and another mystery solved. It can be done.
Sister ‘always hoped to find' sibling who vanished in OR in 1974. Mystery solved.
Marion Vinetta Nagle McWhorter was last seen at an Oregon shopping mall in 1974.
The 21-year–old "
was never heard from again," and nearly five decades passed without answers in her disappearance, Oregon State Police said in a Sept. 16 news release.
"Family members lived and died without ever knowing what happened to their missing loved one," State Forensic Anthropologist Hailey Collord-Stalder said in the release.
...
Then, in 2020, the Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office was awarded a grant from the National Institute of Justice that could be used to fund advanced DNA testing on unsolved cases, authorities said.
A bone sample was sent to Parabon NanoLabs in hopes DNA phenotyping and investigative genetic genealogy could lead to the woman's identification, police said.
...
Genetic genealogy uses DNA testing coupled with "traditional genealogical methods" to create "family history profiles," according to the Library of Congress. With genealogical DNA testing, researchers can determine if and how people are biologically related.
"Forensic genetic genealogy allowed us not only to assist Oregon law enforcement and medicolegal personnel in identifying a woman who likely did not go missing voluntarily, but it also helped provide her family with answers and help relieve the uncertainty of what happened to Marion McWhorter," Collord-Stalder said.