During the 1990's and 2000's, the remains of several murder victims; mostly female sex workers, were found on Long Island's beaches. To police it seemed clear that they were the victims of a serial killer, or even more frightening, two serial killers who were dumping victims in the same area. The killer or killers, were given the moniker LISK, or Long Island Serial Killer. Many of the victims were identified, but while police hunted for the killer, they also needed to ID the rest of the victims, and they succeeded finally in identifying two of them; Karen Vergata and Valerie Mack.

The vicious, brutal 1975 stabbing murder of sweet, shy newlywed Lindy Sue Biechler haunted Lancaster, PA. Lindy was stabbed 19 times right inside her front door, and a butcher knife left embedded in her neck, and police couldn’t determine any motive in the case. The 19 year old had no enemies, and no one had seen or heard anything. It was considered the most puzzling unsolved mystery in the area for decades. Then, in 1997, a breakthrough in lab testing hinted at a motive – but not at a suspect. Two decades later, even the powers of forensic genealogy came up short. But in pondering the genealogy, CeCe Moore detected a genetic pattern that she linked to immigration to Lancaster from a specific region in Italy. Fortuitous records of Italian immigrants to Lancaster helped her focus her search. And when she considered these records alongside the phenotype information, she stumbled on a name – someone who had a connection to Lindy. A coffee cup casually thrown into a garbage can at Philadelphia International Airport proved her hunch right, and Lindy’s family had answers at long last.

In April, 1985, the skeltonised remains of a woman were discovered in a shallow grave on Crescent Beach, 50 miles south of Jacksonville,Florida. There was no identifcation, and no missing persons in the area matched the remains. Police quickly ruled the death a homicide but had very little clues to go on, other than some extensive injuries the victim had suffered some time before her death; wounds that had healed up. It was thought that she may have been in a serious car accident. They believed the victim was 30-50 years old. Overall, police had little to go on, and the case went cold. Over the years as DNA technology advanced, police tried various methods to ID their victim. Finally in May, 2024, Crescent Beach Jane Doe was identified as Rockville, MD native Mary Alice Pultz Jenkins. She had gone missing in 1968 after becoming estranged from her family. She was last known to be in the company of her boyfriend John Thomas Fugitt, who detectives discovered went by the alias Billy Joe Wallace. Fugitt died on death row in 1981 for an unrelated murder. It's unclear if Fugitt could be responsible for Mary Alice's murder, and police are having trouble tracking the couple's movements prior to her body being found.