She was found strangled in a ditch in Miami County, Ohio, on April 24, 1981, but for more than thirty years, the case of Jane Doe has been unsolved.

Now, new forensic evidence indicates she spent time in or around Texoma on two occasions the year before she was killed.

“So 12 months prior to her death she was there for at least two months and then four months prior to her death she came back and spent another two months there,” Miami County Sheriff’s Office Detective Steve Hickey said.

Hickey is a third generation deputy on the case. He said the isotope testing from her hair is basically a human timeline.

Jane Doe is believed to be in her late teens to early twenties, around five foot six, 125 pounds, with two braids of long reddish-brown hair, and freckles.

“We know that when she was recovered in 1981 there wasn’t social media,” National Center for Missing and Exploited Children forensic specialist Carol Schweitzer said. “We didn’t have Facebook, we didn’t have Twitter so to reach a wide audience was really difficult for law enforcement back then.”

Schweitzer said she knows someone out there is still looking for her.

“So we are really trying to get a wide an audience as possible throughout all of Texas and all of Oklahoma hoping to find her family and her friends,” Schweitzer said.

Jane Doe was found less than two days after she was strangled, wearing bell bottom blue jeans and a handmade tan buckskin pull-over jacket.

“And there was blunt force trauma to her head there was an injury on the top of her forehead and she also had a lacerated liver,” Hickey said.

Lab results from pollen and soot on her clothes show she spent time in the Eastern and Western part of the United States, and maybe even northern Mexico shortly before she was killed. But a lot of evidence points to North Texas and Southeastern Oklahoma.

“We’re hitting Texas and Oklahoma cause that’s exactly where they pinpointed her location a year before her death,” Hickey said. “Was she from there? Or did she just have a friend or family member there? We don’t know those questions are unanswered at this point.”

Hickey tells us she has no ties to Ohio that they can find.

“We’re doing everything we can leading up to the last straw basically which would be exhuming her body,” Hickey said.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call the Miami County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio at 937-440-3965 or the NCMEM at 1-800-THE-LOST (843-5678).