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John/Jane Doe
I am happy to announce that the DNA Doe Project has been able to identify Smith County Jane Doe 1985 as Sindy Gina Crow! Below is some additional information about our work on this case, in addition to some links to articles regarding this identification:
After more than 39 years, the long-standing mystery surrounding the identity of Smith County Jane Doe 1985 has been resolved. The Texas Department of Public Safety, in collaboration with local law enforcement, forensic experts, and the DNA Doe Project, has successfully identified the former Jane Doe as Sindy Gina Crow.
In October 1985, a highway mowing crew made the grim discovery of human skeletal remains in a brush-covered gully on the south side of I-20 in Smith County, Texas. Without any identification, the case quickly went cold, and would remain so until 2021 when investigators with the Smith County Sheriff’s Department brought the case to the DNA Doe Project to try investigative genetic genealogy to learn her identity.
A forensic assessment conducted by investigators with the Crime Forensics Laboratory in Dallas concluded that the remains belonged to a White/Caucasian young woman, between 20-25 years old with reddish-brown hair tied in a ponytail. They estimated she was 5'5"-5'7" tall and 110-125 lbs. Investigators felt her remains had been purposely concealed, and had been in the location where she was found for 12-15 months.
The DNA Doe Project, a national nonprofit organization, worked with specialty labs to produce a DNA profile that was uploaded to the databases at GEDmatch Pro and FTDNA - two consumer websites that allow law enforcement cases. Then, a team of 15 volunteer investigative genetic genealogists came together on a weekend in October 2023 to analyze the DNA matches to Jane Doe and build her family tree. In a matter of hours, they had found the branch of Sindy Crow, and were unable to find any proof of life for her after 1985.
Investigative genetic genealogy work is often stalled when the unknown person’s ancestry includes recent immigration, or they are a person of color. Access to records and underrepresentation of these populations in the databases make these cases especially difficult to research. With a father born in Italy and a Hispanic mother, this case should have been nearly impossible. One great match made the difference.
“We had one great match that pointed us in the right direction,” said team leader Rhonda Kevorkian. “All other matches were distant relatives. Without that great match, this would have taken much longer.”
“We happened to be working together in person for this case and, as the night wore on, it felt like we couldn’t take a break until we were confident she was our candidate,” said team member Emily Bill, who had traveled from California to Texas to work on this case. “Ultimately, we returned to the same conclusion again and again, and we all went to bed that night knowing Gina was our Smith County Jane Doe.”
The DNA Doe Project is grateful to the groups and individuals who helped solve this case: the Smith County Sheriff’s Office, who entrusted the case to the DNA Doe Project; Astrea Forensics for extraction of DNA from hair and bone, whole-genome sequencing, and financial support; Kevin Lord for bioinformatics; GEDmatch Pro and FTDNA for providing their databases; our generous donors who joined our mission and contributed to this case; and DDP’s dedicated teams of volunteer investigative genetic genealogists who work tirelessly to bring all our Jane and John Does home.
https://dnadoeproject.org/case/smith-county-jane-doe-1985/
https://www.ketk.com/crime/smith-county-cold-case-identified-sheriff-to-hold-briefing/
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I don't remember a presser with less than 4 minutes of info followed by 23 minutes of questioning. But the questions were good. The long time detective on the case got very emotional near the end.
https://www.kltv.com/2024/04/16/smith-county-sheriff-jane-doe-found-1985-was-young-arlington-woman/
Summary of key points from the presser:
Sindy married in January 1984 and gave birth to a daughter in July 1984. Not much later the family lost contact with her. There was no information regarding the husband other than he is deceased. The daughter now lives in Alabama. She apparently was taken there not long after the mother disappeared, although dates were not specified. Most of the principals are dead, although Sindy's mother is still alive. The detective called wanting to speak to a first cousin. Instead an uncle answered. When asked if there were any missing persons in the family, he quickly replied yes my sister's daughter has been missing since 1984. Much of the information gathered by detectives sources from a cousin who was 11 years old when Sindy arrived in Alabama.
They believe it was a homicide because she was naked when found, with clothing folded neatly alongside the remains.
Correction: the cousin was 11 years old when Sindy's daughter arrived in Alabama. The daughter would have been very young and possibly still an infant.
I tried to edit the above post but for some reason the system wouldn't allow it.
Good Lord! Never reported missing! That is terribly sad. At last, she has her name back!
So many questions remain unanswered. Thank you for the great write up
I have been waiting and waiting for this identification since I go the message that there was a tentative ID back in October. Doe Network gave me a six month time frame. I said then that I was holding out hope for April and lo and behold!
Thank you for your incredible work!
Thank you for the work you all put into identifying this young lady. Glad she has her name back.
Comment deleted by user
It's her married name. Her maiden name was Paris (an Italian surname, though fairly uncommon).
As I was reading this post, I was thinking about some Crows I know in East Texas. They’re pale, freckled and have red hair. I wondered the same.
I will never understand how someone can disappear and never be reported missing?
People lose contact with each other, either intentionally or not.
My cousin stopped communicating with his mother and my side of the family for over a decade. We didn't report him missing because he wasn't missing, we just didn't know where he was.
Given the wording, I think that's the case here.
I understand that part, but I guess since she was married and had a baby her husband and/or kid (once grown) would search for her.
To be honest, if your mom "abandoned" you when you were a kid, you might not care to find her. It's all a matter of perspective.
True. Although now they found the body, it’s not clear if she intentionally abandoned the kid.
Unless you're fortunate to have a strong social support system, it's sadly incredibly common for people to fall out of touch as adults. Even in modern times people get busy, move, change jobs, make new friends and relationships and fall out of touch with old ones. For a lot of woman(and men!), even having family that love you, you can end up in DV situations that end up forcing you to cut ties with family, and too many believe that those bridges are unfixable because they've been mentally/physically beaten down to believe that nobody could care enough to want to fix the relationship with them. More still come from situations with unstable familial life, so unless they are extra fortunate to have built up a strong friend support network, nobody is there to notice they're gone except the perpetrator.
Being a good friend and member of our community isn't just a great way to feel better about how the world looks sometimes; it also allows us to protect one another. I'm socially anxious and an introvert but understanding the importance of having support(because I've been incredibly fortunate with the friends and family I have) makes me work to reach out when I notice things don't seem or feel right. When I notice I haven't heard from a new or old acquaintance in a while I'll try and reach out to do something or just chat to let them know I'm there. Sometimes just one person can make the difference for others.
when no one misses you. happens all the time!
The reconstruction is very good in the third link.
Yes, one of the best ones.
Thank you for your work.
Looking at Ancestry, I see that she was married three times before she married Mr. Crow. What I find most interesting is that she was apparently married to Larry Keith Robison in 1977 for a short time who later had a psychotic break due to schizophrenia and killed his 5 roommates. He was executed in 2000 for his crimes.
Edited to add that he killed his roommates in 1982, so he was in jail at the time of her murder.
So happy she got her name back and her family (especially her mother and daughter) got some closure. Although it’s surely not what they were hoping for, it’s probably better than not knowing.
For more info on the case and the probable murder suspect, this blog post is interesting: https://www.mindyjaffar.com/gina-ortega-crow-dead-missing-or-covered-by-witness-protection/
You'd think they'd thank the individuals who submitted their DNA TO GenMatch