MANISTEE COUNTY, Mich.—Human remains found in 1997 along Lake Michigan’s shoreline in western Michigan have been identified as those of a Chicago woman last seen weeks earlier at a Wisconsin beachfront park, police said Monday.
Forensic experts relying on advanced DNA analyses confirmed in December that the remains are those of Dorothy Lynn (Thyng) Ricker, Michigan State Police said.
“Although DNA testing wasn’t possible when Dorothy Ricker died, investigators are grateful that it brings her family some resolution today,” police said in a news release.
Ricker, then 26, was last seen on Oct. 2, 1997, sitting on a bench at a Wisconsin lakefront park by officers with the St. Francis Police Department. She told the officers “she was from Chicago and was ‘enjoying the lakefront and the sun,’” state police said….