The remains of a woman found lying in the dirt on the Las Vegas strip over four decades ago in a homicide case that went cold have finally been identified.
The woman, only known as ‘Sahara Sue Doe’ up until last month, has now been identified as Gwenn Marie Story, a 19-year-old who went missing in 1979, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department announced on Tuesday.
The mysterious remains were kept for over forty years after investigators at the time believed the woman died of a homicide but could not pinpoint who she was.
In September 2022, progress was made in the cold case when the LVMPD requested a forensic genetic genealogy investigation to be performed by Othram, a company that specialises in cold case resolution.
Though some leads on the case, detectives were able to identify and contact possible family members who gave DNA samples to compare to Sahara Sue Doe.
After a year of investigating and testing, Othram discovered on 15 November 2023 that the remains belonged to Gwenn Marie Story.
While this is a huge discovery in the case and will bring comfort to those who wondered what happened to Story, how the teenager ended up dead still remains a mystery.
Story was found on 14 August 1979 by a man walking through an open field in the area of Sahara Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard - where the El Rancho Vegal Hotel and Casino once stood.
The Clark County Coroner’s Office conducted an autopsy and ruled her death as a homicide, but no investigation leads could identify who she was.
She was named ‘Sahara Sue Doe’ after the place where she was found.
Now that Story has been identified, the cold case investigators learned from family members that the teenager had left Cincinnati, Ohio, in the summer of 1979 and was travelling to California to try and locate her biological father.
Police said she left Ohio with two male friends who returned to Cincinnati in August 1979.
The friends told Story’s family they had left her in Las Vegas.
Her family said they had never heard from Story again after she left Cincinnati.
Her family said in a statement to 8 News Now that they are very thankful to the LVMPD for their help and hope they can find more answers as to what happened to Story.
“Finally, after 44 years of not knowing what happened to our sister Gwenn Story, we have news that she has been identified,” they said.
“We are looking for some closure on this case. Our family just wants some answers, we would really appreciate the help.”
The LVMPD Homicide Cold Case Section is continuing to investigate this case and urges anyone who has information on Story or the two male friends to contact them.
