PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. — A 30-year-old cold case homicide in a small town just off I-20 about halfway between Atlanta and Birmingham is heating up after genetic genealogy helped police identify the victim. Now, they're looking for leads in Georgia.
A logging crew clearing a section of land off Evans Bridge Road in Heflin, Alabama, stumbled upon a set of human remains in February 1990.
At the time, Heflin Police, the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office and the Alabama Bureau of Investigations responded to the area and established a crime scene. The evidence was collected, and the skeletal remains were taken to the Alabama Department of Forensic Science.
Police said the remains hadn't been in the area for more than a year before they were discovered.
Nearly three decades ago, DNA testing was less advanced than it is today. Typically, police relied on dental records, but it turned up nothing in this case.
However, through forensic science, police were able to establish a couple of things pretty quickly. The remains belong to a female in her late twenties to late thirties, and her manner of death was a homicide.
That's as much information as the police had to go on, and eventually it became a cold case. The woman became known as "Cleburne County Jane Doe."
Identifying 'Cleburne County Jane Doe'
Decades went by, and Heflin Police Captain Scott Bonner said a retired chief deputy for the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office reached out to him and asked to focus on the "Cleburne County Jane Doe" case. Bonner said the chief deputy was an active deputy at the time the remains were found in 1990.
Their goal was to finally identify the woman and find the person who killed her.
Bonner reached out to the state lab, and they decided to send some of the remains from "Cleburne County Jane Doe" to Otrham. The company has made headlines across the country for being able to help law enforcement crack open decade-old cases through forensic-grade genome sequencing.
Othram said its scientists were able to develop a DNA extract from the remains sent to them and created a DNA profile. This helped Othram develop new leads for Bonnor to look into, which helped investigators trace down possible family.
"I actually ended up contacting the daughter of Jane Doe," he said.
He asked Katherine Reynolds Haydel if she had a family member who went missing in 1989. Turns out, it was her mother.
"I asked specifically about her dental records or her any kind of dental work, and she said, yes, that her mother had had braces late in life in her forties," he explained.
Jane Doe's remains were found with a removable retainer.
Alabama Jane Doe identified as Georgia woman
Bonner said last week he got confirmation from Othram that, indeed, the remains found in 1990 belonged to Haydel's mom, Clara Kopp Reynolds of Peachtree City, Georgia.
He said Reynolds was 42 years old when she vanished from Peachtree City. She was married at the time to Douglas Reynolds.
"You know, this lady (Clara Reynolds), she was, from what I understand, really well, liked, you know, had a lot of friends, a lot of family," Bonner explained.
He said, unfortunately, her husband has since died, never knowing what happened to his wife.
A question only Bonner, the original investigators, and Reynold's killer know.
"We can't release a lot of information about why we believe it's a homicide," he said.
However, he did say investigators have a potential suspect in mind.
Potential suspect in Peachtree City woman's homicide
Bonner said it was a friend of Reynolds' who she was last seen within 1989. It's believed this man and Reynolds were supposed to go to Florida. Bonner said there is no indication it was anything other than a friendship.
He said the man was around her age and even Reynolds' daughter remembered some key details about him.
Bonner believes this man would be in his mid-70s now and likely still lives in the metro Atlanta area or west Georgia.
He hopes by being able to identify Reynolds all of these years later, people will hear her name, read her story, and jog someone's memory and stir up a new lead to solve the homicide.
Anyone with information about Clara Kopp Reynolds, the friend she was last seen with or who has heard anything about her disappearance over the last three decades can call him at 256-463-2291 or email him at sbonner@cityofheflin.org.
He wanted to reiterate no detail is insignificant as it could be the tiniest piece of information could be what they're looking for to solve this case.