She's been Jane Doe for 23 years, but Marana investigators haven't given up efforts to learn the real name of the young woman who was shot to death in 1987 and discarded in a drainage ditch along Interstate 10.
A hitchhiker found the body Nov. 25, 1987, along the interstate, about two miles east of Marana and 15 miles west of Tucson. Investigators at the time said there was evidence a vehicle had pulled over under a bridge, and the body had been dragged from the side of the interstate and into the ditch.
The victim was wearing black denim jeans, a gray sweater, a plaid flannel shirt, a denim jacket, a hooded "Members Only" jacket and white shoes.
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Earlier this year, Tom Mooney, supervisor of the Marana Police Department crime scene unit, had the body exhumed so the county medical examiner could perform a second autopsy and extract DNA.
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"Her bones indicate a younger person than we were looking for," he said. "The 2010 autopsy gave us a different description, age, ethnicity."
From that, Mooney had an expert re-create the facial features in a three-dimensional sculpture.
Investigators in 1987 thought they were trying to identify a 20-something white woman. After the second autopsy, Mooney learned the victim was between 17 and 21 years old when she was killed. She was white or light-skinned, possibly a Latina, with brown hair. She stood 5-foot-3, weighted 138 pounds and had a pronounced overbite.
