Authorities in Sacramento, California, identified a body found 39 years ago as a Dallas woman who went missing around the same time.
A woman's decomposed body was found on the side of Interstate 5 in Sacramento County on October 27, 1981. Thanks to DNA evidence, the woman now has a name: Lily Ann Prendergast.
Prendergast was originally from Ohio, but was last seen leaving her family's home in Dallas, Texas, in late 1980 when she was 26 years old.
“That’s the last anybody had heard from her,” William Prendergast, Lily Ann's older brother, told FOX 40. He described his sister as free spirit who frequently hitchhiked.
Authorities in Sacramento believe the missing woman was murdered one to five months before Prendergast's body was found. Investigators tried for years to identify who the dead woman was.
“It’s a case that’s kept me up at night,” Sacramento County Sheriff’s Deputy Paige Kneeland told the TV station. “You know, I wake up thinking about it sometimes.”
Investigators tried facial reconstruction, sketches, and even submitted Predergast's DNA to a database of missing persons with no luck.
The FBI notified the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office in February that the body was Prendergast because William submitted his DNA to the FBI in 2019 in an effort to find his sister.
Prendergast's death is being investigated as a homicide, and investigators in Sacramento are looking for anyone who knows anything about her disappearance.
Photo: Sacramento County Sheriff's Office