Cold case of missing woman: Police ID body after 30 years

Sept. 7 (UPI) -- A body of a young woman found in Tennessee in 1985 has been identified as a missing 21-year-old from Indiana.

Tina Marie McKenney Farmer had been missing from Indianapolis since the 1980s.

When the body was found along Interstate 75 in Tennessee, police were unable to identify her. She was listed as a Jane Doe and has remained in Tennessee, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said Thursday in a news release.

Though the investigation was never closed, it languished until this summer when investigators caught a break. They came across a missing persons blog post that described Farmer -- a 21-year-old redhead missing from Indianapolis since the 1980s.

"Ms. Farmer matched the description of the unidentified female found in Campbell County," the news release said. "Farmer's fingerprints were compared against the postmortem prints of the victim, resulting in a match."

The identification has opened new questions about Farmer's disappearance. She had been dead several days before police found her body by the interstate, according to the TBI. It's unclear exactly when Farmer went missing.

Officials in Tennessee are working with Indianapolis Metro Police Department to learn more about Farmer's life and her disappearance.

Anyone with information about Farmer's death, specifically any knowledge about people she was with before her death, are asked to call 1-800-TBI-FIND.