VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. – A woman whose body was found in 1990 in the woods in Daytona Beach has been identified, according to sheriff’s officials.
The Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said Friday that through the use of forensic genetic genealogy, the victim was identified as Roberta “Bobbie” Lynn Weber, who would have been 32 years old when her body was discovered.
Deputies said someone using a trail near Clyde Morris Boulevard found the woman’s body on April 23, 1990. No clothing or personal items were found.
Her DNA was entered into a national database, but there were no matches at the time.
The sheriff’s office’s Major Case Unit worked with Othram Laboratories, a forensic genetic genealogy lab in Texas, and the medical examiner’s office this year to submit her DNA samples for analysis.
“Several weeks later, Othram Labs advised they’d reconstructed the victim’s family tree using data from public genealogical sites. That family tree included the identity of a Missouri woman, likely the victim’s sister,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
Detectives contacted the victim’s sister in Missouri who said she hadn’t seen her sister since 1989 when Weber divorced her husband and disappeared. The victim’s sister said she believed Weber was dead or living in California.
“A lot of these families, including the one today, thought that their person just went away, started over, and is living somewhere else — and don’t even know that something terrible happened to them,” said Dr. Kristen Mittelman, Othram’s Chief Development Officer.
Three of the victim’s children also confirmed they had not seen their mother since 1989. Officials said the victim’s sister and the victim’s daughter provided DNA samples, which matched Weber.
Detective Bill Weaver said that he got the call on Thursday confirming the DNA match, adding that he called the family and broke the news.
“I could hear the sadness in her voice,” he said. “Even though it was good news that there’s a resolution from the positive angle that now we know what happened to our family member, it shook them.”
Mittelman told News 6 that Weber’s case is the 100th in which her team identified remains this year.
She said Othram uses a method of forensic-grade genome sequencing.
“It’s purpose-built to identify victims and perpetrators, from the most difficult and attractable to use evidence in these crime scenes,” she said.
Mittelman said it takes the remains’ DNA profiles and they then upload them to a database that can make connections to other genealogical databases.
“It allows us to be able to figure out really distant relationships like a sixth cousin, a fifth cousin,” she said.
Anyone with information that can help lead to an arrest is asked to call the Major Case Unit at 386-254-1537 or email ColdCaseUnitTips@volusiasheriff.gov.
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