At left is a reconstruction based off skeletal remains found in Vancleave in 1991. The sheriff's office announced Thursday the remains found 30 years ago have been identified as those of Kimberly Ann Funk, seen in the photo at right, who was 21 went she went missing in 1990.

Skeletal remains found in a Vancleave, Mississippi swamp more than 30 years ago have finally been identified as a 21-year-old Pennsylvania woman who went missing in 1990.

Jackson County Sheriff Mike Ezell said Thursday the remains have been identified through DNA testing as Kimberly Ann Funk from Sharon, Pa., whose then-unidentified remains were found in a swamp off of Ward Bayou in early 1991.

In early February of 1991, forensics determined the remains found were those of a Caucasian woman in her late 20s, with brown hair. At the time, it was believed the skeleton could have been in the swamp for up to three years, but there were no clues to help investigators determine her identity.

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In 2012, however, then-Pascagoula investigator Darren Versiga and former Jackson County Coroner Vickie Broadus led an investigation into unsolved death cases. The 20-year-old clay reconstruction of the woman face from the 1991 case was sent to the University of North Texas for DNA extraction and processing.

Despite those efforts, the victim remained unidentified. The information obtained through the UNT examination as uploaded to a national missing/unidentified persons database and the remains transferred to the Mississippi Crime Lab.

But another seven years would pass with no new information. In 2019, an anonymous donation would allow the state crime lab to send the case to Othram, Inc., in Woodlands, Texas, for further DNA testing in the hopes of building a family tree which would lead to the woman’s identity.

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Finally, in March of this year, Othram identified a possible brother in Sharon, Pa. Investigators spoke with the man, who confirmed he had a sister named Kimberly Ann Funk, who also went by the name “Star,” and that she had gone missing in 1990.

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Through interviews with the brother, investigators were able to learn that Funk had traveled from the Houston, Texas area to the Mississippi coast sometime between April and June 1990 before going missing.

https://www.al.com/news/2021/06/woman-identified-30-years-after-skeletal-remains-found-in-mississippi-swamp.html

So some unknown person donated money to revive this one persons cold case for DNA testing. Hmmmmm.