Jane Doe ID'd In Laguna Beach 40+ Years After Death: Police

LAGUNA BEACH, CA — After over 40 years, a Jane Doe killed in a hit-and-run in Laguna Beach was identified, thanks to the efforts of the DNA Doe Project.

Virginia Irene Nelson, known as "Ginny" to her family, was 46 years old at the time of her death.

While she was from Yonkers, New York, she was last known to be living in Fresno prior to her death.

On Jan. 30, 1982, a passing motorists spotted the body of a woman on the side of Pacific Coast Highway in Laguna Beach. Upon arrival, investigators found that the woman had been dead for hours.

While authorities were never able to identify the woman's body, the DNA Doe Project picked up the cold case in 2023—relying on the information they had to work with, which included a "recognizable" face, dental work, fingerprints and surgical scars.

A relative of the unidentified woman had uploaded his DNA profile to a database that allows the upload of law enforcement cases, according to the DNA Doe Project.

The profile led DNA Doe Project researchers to the correct family.

"Close matches do not always guarantee a quick or easy resolution," team co-leader Jeana Feehery said in a news release. "But in this case, we were fortunate to not only have high matches on both sides of her family, but family members who also publicly shared family trees that helped us make those connections."

Nelson was born in 1935 in Jacksonville, Florida, but she grew up just outside of New York City in Yonkers.

She later moved to California by 1967, though researchers only found this information due to a newspaper clipping which reported her being mugged while living in Fresno that year.

After that, researchers found that she had disappeared from public records.