MACON, Ga. — A Central Georgia family can finally grieve, knowing what happened to their loved one in 1977.
The Pless family never gave up hope that Yvonne Pless would come home. Thursday morning, the Bibb County Sheriff's Office identified her as a murder victim.
For more than four decades, investigators knew Pless as 'Macon Jane Doe.' A few years ago, they learned she was likely one of more than 90 victims of serial killer Samuel Little. All this time, her name remained a mystery.
The day was September 8, 1977. Former Bibb County Deputy Glen Sharpe was in his squad car around 5 p.m. when a call came over dispatch.
"We were on Emery Highway," he remembered. "Person down call. Typically those are medical emergencies. Sometimes, a person intoxicated."
The call was anything but routine.
"Man met us at his house. Brought us up to the woods, showed us the location of the remains," he explained.
Sharpe and his partner were the first two deputies on-scene that afternoon on Sue Drive in north Macon. It's off Riverside Drive. They found a young woman brutally murdered near the forest.
"You realize this is an incredible loss," Sharpe said.
More than 40 years later, Sharpe never forgot that day. He wondered what happened to the case, and to the woman's family.
"It had to be thousands of times I wondered. Because realizing, this is somebody's daughter, sister, somebody out there. And what's the answer?'" he asked.
Thursday, Sharpe, and the Pless family, got their answer.
"We were able to identify her using genetic forensic genealogy," explained Amy Hutsell with the Georgia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council.
The council worked with the Bibb County Sheriff's Office to solve Pless' case, and the case of Fredonia Smith, Little's other Macon victim, murdered in 1982. The agencies sent Pless' remains for genetic testing, hoping to identify her. They ran her profile through a public genealogy database, and got a match.
"Every family deserves to know what happened to their loved one. They want to get that closure. You don't want to live life always wondering, 'What could've happened? What could've been,'" said Capt. Shermaine Jones with the Bibb County Sheriff's Office.
Jones ran point on the investigation, and worked with Hutsell since Little confessed in 2018. They say it's bittersweet. They're glad to offer the family answers, but they recognize it wasn't what the Pless family wanted to hear. They believed Yvonne was alive all those years, and didn't want to be found.
Sharpe says he's glad the family has the answer, too.
"Think about all the years somebody has had sleepless nights, and crying out for an answer. And there wasn't any. Now, there finally is," Sharpe said.
He says the most difficult part of that September day was keeping the crime scene secure, and preserving evidence. He says decades later, he's glad that work helped pay a role in solving the case.
The Pless family sent a statement this afternoon:
"We appreciate the interest in our family member’s story. When we were notified by Captain Jones and Ms. Hutsell that she had been identified, we did not know she was deceased. Even after all these years, we are mourning our lost loved one. We greatly appreciate that our privacy be respected at this time."