Posted 5/10/24

After 50 years, a woman known only as the “Maury County Jane Doe” has finally been identified.

Wednesday, May 8th, the Maury County Sheriff’s Office and DNA Doe Project announced they had successfully identified the remains found in Maury County as 19-year-old Annie Carolyn Jenkins of Memphis.

The teen’s remains were initially discovered on Valentine’s Day in 1975 by a couple of hunters on Joe Brown Road near I-65 in eastern Maury County.

At the time, officials could only tell that she appeared to be in her late teens or early 20s and showed signs of trauma.

Her remains were sent to the University Of Tennessee Department Of Anthropology in Knoxville, where they have been stored for more than 48 years. The case has been looked at multiple times over the years.

Then, in 2019, investigators brought the case to the DNA Doe Project, a volunteer-driven nonprofit organization working to identify Jane and John Does.

It took the efforts of four forensic labs over three years, but by summer of 2022, there was a breakthrough. After more than 530 hours of genealogical research, they were eventually able to narrow the search down to a handful of the closest family members. Then, Maury County Detective Keith Wrather made contact with a woman that was the final piece of the puzzle.

Now that she has been identified, Jenkins’ remains will be returned to her family.