State police have identified the woman known for 37 years as "New Buffalo Jane Doe" as Dorothy Glanton, 71, of Chicago, after modern DNA analysis. Her body was found on the Lake Michigan shore in April 1988 and the case was reopened and exhumed in 2023. Working with the DNA Doe Project, investigators used genetic genealogy to build family links and confirm her identity, providing long-awaited closure to her family.
After 37 Years, 'New Buffalo Jane Doe' Identified as Dorothy Glanton — DNA Genealogy Brings Closure
State police have identified the woman known for 37 years as "New Buffalo Jane Doe" as Dorothy Glanton, 71, of Chicago, after modern DNA analysis. Her body was found on the Lake Michigan shore in April 1988 and the case was reopened and exhumed in 2023. Working with the DNA Doe Project, investigators used genetic genealogy to build family links and confirm her identity, providing long-awaited closure to her family.
11:42 PM, 11/12/2025Society
New Buffalo identification closes a 37-year-old mystery
State police announced Wednesday that the woman long known as "New Buffalo Jane Doe" has been identified as Dorothy Glanton, a 71-year-old woman from Chicago, thanks to advances in forensic DNA analysis and genetic genealogy.
Glanton was reported missing after leaving her home in December 1987. Her body was recovered along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Berrien County on April 8, 1988; investigators at the time were unable to determine her identity.
Decades later, investigators exhumed the remains and reopened the cold case in 2023, hoping that modern forensic genetic genealogy could produce an identification. They worked with the nonprofit DNA Doe Project, which used the decedent's DNA and comparisons with public genealogy databases to build family trees and locate likely relatives.
Early investigators in the 1980s had described the remains as those of a white woman in her 40s or 50s. Subsequent testing corrected that assessment, showing the decedent was a Black woman in her early 70s — an error the DNA Doe Project noted was relatively common before routine DNA profiling and modern forensic anthropology.
Because the original age estimate was decades younger, detectives initially searched for the missing woman's daughter before focusing on Dorothy Glanton herself. While tracing family connections, researchers discovered a poignant clue: an August 1988 newspaper advertisement placed by Glanton's elderly mother saying she needed her daughter 'desperately.'
The DNA Doe Project reported that Glanton was born and raised in Alabama and moved with her family to Chicago in the 1920s as part of the Great Migration, when millions of Black Americans relocated from the South.
'This identification brings closure to a family that has wondered for nearly four decades what happened to their loved one,' said Detective Sgt. John Moore, the lead investigator on the case. 'We are grateful for the dedication of everyone who worked tirelessly to resolve this investigation.'
The identification highlights how forensic genetic genealogy has become a game-changing tool for solving long-standing cold cases, correcting earlier investigative errors, and bringing answers to families who have waited decades.