By Marc Kovac, The Columbus Dispatch, and wire reports
NEWARK – Authorities say they’ve identified a woman whose body was found outside a truck stop in Hebron 27 years ago and have reopened the investigation into her homicide.
Licking County Sheriff Randy Thorp says the woman now identified as Patrice Corley was 29 when she died. Her body was found April 19, 1990.
The autopsy found she died from blunt force trauma after being struck in the head.
She was buried at the Spring Grove Cemetery near Marne, east of Newark, under the name Jane Doe, according to a report in The Columbus Dispatch. A simple headstone lists the day her body was found and says: “Someone’s Daughter, Someone’s Mother.”
READ MORE: In The Columbus Dispatch
Thorp says the woman’s DNA was later placed into a national database. He say Corley’s family filed a missing person report with police in Louisville, Kentucky, in October 2016 and later submitted DNA that eventually led to the identification.
The reasons family members waited until last year to report her missing were not clear, the newspaper reported. A check of a national law-enforcement database connected her to the Licking County cold case.
Thorp said the investigation into Corley’s death continues, with the positive identification opening new leads in the case. Licking County detectives have been to Louisville as part of those efforts. The county prosecutor and Louisville police are involved.
“The case is still active and ongoing,” Thorp said, voicing hope that those involved in Corley’s death will be identified. “We’ve got some work to do. Given the fact that she was identified provided us with a lot of information that we otherwise would not have known.”