Killer of woman in 34-year-old Dade County cold case identified by GBI
DADE COUNTY, GA. — UPDATE (September 6th):
The man who killed a woman in a 34-year-old cold case out of Dade County has been identified by the GBI.
Henry "Hoss" Wise was identified by them as the killer of Stacey Lyn Chahorski, known as the Rising Fawn Jane Doe.
Wise would have been 34 at the time of Chahorski’s murder in 1988.
Wise was a truck driver, traveling the route for Western Carolina trucking company, driving through Chattanooga to Birmingham to Nashville and was also a stunt driver.
In 1999, Wise was killed in a car accident at Myrtle Beach Speedway in South Carolina and was burned to death, the GBI says.
Wise had a criminal history in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina, that the GBI says ranges from theft and assault, to obstruction of a police officer.
The FBI says they used investigate genealogy to crack the case.
Although Wise is no longer alive, DNA provided by his family identified him as the killer.
WATCH:
EARLIER (March 25th):
Three decades in the making, law enforcement announced a big break in a Dade County case.
A Michigan woman was buried in 1988 in an unmarked grave in Dade County, according to the Dade County Sheriff's Office and the GBI.
That victim was known as Jane Doe at the time and has now been identified.
On December 16th, 1988, at around 2:00 p.m., the Dade County Sheriff’s Office and the GBI responded to the scene of a body located about 5 miles from the Alabama Stateline on I-59 northbound lane in Dade County, Georgia.
The body was of an unidentified woman that had been killed, according to the GBI.
For years, GBI agents and Dade County investigators worked diligently to identify the victim, says the GBI.
The GBI says a forensic artist made clay renderings and drew composites to recreate what the victim would look like in hopes of identifying her.
In the mid-2000s, the case was reassigned, and investigators found additional evidence that could possibly identify the victim, according to the GBI.
Investigators sent the evidence to the FBI lab in Washington D.C. for further testing. Analysts developed a DNA profile of the victim and entered the profile in the missing persons DNA database. But GBI investigators tell us there was no match.
In 2015, the case was reassigned again, and a GBI forensic artist did new clay renderings and composites of the victim for an age progression.
The GBI says they contacted the FBI about the possibility of using a new type of genealogy investigation that had been credited with assisting in solving other cold cases, particularly homicide investigations.
The new DNA technology helped identify the victim as Stacey Lyn Chahorski.
A lab company known as Othram helped generate the lead.
"This new kind of DNA technology that we offered at Othram allows investigators to get more information to link to distant relatives to just anything that could anchor this person within a family structure," said Othram CEO David Mittelman.
The GBI would not say how Stacey died but according to the agency, September 15, 1988 was the last day she had any contact from anyone in Norton Shores, Michigan.
According to the private DNA company that helped identify Stacey, the last time Chahorski spoke to her mother by telephone she told her she was in North Carolina and was going to be traveling to Flint, Michigan and then to Muskegon, Michigan.
The GBI says she was reported missing in January of 1989.
Stacey Lyn Chahorski was 19 at the time of her disappearance in 1988, now she would be 53.
After 34 years, law enforcement is now searching for this woman’s killer.
"The biggest problem in being able to solve this case is we had no identity of the victim. So we had no starting point. Now we have a starting point," said Joe Montgomery, special agent in charge of the GBI.
The GBI says they identified her body a week ago and have since notified her family.
Law enforcement says Stacey’s family will be reunited with her in the coming days, bringing them some peace more than 30 years after her disappearance.
Othram's CEO says he believes this new DNA technology could help solve thousands of unresolved cases across the country.
"I think what you'll see in the future is that there's just not a lot of cold cases because the cases are resolved more in real-time," said Mittelman.
If you want to learn more about the technology or about Stacey Lyn Chahorski's case, visit the link here.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
