MACON, Ga. — A private lab in Texas helped to identify Macon's Jane Doe nearly 50 years after she was killed.
The Bibb County Sheriff's Office and Georgia's Criminal Justice Coordinating Council announced the victim's name is Yvonne Pless.
Investigators knew Pless was a victim of serial killer Samuel Little. In 2018, Little confessed to killing dozens of women -- including Pless. But up until this month, investigators had unidentified remains that they could only speculate were hers.
13WMAZ's Ashlyn Webb spoke to the private lab that identified Pless's remains.
Othram, based in Woodlands, Texas near Houston, uses forensic genetic genealogy. It's a combination of DNA sequencing and genealogy.
"We singularly focus on how do we get that retractable evidence to give us the best looking DNA profile that we can so we can upload them to these genealogical databases," said Othram's Chief Development Officer Kristen Mittelman.
Othram used DNA profiles from Pless' family already in a database to match her.
Mittleman says they don't have to have DNA from the victim in the DNA database to identify them. The lab says they can trace it back through family trees as distant as the person's fourth or fifth cousin.
In the Macon Jane Doe case, the evidence the lab pulled DNA from was Pless' remains, Mittelman says.
"There was a lot of contamination, there was a lot of degradation, we ended up doing all the different techniques necessary to get that DNA, do the forensic genomic sequencing, upload a DNA profile, do the genealogy in house to identify her as Yvonne Pless," Mittelman said.