BOONE COUNTY, Ind. — A "Jane Doe" cold case in Boone County was solved after nearly 30 years thanks to forensic genealogy.
The body of a woman was found on May 3, 1992 by a farmer at the bottom of an embankment of the on-ramp to Interstate 65 north from State Road 47.
For years, multiple attempts were made to identify the woman with no luck. Those attempts included a series of sketches of the woman.
The Boone County Sheriff's Office made another attempt to identify the remains in 2020 using DNA processing.
In 2021, the skeletal remains were transferred to Othram, a company that specializes in the recovery, enrichment, and analysis of human DNA from trace quantities of degraded or contaminated forensic evidence.
Othram was able to build a DNA profile and upload it to a forensic genetic genealogy database. That led to a potential ID in November 2021. A potential brother and sister were then located. In January 2022, testing confirmed the identification.
Jane Doe was identified as 17-year-old Margaret Ann Sniegowski Jr. from Toledo, Ohio. Her body was found just one month before her 18th birthday.
She was the youngest of eight siblings.
"Now the work begins to find the lowlife or people who did this. Anybody who knows my family knows we don't forget. These guys are coming after ya," said Leonard Sniegowski, the victim's brother. "She was not trash. She was a beautiful loving upbeat person who didn't deserve her fate."
Police are treating the case as an active homicide investigation.