PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — More than half a century after a teenage girl disappeared in Portland, her remains have been identified thanks to advancements in DNA forensic technology, Oregon State Police announced Thursday.
This comes after a Boy Scout troop located the skeletonized remains of a young female on the far north end of Sauvie Island in Columbia County in 1970, setting the stage for a decades-long mystery as to who the deceased person was.
The Oregon State Police have now identified the individual as Sandra Young, a Grant High School student who has not been seen since 1968 or 1969.
“Sandra Young has now regained her identity after 54 years,” said Dr. Nici Vance, the Human Identification Program Coordinator at the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office. “This is yet another example of the innovative ways the ME’s Office and investigative genetic genealogy can help Oregonians find closure. This technology gives investigators the powerful ability to assist all Oregon agencies with the resolution of their cold case mysteries.”
The medical examiner’s office said they wouldn’t have been able to make the breakthrough if it weren’t for collaboration with their contract laboratory Parabon Nanolabs, family member participation, and the efforts of OSP and the Portland Police Bureau. It’s also thanks to a 2018 National Institute of Justice grant that OSP received to perform expensive and innovative DNA techniques to identify skeletal remains, with this case, in particular, being singled out as a great example of where it could be used.
When the Boy Scouts initially discovered the skeleton, law enforcement recovered clothing and remnants of a curly black wig. Investigators at the time believed the remains to be African American and that trauma to the body pointed to foul play.
It wasn’t until DNA tests conducted in the 2000s from a bone sample that the decedent was confirmed to be female. However, the identity of the person was still a mystery for almost two decades after that.
An initial report from Parabon Nanolabs based on another bone sample predicted the remains would have been from a person of West African, South African and Northern European descent, with brown to dark brown skin, brown eyes and black hair.
Later, through a process known as DNA phenotyping, scientists at Parabon Nanolabs were able to make a reconstruction of facial characteristics based on genetic predictions in 2021.
“To see her face come to life through DNA phenotyping was striking,” Vance said.
This breakthrough, alongside a potential distant family member of the decedent uploading their DNA to an open-source genetic genealogy database, called GEDMatch, were the key pieces needed to eventually positively identify Young. A family tree was established, interviews were conducted, and it was eventually discovered through talking to family members that a teenage girl named Sandra Young disappeared from Portland around the time the remains were discovered.
In 2023, Young’s sister was contacted by genealogists and she agreed to upload her DNA to GEDMatch to help confirm the identity. Around this time, PPB was also contacted to assist in the investigation, with Detective Heidi Helwig conducting interviews with the sister to gain further information. This person not only lost Young, but another sister died from gun violence, police learned.
It was finally determined in October of last year that the remains did indeed belong to Sandra “Sandy” Young, born June 25, 1951. Oregon’s Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Sean Hurst affirmed this, citing both genetic and circumstantial evidence. Officials also notified Young’s next of kin.
According to state authorities, PPB detectives have been made aware of the case and they’ve been encouraged to further investigate the circumstances of Young’s death, if possible.
