Unidentified body exhumed for DNA testing

The Tuscaloosa Police Department's Metro Homicide Unit is exhuming the body of an unidentified girl on Monday. She was buried in 1980 with no positive identification, but is described as an African-American and was found in McCalla.

A cold case murder in Tuscaloosa is getting some new attention Monday.

After more than 30 years, investigators are digging up the grave of an unknown woman found murdered in Tuscaloosa. The body was exhumed today from a cemetery at the Pleasant Hill Baptist Chruch not far from Bryant Denny Stadium. The work began around 9 a.m. on Old Greensboro Road.

Investigators crowded around the unmarked grave of an unknown victim. This woman buried there is one of only two unsolved, unidentified murder victims in Tuscaloosa County.

"Her badly decomposing body was found on a dirt road. She was not able to be identified back then.She was buried as an unknown in this cemetery back in 1980," Captain Loyd Baker said.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children called authorities in Tuscaloosa a month ago because they want to try and match her remains with DNA in their database in an effort to identify her.

But first, authorities had to find her. They used newspaper articles to track down where strangers laid her to rest.

"It led us to this cemetery and once we contacted older of members of this church, they remembered an unidentified body buried here and that's where they took us," Baker said.

With the passage of time and new technology, investigators hope to finally close this case.

"We hope to bring some closure to a family. We know a family somewhere is a missing a daughter and we want to contact that family and give them some type of closure," Baker said.

The remains will be taken to the State Department of Forensics in Montgomery. From there, they will be transported to the University of North Texas where the testing will be done and authorities expect results in a couple of weeks.

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