Skeletal remains found in Gregg County, Texas, 20 years ago identified as Arlington woman

In 2002, a woman’s skeletal remains were found by a construction worker in Gregg County. The case went cold, but now her remains have been identified.

Pamela Darlene Young of Arlington was identified by the DNA Doe Project, an all-volunteer nonprofit organization, and the Gregg County Sheriff’s Office, according to a news release.

Young’s daughter, who was not named, provided a DNA sample that lead to the identification.

Even though her remains have been identified, investigators ran out of leads and the case of what happened to Young remains cold.

In 2020, Gregg County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Eddie Hope called on the DNA Doe Project to help with the case, narrowing down a family tree to identify Young.

The project uses genetic genealogy to identify remains. Team members used a mitochondrial DNA haplogroup to narrow their focus on Young, according to the release.

A DNA profile was made from a molar and uploaded to GEDmatch Pro, a database that gives law enforcement the ability to compare DNA profiles of unidentified remains to those who uploaded profiles open to the public.

“There was a lot of endogamy in the family, which made the case much more difficult,” Kevin Lord, team co-leader, said in the release.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Young had died about two years before she was found. She had an unrepaired cleft palate, a birth condition that is a slit in the roof of the mouth when tissue doesn’t fuse together during growth in the womb, according to the release.

Her cause of death was undetermined, said Megan Pasika, a DNA Doe Project co-team member.

“There were a lot of families who had married each other several times over the generations. Also, most of her top matches were related to her in more than one way,” Pasika said. “So when we were building out her matches, and we were looking for common ancestors, it became really difficult because we couldn’t tell what common ancestors were Pamela’s and which ones were just shared among her matches and on different lines in the tree.”

This story was originally published July 21, 2022 at 1:13 PM.