(ANGOLA) — Authorities have identified a Michigan woman found dead 20 years ago in a northeastern Indiana field.
The Steuben County Sheriff’s Department in Indiana said Sunday that the woman is Tina L. Cabanaw of the Detroit area. She was reported missing to Detroit police in July 1999.
Over the years, authorities say they followed hundreds of leads to identify the woman, using an FBI lab in Virginia, the National Missing Persons DNA Database and a genetic genealogy database.
The body was found outside of Angola, Indiana, on Sept. 6, 1999. The area is now a golf course. Authorities estimated the body had been there for weeks.
The Northeast Indiana Forensic Center conducted an autopsy which didn’t determine the cause of death, but deemed it suspicious.
Cabanaw’s death remains under investigation.
