you something? How long have you been the elected sheriff? I've been the elected sheriff for eight years. But at this time, you were a police officer? I was. I was a sheriff's deputy back then. I started off my career at a little town of Zionsville here in 1983 and went to the sheriff's department in 1989. So I was around with the sheriff's office for a couple of years before this body was found. So you were a sheriff, not a police officer? I was a deputy sheriff. I am the current elected sheriff now.

Right. Yes. Yes. Thank you. When you saw the girl and you saw her face, did you believe that she could be identified visually? No, ma'am. and that's one of those things that um again it's like it happened yesterday i can i can still see that i can still see the autopsies and and people that are in public safety um can relate to that fact you never forget those types of uh of scenes but we knew that it was going to be a challenge at that time uh early stages of dna those types of things we knew it was going to be a challenge at that time. Early stages of DNA, those types of things, we knew it was going to be a challenge to try to identify her.

We just didn't know that it was, you know, 30 years later, we'd still be trying to solve. You know, to David Middleman joining me, DNA expert and CEO of Authram Inc. And you can find them at authram, O-T-H-R-A-M.com. David, Cheryl McCollum, I don't know if you're here for this, if you were in the courtroom with me at that time, but I remember when I had my first DNA trial, I was just thrilled about DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid, sharing it with the jury. And I told the crime

lab scientists, I'm like, bring all those, I guess, slides and pictures. I'm going to show them to the jury. And they went, are you sure? And I'm like, yes, I'm sure. I'm not hiding anything from a jury. The last time I tried to obscure something from a jury, and the only time I might add, I didn't want the jury to know one of my victims of armed robbery was a stripper out at 2 a.m. just as a cheerleader. And I thought, well, I just won't mention it. Well, the moment she walked in, everybody knew she was a strim. just as a cheerleader and I thought well I just won't mention it well the moment she walked

in everybody knew she was a stripper so I basically had to spit that out at the get-go I was afraid they would judge her and not like her as it turned out they liked her just fine I was the only one with a problem David Middleman so I got the DNA scientist to bring all those slides and it just looked like bad negatives. It was awful. It really, I don't know how you guys do it, but if the jury saw, it just looks like a lot of strings of dots. And I looked at that and I thought, what was I thinking? Believe me, I got those down off the stand as quickly as I could, David Middleman. So this is all done under a microscope and through testing, correct? Yes, it's all tiny, tiny, tiny pieces of bits of evidence. It's all molecular, and you use a lot of high-powered equipment like microscopes to do the work.

Did you say molecular? Yes, like tiny little molecules you can't even see. Yes, that was the picture. That was the picture. That was the picture I tried to show the jury. And, of course, I had it blown up at my own expense because you know the county can't afford that. And I took one look at it, and I knew my $97 had been wasted. Sheriff, have you ever called families to the morgue, Sheriff? Oh, absolutely, all the time.

And this was the heart-wrenching piece of this because we had no idea who this, we assumed she was a young woman at the time, between 17 and 24. As we looked at that, we had nobody to tell. And that was pretty devastating for the entire team. Is it real, Dr. Tim Gallagher? We always see it in movies and on TV where the family's brought in to identify the dead person. Does that still happen, or do we usually use DNA or dental x-rays? No, we don't allow them to come into the morgue any longer. We've had a couple of incidences where their emotions overcame them and emergency services had to be

called. But typically what we'll do is we'll take a facial picture of them, a very high resolution digital picture of their face or any unique part of their body, such as a tattoo, and then present that to the family in a controlled environment in the main conference room of the facility. Praise the Lord in heaven for that. I don't think I could have taken that when my fiance was murdered, having to go identify his body. So here, what do we've got on our hands? A teen girl thrown off I-65 down an embankment like she's trash,

found by a farmer out searching his land. And, of course, that's who usually becomes the first suspect, the one who finds the body. But of course, that led to nothing. So we're left with an unidentified teen girl. So what do we do next? Take a listen to Hour Cut 5. This is Jesse Wells at Fox 59.

One year after her death, detectives made a clay mold of the woman's face. In 2018, facial reconstruction images were released. And last year, a forensic artist released the newest sketch of the victim. So to you, Sheriff Nielsen, one year after discovery of the body, detectives make a clay mold of the woman's face. Then a couple of years later, they do a facial reconstruction image using a forensic artist. Were you there when that happened? Yes, actually, we had to exhume the body in order to get pieces of the body at that time, specifically the skull, to send to Michigan to be able to get that sculpture done at the time.

And that sat in our lobby for years and years and years until it started to degrade. You mean the clay mold of her face? Yes, it started to degrade. Oh, my stars. You know, Cheryl McCollum, that is a lot of hard work. Getting a clay mold made of her face, having her body exhumed, then a facial reconstruction image, then a forensic artist releasing newest sketch of the victim. That's a lot of work to get the idea on this girl.

It's a ton of work, and it's, you know, very delicate work. But Nancy, you know, they didn't know where she had come from. They knew when age rang 17 to 24, but they didn't know if she was from Kansas or Michigan or Florida. They had no idea how she had gotten to Indiana. It could have been a truck stop or a kidnapping or she had been, runaway that came across her killer. They didn't know who she was. Dr. Tim Gallagher, when you exhume a body that has, of course, been embalmed, the facial characteristics should not be changed, correct? Right. The soft tissue of the face is going to be highly degraded,

but that's not what the artists use. They use the bone structure to develop the their impression of what the soft tissue must look like and then compiling all that together will give you a representation of what their face looks like and what do you make the mold out of i'm sure it's not just regular clay what or is it well it actually is. It's actually a modeling clay that's got a little more texture to it than you would for most things, but it does, in fact, degrade over time, and that's why we like to take these digital high-resolution photographs of the modeling clay representation so when it does degrade you will still have other things to fall back on is uh it like for instance the figures that madam

says oh that's wax actually yeah well why don't they use wax if that's better um well you know these people who do the reconstruction are artists i mean and so they work in their medium and uh and so traditionally they've been trained in the clay medium. So I can't speak to why they don't use wax right now. Dr. Gallagher, trust me, I'm not going to interfere with the artistic temperament. Okay. I'm just a JD. I know nothing about, nothing from wax to clay, but just I'll let them do their thing. But, you know, I just wonder to Dr. Jory Cross, and her family somewhere has no idea that this body is being exhumed, and they're putting clay over her face to try to figure out who she is. Yeah, one thing I thought about is the unknown

that the family is going through, and, you know, they're're grieving but they're still wondering there's so much ambiguity there's so much unknown there and how they're dealing with it and processing it horribly i'm sure eventually they're going to just probably just shut down and try to move forward that's a sad day when you have to shut down and not feel it anymore. Sheriff Nielsen, how much did it bother you when you, so you got this clay mold made of her face and you had it out in the lobby where people would have to see it when they would walk by

including you. Every day you would see the face of this unidentified teen girl when you would walk in and out. Nancy, I think that's what kept me motivated. I think knowing that that was there every single day just tugged at my heartstrings, knowing that there was a parent, there was a brother, there was a sister, there was a

grandpa, grandma out there that had no idea where this person was. And I think that that motivation really kept me going on this case until I was able to open it back up in 2015. It was just that motivation, seeing that every single day, Nancy. Dr. Gallagher, in modern day, do we keep DNA at the crime lab on unidentified Jane Doe's and John Doe's so at some point we can continue trying to identify them? We certainly do. And as the years have gone by,

we've increased our ability to preserve the DNA. We now know that it has to be in a dry and very cool environment and on certain media. Watman paper is typically what we use. And it can be preserved for decades and decades in perfect form and then examined very, very far into the future to help solve future cold cases. Sheriff Mike Nielsen, joining me from Boone County, is the elected sheriff there who was a deputy sheriff at the time this girl's body was

found partially decomposed every day he'd walk by a clay mold of her face and wonder who is this girl when did you get the idea to try and get a DNA match sheriff well I'll tell you what I became the elected sheriff in 2015 and at that point in time, it wasn't soon after that, that I met with my command staff and said, we owe it to this girl, we owe it to the family to try to identify her. And Ace is going to take top priority. And not long after I took office, we exhumed her body for the second time, Nancy. Oh, dear Lord in heaven. Jim Elliott joining me out of Warner Robins, Georgia, high-profile lawyer there. Jim, it is no easy thing to get an exhumation done. No, nor should it be. I mean, that's a very delicate process. So, you know, the standards are very high to provide a compelling argument why that

should happen. Let's take a listen to our cut to our friend, Sheriff Mike Nielsen. I am pleased to announce at this press conference significant investigative progress in the 1992 Jane Doe case. I am proud to announce today that the investigation will be transitioning from identifying Jane Doe to an active homicide investigation. We will now focus on finding her killer and working hard to find out who dumped her body along an on-ramp on I-65 and State Road 47 30 years ago on May 3rd next month. We have positively identified who we have come to know as Jane Doe and can now call her Margaret Ann Stigowski, also known as Maggie by her family from Toledo, Ohio at the time. When Maggie was found, she was found one month prior to her 18th birthday. And our cut three. This is Maggie's biological brother.

The thing that stings about this the most, other than the fact that she's not here, is that my parents didn't get the closure while they were alive. And my mother lived with it for the rest of her life. It's, you know, to me, it's a little bittersweet. I mean, I'm happy. It doesn't seem like it because I'm crying, but I'm happy. I'm happy for my sister. One last thing to wonder about and worry with, is she okay? You know, I always wondered if she was abducted and sex trafficking or something and being abused

or something. And all that's gone. And little did I know that she had been found a long, long, long time ago. And little did Maggie's family know that for years and years, one man never gave up, Sheriff Mike Nielsen, the Boone County elected sheriff. Sheriff, do you remember getting the news that there was a DNA identification of Maggie? Oh, my goodness. I was elated, yes. And in fact, when I got that news, Maggie was buried in our Popper Cemetery for all those years, which is right out in front of our jail and administrative office, along with about 100 other folks that are buried there, some of them unidentified. But this is the

main one that I went out to visit her on Mark Grave that day. And for the first time, I got to call her Maggie. And it was one of the most highlighted parts of my career, Nancy. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. David Middleman, DNA expert, the CEO of AuthRAM Inc. You know, David, when you hear the people that are involved in the cases that you see through a microscope, it's just got to be the most encouraging thing to know how much what you do means to people. It means the world to us.

And it was heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time to hear the words from her brother at the press conference and to know that this was important and that there's now going to be action taken to try to figure out what happened and who was responsible. David Middleman joining me, Authoram Inc. How do you make this type of DNA analysis with degraded DNA? Well, there's two steps. The first step is, you know, as many of you already discussed, we're working with DNA that's just in terrible shape. All forensic DNA is hard to work with, but this is DNA that's just particularly hard. So we've developed new methods that allow us to get information from DNA, even when it's failed every other method. And we generally only work on cases if they've already failed every other method. And the second part of it is that we use things like familial matching, genealogical research.

Those are like the family trees you might use to find your relatives. We use this kind of techniques adapted for forensics to help find the nearest relatives to these unknown. Because something people don't know is the CODIS system is very powerful for solving crimes and for catching the bad guys. But it was never designed to tackle this problem of the unidentified. This 17-year-old girl is not a criminal. She was not in CODIS. So what do you do for the unidentified? CODIS wasn't designed for them.

There's no tools available. If you can't recognize them, there's really no recourse but to use DNA testing and try to find a family link. the brains behind Othram Inc. who every day brings closure and I don't know if there is any such thing as closure but at least brings answers to grieving families. To Sheriff Nielsen,

what can you tell me about Maggie's family? Well, I met Maggie's brother. I split up two teams, investigative teams. One went to Ohio to track down her sister, and one went to Texas to track down her brother. I got to tell you that Orthram has been great to work with. There's been this team that's worked on this over the years, and especially Orthram has been awesome to work with

and they provided this lead and once we got the the DNA match from them again we were ecstatic but it was the beginning of trying then to track down the family members and we were able to do that and the first time I met her brother was when I knocked on his office door in Texas, and it was very emotional. He thought he was in trouble. As I'm 6'7", about 290 pounds, and I show up in a suit and a badge, and he thought he was in trouble for some reason. as we walked back into his office and sat down with him and his fiance to explain why we were there, emotions overcame both him and I. And we shed a lot of tears that day and a lot of communication. But that was the first time I had met any of Maggie's family. To you, Jim Elliott, high profile lawyer out of Warner Robins, who's

also been, I believe, the city attorney as well. You know, Jim Elliott, it kind of makes me keep going because we are so often disillusioned by elected officials. They cheat, they scam, they embezzle, they only care about getting themselves reelected. And then when you hear someone who actually cares about their job, who's suffering over a case every single day, and who goes personally to meet the family, that is so encouraging to me to keep trying. And I know you have certainly seen your share of naughty politicians. You know, you're right, Nancy. And as we heard today, I mean, I think, you know, that these unsolved matters tend to haunt a lot of people. and officers who retire go back to do volunteer work for their agency because they never have the time to properly or to their mind investigate to the fullest extent possible some of these unsolved cases. I'm impressed with people that could dedicate themselves to do that.

And I've got to say, Sheriff Nielsen never gave up. You know, Cheryl McCollum, you and I at CrimeCon were highlighting an unsolved murder. And you see firsthand every day how victims' families suffer. Now we've got an ID on Maggie, but we don't know who murdered her. Right. Well, I just want to piggyback about Sheriff Nelson first too, Nancy, and what I respect what he did. As technology advanced, he went back.

He didn't just say, well, we've got an autopsy, it's undetermined, and I'm done. He didn't exhume her once. He exhumed her twice. So when the clay forensic artistry didn't work of her facial recognition, he went back and got isotopes. He went back and got DNA. He did everything he knew to do. And then even with that DNA, went to Dr. Middleman at Orthram. I mean, that's what you have to do with these cases.

And I have a mantra, every tool on every case, every time. There's no reason not to go back. And even if your budget doesn't allow it, there are some people that will help you raise money and donate money to get these testing done. Sheriff Nielsen, why do you believe that this is a homicide? I mean, obviously to me that she's thrown on the side of the road, partially naked, tells me that she was sex assaulted and murdered.

But what do you think the COD is going to end up being, Sheriff? Well, we've always thought that she was probably strangled because she was in the water. That was really hard to find ligature marks and those types of things. But we're very confident that it's a homicide and that she was dumped there. And there's a lot of reasons behind that. And as I said in the press release, this is now a homicide investigation. And I hope that I have faith and we're going to continue that commitment to Maggie and to Lenny and the rest of the family that we're going to solve. We're going to solve this case

and we're going to find out who did this all these years after. This girl, all the way from Toledo, ends up in Boone County, Indiana. Her body does anyway. She was one of eight children. And her mom died before she ever knew what happened to Maggie. She was murdered, we now know, one month before her 18th birthday. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace Crumstory signing off.

Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Grace Gromstory signing off. Goodbye, friend.