Police used DNA analysis to identify a dead woman in Texas as a missing person who was last seen in San Francisco more than five decades ago.
Cheryl Lanier was 27 years old when she was last seen in San Francisco in 1973, police said Thursday.
The initial missing person’s report on Lanier was filed in 2010 and the case remained unsolved until a tip from Harris County in Houston in July 2025.
San Francisco investigators contacted the Houston Police Department and collaborated with the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Forensic Services.
Using DNA analysis they were able to determine that a ‘Jane Doe’ in Houston was Lanier and closed the case, police said Thursday.
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