Woman vanished from Oregon home in 1959, cops say. Her remains were just identified
A homeowner was excavating for a septic system in 1986 when he unearthed skeletal remains, fabric and a worn set of dentures in a 4-foot grave, authorities in Oregon said.
The grave left a “depression” on the ground for years before the man found the remains on his property in Grants Pass.
DNA testing identified the remains 37 years later as missing 62-year-old Elsie Marie Baker, Oregon State Police said in a Friday, Feb. 17, news release.
Baker vanished from her home sometime shortly after getting cancer treatment June 13, 1959, authorities said.
A nurse told investigators Baker had left the state to live with family, but friends and family never saw her again.
Baker disappears ‘under potentially suspicious circumstances’
Her niece reported her missing in September 1960. Then a news story was published about her disappearance.
Baker had been “widely reported on” at the time by multiple Oregon news outlets.
One story said Baker disappeared from her home “under potentially suspicious circumstances” because she had used a wheelchair and couldn’t leave without it, but it was found in her home.
The story also reported $10,000 missing from her house.
Years without any leads
When the skeletal remains were first discovered in 1986, they were sent to the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office.
An anthropologist determined the remains belonged to a white woman “having a living stature” about 63 inches and that she was older based on her dentures and the degenerative joint disease that was visible on her remains.
The anthropologist also said the skeletal remains had been in the grave for 15 to 25 years.
But for years, there were no leads on who the remains belonged to.
Genetic test from grandchild is last piece of puzzle
Then in 2018, a DNA bone sample was processed a second time and “a partial STR DNA profile was entered into (a national DNA database).”
A DNA profile was then created in 2020 through DNA phenotyping and investigative genealogy with Parabon Nanolabs.
A phenotype report was then made to include eye color, hair color, skin color and ancestry.
By 2022, the genetic genealogy report narrowed the woman’s close relatives ultimately to a family with six daughters. All the daughters had a death certificate, except one — Baker.
Her body had also never been found, investigators said.
Investigators then reached out to one of Baker’s grandchildren for the “last piece in this identification puzzle.”
A “kinship inference testing” was taken, and there was a 100% probability they were related.
Grants Pass is about 130 miles south of Eugene.
This story was originally published February 17, 2023 at 5:50 PM with the headline "Woman vanished from Oregon home in 1959, cops say. Her remains were just identified."
