Accident – Death – Obituary News :

Body Found in Las Vegas Field Identified as Ohio Teenager

LAS VEGAS — A body discovered in an open field in 1979 near a bustling intersection of the Las Vegas Strip has been identified as a teenager from Ohio who had left her home that year in search of her biological father, authorities revealed on Tuesday.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department announced that the body belonged to 19-year-old Gwenn Marie Story. For the past 44 years, she was known only as “Sahara Sue Doe,” a name derived from the location where she was found.

The breakthrough in identifying the victim came as a result of advancements in DNA testing, which enabled authorities to establish her identity last month.

According to the police, a man discovered the body on the evening of August 14, 1979, while walking through an empty lot near the northern edge of the Las Vegas Strip. The victim had wavy hair, and her fingernails and toenails were painted in a vibrant shade of red.

Today, the prominent Strat Hotel towers over the intersection, which is also home to the Sahara hotel-casino.

Authorities believe that the victim had passed away within a day before the discovery, as noted in a case entry on the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s database.

Subsequent autopsy results revealed that the young woman had been a victim of homicide, although investigators struggled to identify her until they collaborated with a private DNA testing laboratory in September of last year.

Othram, a renowned forensic genealogy analysis firm, stated on Tuesday that their scientists meticulously constructed “a comprehensive DNA profile for the woman.” This breakthrough led the authorities to potential relatives, who provided DNA samples confirming that “Sahara Sue Doe” was indeed the missing Ohio teenager.

Story’s relatives informed the police that she had left her Cincinnati home in the summer of 1979, embarking on a journey to find her father in California. Accompanied by two male friends, she vanished without a trace, and her family never heard from her again.

Interestingly, when the two friends returned to the Cincinnati area in August of that same year – coinciding with the month of Story’s tragic demise – they informed the teenager’s family that they had left her in Las Vegas, according to the police.

The police department has now shifted its attention towards investigating the involvement of these two friends and uncovering the circumstances that led to Story’s untimely death near the iconic Las Vegas Strip.

This significant breakthrough in Story’s case aligns with the progress made in genetic testing techniques, which have facilitated numerous identifications and arrests in long-unsolved cases, ranging from missing persons to homicide and sexual assault investigations.

Earlier this year, Othram’s expertise also aided the Nevada State Police in identifying Florence Charleston, a victim who had remained nameless for 45 years. Charleston’s extremely decomposed remains were discovered in a garment bag in a remote area of northern Nevada in October 1978, less than a year before the tragic death of Gwenn Marie Story in Las Vegas. Notably, Florence Charleston had also gone missing from Ohio.

.