A body found late last month in a mobile home park in Ormond Beach, Florida, has been positively identified as that of a 16-year-old girl who went missing in 2004, authorities have confirmed.
“This week, VSO Crime Scene Unit personnel and ANDE Rapid DNA scientists created a profile from DNA extracted from bones recovered at a burial site in Ormond Beach,” the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said in an update Thursday. mentioned in. The DNA was compared to Autumn McClure’s family.
“By utilizing VSO’s in-house ANDE Rapid DNA technology, rather than sending DNA to a state lab for analysis, we have significantly reduced the time it takes to formally identify a family member,” Sheriff’s Office said. Tokoro said.
McClure, 16, was reported missing by her grandmother in May 2004 after her boyfriend claimed he had dropped her off at a shopping mall. Her boyfriend actually left her at the bridge, where she got into a car with a woman named Jessica Freeman, she later said.
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Autumn McClure’s body has been positively identified 20 years after she went missing. (Volusia County Sheriff’s Office)
Investigators said McClure was staying with Freeman, with whom she worked at a Winn-Dixie supermarket, and Freeman’s boyfriend, Brian Donley, then 31, and that the three were romantically involved. I learned that it happened in
The two lived in a Shady Oaks mobile home park and McClure told investigators they had only been together for a short time and claimed he had no knowledge of her whereabouts.
In 2021, the Sheriff’s Office received a tip that Donley or his girlfriend were responsible for the death of a teenage girl in Volusia County. Investigators followed up with the informant and additional evidence was provided.
Mr. Donley died during surgery in 2022, and Mr. Freeman was later granted a letter of immunity, and Mr. Freeman confessed to seeing Donley kill McClure.
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The Volusia County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office has identified recently discovered human remains as 16-year-old Autumn McClure. (Universal Images Group, via Getty Images)
“One afternoon, she came home and saw Brian choking Autumn in the bathroom,” said Sheriff Mike Chitwood. “When she intervened, she saw Autumn lifeless and she walked away,” the trailer states. Freeman told investigators that Donley threatened to kill her if she said anything about killing McClure.
Freeman is not a suspect.
In the 20 years since McClure’s disappearance, the land where the trailer sat has changed hands several times, and a new trailer was placed there in 2021.
Last week, the sheriff’s office was able to remove the trailer, along with the concrete that was placed on top of it, to allow for excavation of the site.
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Chitwood said Donley will never face justice in this life, but “when he took his last breath on May 26, 2022, he had a vision of where he was going. I pray to God that it will be the same,” he added.
FOX News’ Greg Wenner contributed to this report.
