According to Chardo, the skull was missing the maxilla bone around the nose, the jawbone and all its teeth when it was found. There was also no tissue on it.
The anthropologists determined the skull was most likely a woman's, and that its post-mortem age matched Leich's age of 47 at the time of her disappearance. Chardo said that investigators used DNA extracted from a hairbrush belonging to Leich to DNA taken from the skull to find a match.
"Hair doesn’t have the DNA, but the root of the hair has molecular DNA that can be used for such identification," Chardo said.
“You can’t turn back the clock, it’s like a ratchet you can turn it back and so in order to preserve evidence you’ve got to proceed and collect evidence as if the worst has happened," Chardo added.
Heike Leich vanished from her West Hanover Township home in 2007, authorities said. The skull was found by hunters in 2020 near where she disappeared.
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Heike Leich's home
The skull found by hunters in a West Hanover wooded area in 2020 has been positively identified as Heike Leich, PennLive has learned, but her cause and manner of death remain undetermined. The skull was found on undeveloped land north of Fishing Creek Valley Road, across the road about a half-mile from where Leich lived on a large lot with her common-law husband and adult son.
At the time she disappeared, police considered her missing “under suspicious circumstances,” and said they believed her to be the
victim of homicide.
Authorities used an anthropologist to perform an analysis of the skull and he determined it was most likely from a female and its post-mortem age matched the timeframe of Leich’s disappearance at age 47.
The skull bore no evidence of trauma, according to Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo.
After Heike Leich, 47, disappeared from her West Hanover Township home in 2007, police suspected she was the victim of homicide.
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