“Amore Wiggins. It feels really good to say her name out loud.”
A press conference held by Opelika Police Department announced the identification of a Baby Jane Doe, an approximately 3 year old child found in Opelika, Alabama, 11 years ago. Her identification is a result of over a decade of hard work from numerous agencies who were all dedicated to finding her name:
Opelika Police Chief Shane Healey goes on to say, “I want to commend NCMEC, Barbara Rae-Venter, the FBI, Othram, Astrea and my entire team for all their hard work. Without it, we may have never known her name...”
Astrea Forensics aided the investigation by generating a comprehensive genotype file from the child’s (rootless) hair. This file, along with a file developed by Othram from scalp, was used by genetic genealogist Barbara Rae Venter to identify a lead.
Astrea’s work on the case was offered pro bono through a NIJ research and development grant. We found that Amore’s rootless hair was extremely well preserved, resulting in over 6-fold coverage of the genome despite highly fragmented DNA. From the hair, Astrea lab was able to deliver a SNP profile to NCMEC in 6 weeks from sample arrival.
Shortly after Opelika Police Department announced the identification, Amore’s father confessed to the murder.
Read more here: https://www.missingkids.org/blog/2023/who-is-opelika-jane-doe