SYLVESTER, Ga. — Law officers say they've identified a woman who went missing in Florida and died in south Georgia after 37 years of not knowing who she is.
The woman, who suffered blunt trauma to her head and died after being injured, has been identified as Mary Anga Cowan, who went missing in Seminole County, Florida, in the mid-1980s, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced this week.
DNA technology was used to make the match after the woman's body was exhumed from her grave in 2012, and then new tests were done in 2022, the GBI said.
The woman was found injured and unconscious on the side of a highway near Newton, Georgia, in the summer of 1985 and later died at a hospital.
“In October 2022, a DNA profile was generated for comparison and turned over to the FBI for genealogical research,” the GBI said in a news release.
“The research yielded a high probability that the unidentified woman was Mary Anga Cowan, aka ‘Angie,’ ”the agency said. “Agents obtained DNA from one of Cowan’s children and the comparison indicated a parent/child relationship.”
