A previously unknown black teenager whose body mysteriously turned up in a vacant home near Atlanta has been identified nearly two months after it was discovered, officials said.
The slain 16 year old teenage girlwhose remains were found in February identified from relatives who authorities contacted after seeing media coverage of the unsolved case, police announced on April 1.
“A family friend contacted the victim’s mother for advice [that] The sketch shown on TV closely resembles her daughter,” Det. Lakeisha Watts of the East Point Police Department told Oxygen. com in a statement on Tuesday. “The mother reported it [the] East Point Police Department to meet with detectives from the Criminal Investigations Division. The mother and father confirmed that the young lady found dead was their 16-year-old daughter.”
The girl’s identity has not yet been released at the family’s request, police said.
The development comes after authorities combed through thousands of leads to identify the teen, who has been nicknamed “Georgia Jane Doe” and “East Point Jane Doe.”
On February 12, East Point police officers, responding to reports from an unresponsive person, found the young girl in a vacant lot at Block 2200 of Ben Hill Road just after midnight.
Police who released a facial reconstruction sketch of the girl, had few clues to work with, save one Necklace and anklets She wear. For weeks, the police kept getting nothing with specific clues to the identity of the girl, who was initially estimated to be between 13 and 17 years old.
Police say the teenager was murdered, but the 16-year-old’s cause of death has not been released. Authorities are now focusing their investigations on identifying the young girl’s killer.
“The East Point Police Department now knows her true identity, but the work is not over,” said Rebecca Steinback, a spokeswoman for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Oxygen. com. “There are many questions that still need to be answered, such as: who is responsible and why did this happen? The pain this child’s family is going through is almost unimaginable. We hope that justice will prevail and that there will be answers in this case.”
An unidentified female of interest had previously been questioned by detectives but was released.
“At this time, we do not believe she was involved with or knew of our victim,” the East Point Police Department said in a separate statement March 9. “We will continue the investigation.”
No further information on the open case was released by law enforcement this week.
Anyone with additional information regarding the open case is urged to contact the East Point Police Department at 404-761-2177 or email police@eastpointcity.org. Tips can also be sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children through a 24-hour anonymous tipping hotline at 1-800-843-5678.
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