She was found near a shoreline in 1993. Now her remains have been ID'd

A woman whose remains went unidentified after they were found near a Minnesota shoreline has been identified nearly 33 years later, and now, authorities want to know how she ended up there.

The remains, found in June 1993, have been identified as Denise Elaine Sexton Hartley, who went missing out of St. Paul at 27 years old, the Washington County Sheriff's Office said in a news release on Thursday, June 11.

The sheriff's office said the remains were found in both Washington and Ramsey counties, which share a border. The woman whose remains eventually became known as "Bone Lake Jane Doe".

According to the sheriff’s office, her case is another that has been solved due to technological and DNA advancements over the past few decades.

The sheriff’s office said her cause and manner of death are undetermined, and no suspects have been arrested as of mid-June.

Here’s what we know about Hartley, her remains and how authorities were able to identify her over 30 years after she vanished.

Woman moved to Minnesota from Ohio, detective says

Hartley was the youngest of 15 siblings, the sheriff’s office said in the news release.

In 1992, she had an elementary-aged daughter and moved from Ohio to the St. Paul area, Detective Clayton Evens with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office told USA TODAY on Friday, June 12.

She was having issues there, so her family suggested she live in Minnesota to "start a new life," Evens said. She left her daughter with her ex-husband, the child's father.

The last time anyone heard from Hartley was in 1993, according to the sheriff's office.

"We've had two of her siblings say they reported her missing," Evens said. "That was a long time ago. We weren't able to actually find an official missing persons report, but they did say they reported her missing at the time."

They may have reported her missing to a different agency, he added.

Police try using victim sketch to ID woman

On June 12, 1993, about 37 miles northeast of St. Paul, someone found a severed human head near the shoreline of Bone Lake in Scandia (then known as New Scandia Township). The next day, someone found a human foot from Pig’s Eye Lake in St. Paul.

Someone called dispatch on June 21, 1993, and said investigators would find the rest of the victim's remains under the Mendota Bridge in Mendota Heights, Evens told USA TODAY.

“After that phone call that very day, it became a huge search party, pretty much all hands on deck,” Evens said. “They searched everywhere. They could not find anything relating to this case, so we were not able to substantiate whether that was a legitimate tip or if that was just somebody calling in to call in.”

The caller has never been identified, the detective said.

Early in the investigation, officials created a sketch of the unidentified woman with hopes of identifying her, to no avail, according to Evens.

Out of leads, investigators turned to DNA

As years went by, investigators tried to identify her, but their efforts proved unsuccessful. 

In 2024, over 30 years since the remains were found, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office began working with the DNA Doe Project, a California-based nonprofit whose goal is to identify human remains.

The goal, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office said, was to use investigative genetic genealogy to generate new leads in the case. 

The Washington County Sheriff’s Office said that due to the renewed investigations and DNA, they ended up tracing family members of the deceased woman to Columbus, Ohio. 

Investigators interviewed family members in Ohio and obtained a DNA sample from a woman who turned out to be Hartley’s daughter. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) later confirmed the remains belonged to Hartley through DNA analysis.

“The genealogy part was really handled by the DNA Doe Project, and I always like to give a shout out to them because they were phenomenal to work with,” Evens told USA TODAY. “Everything they do is fundraiser-based and volunteer-based. They're the ones that really, really helped us with this case.”

What's next for investigators?

In the news release, Sheriff Dan Starry said Hartley disappeared just weeks before he started working for the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in 1993.

“To see this case come full circle more than 30 years later is a reminder that no matter how much time passes, we never stop looking for answers for victims and their families,” he said. “While we cannot change what happened, we can honor Denise by restoring her identity and giving her family the answers they deserve.” 

According to Evens, there’s still work to be done.

“Now that we've finally identified her, our job really becomes the investigative side of what happened to her in the last few days or the last few weeks of her life,” he said.

The local authorities said the investigation into how Hartley died is active. They ask that anyone with information contact the Washington County Sheriff’s Office at 651-430-7850.

Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY’s trending team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at [email protected].