After 4 decades, Montana shooting victim is identified through DNA: "Our family is broken-hearted"
CBSN
Officials in western Montana, working with a private DNA lab in Texas, have identified the victim of an early 1980s homicide and are now investigating to see if she may have died at the hands of a suspected serial killer, the Missoula County Sheriff's Office said Monday.
DNA obtained from the skeletonized remains, which were found in Missoula County in September 1985, was compared to commercial databases and was traced to the family of Janet Lee Lucas of Spokane, Washington. Lucas was 23 when she was last seen in Sandpoint, Idaho in the summer of 1983. "After decades of missing Janet, our family is broken-hearted to learn that she was tragically taken, unidentified and spent a large amount of years alone," her family said in a statement released by the sheriff's office. "However, she never spent one moment without being loved. Janet had a contagious smile, warm personality and wore her heart on her sleeve."Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.