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Body identified as Detroit woman

ANGOLA, Ind. (AP) — Authorities on Sunday identified a Michigan woman who was found dead 20 years ago in a northeastern Indiana field, renewing the investigation into her “suspicious” death.

The Steuben County Sheriff’s Department said they followed hundreds of leads to try to identify the woman over two decades, including using an FBI lab in Virginia, the National Missing Persons DNA Database and a genetic genealogy database. In the end, it was a combination of DNA information and traditional police work.

Authorities were able to identify the woman — Tina L. Cabanaw of the Detroit area — through a family tree and confirm it after a DNA test of her daughter, Jessica Gallegos of Colorado.

“I was starting to lose the hope. It was 20 years later when I got the call,” Gallegos told The (Angola) Herald-Republican. “It was over.”

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