In January 2022, a Minnesota woman named Shelly Rae Kephart, also known as Shelly Rae Christian, was identified as the ID of Matilda Doe, a 1994 cold case from Ottawa County, MI. The ID was made using a DNA profile generated from her skeletal remains. Investigative genealogists from DNA Doe Project used this profile to identify close relatives, later confirmed by police.
As WoodTV states:
“Local police formed a task force in 1996 to investigate the deaths, which remain unsolved.
…
Then in February 2021, sheriff’s detectives, while working with the DNA Doe Project, sent some of the remains to Astrea Forensics to get a DNA sample, court records show.
DNA Doe Project conducts genealogical testing to identify cold case victims. The nonprofit says since starting its work in 2017, it has been able to identify victims in about 65% of the cases it has taken on.
Astrea Forensics, founded in 2019, uses proprietary methods to recover genetic profiles from rootless hair and other degraded samples.”