More than 60 years after a female corpse was discovered on a cliff in Northern California, DNA tests have finally unraveled the mystery surrounding her identity.

On December 18, 1966, Dorothy Jean Williams’s remains were found on a cliff in Tiburon, close to San Francisco, by an individual hunting who then alerted the officials.

They couldn’t pinpoint Williams’ identity, despite estimating her age at the time of death to be somewhere between 45 and 60 years old. This information comes from Othram, the forensic genetic genealogy firm claiming their techniques cracked this long-standing case.

Described as sporting a red dress and an off-white trench coat with red hair, Williams stood approximately 157 cm tall and had a weight of around 47 kg at the time her remains were found.

Even though they couldn’t verify her identity back then, officials discovered that a woman fitting Williams’s profile had been spotted at a fire station roughly three months prior to her remains being discovered, as stated in an earlier report from a local newspaper.

It is said that she informed the employees that she was stuck with no funds for transportation and asked if she could sleep at the station. Upon being denied, she departed.

The autopsy indicated that she died approximately three months before her badly decomposed remains were found, as mentioned in the archived news article shared by Othram.

She remained unidentified for many years, simply known as the “Marin County Jane Doe”. However, recent revelations from DNA tests have disclosed that her name was Williams, with the married surname of Dorothy Jean Vaillancourt. It has now come to light that she originated from Tasmania in Australia.

The family of this woman likely believed they would never discover what happened to her since she vanished without a trace,” stated Kristen Mittelman, who serves as the chief development officer at Othram. “However, after nearly six decades, they finally learned the truth.

The age of a case or its previous hopelessness does not matter because we have advanced technologies available now that can provide solutions for many families, just as they will in this instance.

Multiple failed efforts were made to pinpoint Williams’ identity, and her case was logged into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) under the designation UP12018, stated the genetic analysis firm.

The case was resolved following the submission of evidence by the Marin County Sheriff’s Office in collaboration with the California Department of Justice to Othram’s laboratory. This led to the creation of a DNA profile linking Williams to her kinfolk.

Euronews contacted the Marin County Sheriff’s Office seeking their input.

Over the past few years, investigative genetic genealogy has emerged as a crucial method for cracking cold cases. By integrating advanced technologies with traditional family history studies, this approach helps uncover the identities of individuals linked to crimes that may have remained unsolved for several decades.

The technique made front-page news after it was employed to pinpoint Joseph DeAngelo as the Golden State Killer.
resulting in his detention in 2018
He was later found guilty and handed down a sentence for 13 killings in 2020.