Anita Louise Piteau (March 9, 1942 – March 13, 1968) was a young woman found murdered in 1968. It is believed she may have been murdered after accepting a ride from her killer.
Few details are known about Anita’s disappearance, except that she came to Southern California to “make it into Hollywood”.
Her parents received her letters daily. When they stopped, her family hired a private investigator, but their efforts proved unsuccessful.
Anita’s body was found hours after she died. It is believed her murder resulted after her killer struck her in the face and proceeded to rape her. He then pulled her out of his vehicle and slit her throat, leaving her at the scene she was discovered. Anita died only five days after her 26th birthday.
Investigators received a break in 2011 regarding the identity, after a witness reported to authorities that the victim resembled an acquaintance she remembered as “Rosie.” The woman in question was from New York (having a thick accent characteristic of the area), with an “Italian” surname, and had a son with the nickname “John-John.” The witness elaborated to say that the woman worked at a bar in Long Beach, California.
At the scene, a cigarette butt was found, which may have been dropped by her killer. DNA was extracted, yet it never matched to profiles in the CODIS database.
Colleen Fitzpatrick, formerly of the DNA Doe Project, was asked to help track down the victim’s relatives using DNA. Within a week, Colleen found a relative in Maine. This relative then located his cousin’s obituary, which listed her siblings (including Anita Piteau) who hadn’t been seen in years.
Using DNA from Anita’s clothing, her killer was also identified as Johnny Chrisco, who died of throat cancer in 2015, at the age of 71. Little is known about Johnny except that he was in the army and arrested in Orange County in 1971. Before her identification, it was speculated that her murder was committed by an unspecified or unidentified serial killer.
https://unidentified.wikia.org/wiki/Anita_Piteau
Melinda Joyce Holder was a young woman who was found deceased in northeast Florida after a fire at an abandoned residence.
Holder was last seen in Green Cove Springs, Florida on January 24, 1989. Her family did not report her missing until June 12 as she was known to go without contact from time to time.
On December 10 1989, the Clay County Fire and Rescue responded to a house fire on 404 Harrison Street in Green Cove Springs, Florida. The house had been abandoned for some time and had been frequented by transients and hard drug users.
Holder’s remains were discovered inside the house. According to the medical examiner, she had been dead for days prior to the house fire and it did not appear that she was murdered, as there was no evidence of antemortem trauma or disease.
Among her personal items, she was found wearing a navy blue jacket with red lining and “Riteway” patch on it, a cardigan sweater, knobby soled sneakers, and a buttoned shirt.
She also had carried keys with her: two Dexter house keys and two GM car keys that fit 1967, 1975, 1979, 1983, 1985, and 1986 model vehicles. Dexter was a brand of key that was known to be used for commercial washer and dryers.
https://unidentified.wikia.org/wiki/Melinda_Holder
Thomas Alex Williams– Charleston County John Doe.
After hunting and researching for more than 17 months, the Charleston County Coroner’s Office has identified a man found in the Cooper River on Jan. 7, 2019.
His name is Thomas Alex Williams, a 24-year-old from James Island. The hunt for his identity consumed the lives of several coroners. Now, they feel they can finally close this chapter of his life — and theirs — and give some answers to his family.
The unusually long search to identify Williams came from the fact that friends and family members didn’t consider him missing. He traveled frequently, his family told coroners, and didn’t use social media. He rarely carried a cellphone; it wasn’t uncommon not to hear from him.Just a few months ago, the quest to identify his body was at a standstill.
In December, coroners told The Post and Courier it was possible the man was an immigrant or had stowed away on a ship. For over a year, all they knew was that he was a Black man between 25 and 35 who was wearing expensive clothing. His DNA and fingerprints weren’t a match in any database, and he had no unique scars or tattoos. With their usual methods of identification exhausted, the coroner’s office turned to the State Law Enforcement Division to make a full-color forensic sketch of him.
A friend of Williams recognized his clothing and the features of the sketch and a positive DNA match confirmed it was Williams.
Keith Edward Bamford was reported missing by his mother in 1996.
He was last seen leaving the Gateway Mental Health Facility on Michigan Street in Lake City on May 13, 1996 around 11:00 AM. Authorities searched for Bamford around the State Road 100 because that was the most direct route between the facility and Bamford’s family home. A man matching Bamford’s description was seen by a deputy around 1:00 PM on the State Road 100 near the County Road 245 intersection, but Bamford wasn’t found. Investigators sent photographs and a description of him to surrounding law enforcement agencies and received his DNA from relatives.
In February 2002, a hunter in Lulu, Florida found a partial human skull. Searches by Columbia County deputies and Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators found additional remains. In January 2003, the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory concluded the bones belonged to a Black woman between the ages of thirty and forty and there was no evidence of trauma on the bones. For the next sixteen years, the remains would be stored at the Medical Examiner’s Office in Jacksonville, Florida.
In early 2019, it was realized the remains were not sent to the University of Northern Texas Center for Human Identification. So the CCSO sent the remains to the laboratory, hoping it could resolve the case of a Black woman who disappeared in 1988. On June 2020, the lab stated in a report for the CCSO that the remains did belong to the same person, but they were of a man, not a woman. The report also confirmed that the remains belonged to Bamford. On July 16, 2020, the CCSO made an announcement of the identification over Facebook.
https://unidentified.wikia.org/wiki/Keith_Bamford
Christy Lynn Floyd was a teenage girl whose dismembered remains were found in a dumpster in 1986. She may have died months prior, as the body may have been stored in a sealed container to slow decomposition. She was identified in August 2020 by Chesterfield detectives and Parabon NanoLabs.
Even after nearly three and a half decades, Kim Atkins never gave up hope of finding her sister.
Her search included putting her sister’s face on milk cartons and passing out flyers at truck stops, submitting her sister’s information to the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” and independently reaching out to forensic investigators. That search ended in March, though, when detectives with the Chesterfield County Police Department confirmed that the remains of her sister’s body had been found at Shoosmith Landfill off state Route 10 on Aug. 7, 1986.
Now law enforcement is working to figure out who killed Christy Lynn Floyd and placed her leg, foot and torso in a Richmond garbage dumpster 34 years ago.
More here- https://www.chesterfieldobserver.com/articles/investigators-identify-remains-of-1986-homicide-victim/
https://unidentified.wikia.org/wiki/Christy_Floyd