Fox News reports that officials said the body was finally identified as a 20-year-old resident.
Marshall County Sheriff's Office and the State Bureau of Investigation investigators announced on their Facebook page that the body had been identified as Jefferey Douglas Kimzy of Santa Barbara, California.
The decomposing body was found along Little Cotaco Creek near the small town of Union Grove on April 15, 1997. Since that time, the identity of the body has remained a mystery to investigators and others.
Fox News reports that an autopsy of the body ruled the manner of death for the boy to be a homicide. The sheriff's office also stated that removing body parts from the body was done on purpose to make identification harder. That worked, as it took as long as it did for this body to be identified.
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The case went cold, but samples were sent to Parabon NanoLabs in 2019 to identify whose body this might be. This is a company known for testing DNA and identifying bodies. They use the DNA samples they receive to predict what a body might have looked like when the person was still alive. The company released a composite sketch in 2021, and investigators were hopeful that a sketch of the image of the body might help generate new leads.
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May 27, 2023
Sheriff Phil Sims thanked all of the investigators involved in identifying the body. He said:
"I know they would like to see this case solved, but having a positive identification will help us get closer to solving this case." He added, "Today, we want to announce we do have persons of interest involved in this case and are actively pursuing those leads. Also, we will be working with Parabon on DNA that we have recently become aware relates to items found at the scene."
These are the kind of cases that law enforcement is always glad to put behind it.
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