In October 1983, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office (PBSO) responded to an incident at a canal west of Atlantic Boulevard near the intersection of US 441 and Acme Dairy Road in Palm Beach County, Florida. In the canal, investigators located the body of a deceased white female. The woman’s body was discovered nude with a belt tied around her neck, and her throat had been cut. The Palm Beach County Medical Examiner determined that the woman was a victim of sexual battery and that she had been murdered.

Four days later on Oct. 25, 1983, the woman was identified as thirty-year-old Gayla Ann McNeil of Cocoa Beach, Florida. Investigators launched an investigation to identify the person responsible for McNeil’s death. Investigators learned that McNeil was walking south from coastal Brevard County, Florida to an unknown location in South Florida. On October 19, 1983, McNeil was stopped by police north of Palm Beach in Stuart, Florida. The next day, an officer with the Lake Worth Police Department questioned McNeil and reported that she was attempting to flag down cars on US Highway 1 in Lake Worth. Gayla reported that she was from Cocoa and was headed to Fort Lauderdale.

Gayla was last seen wearing blue jeans, a beige flannel shirt, and a brown sweatband around her head. She was carrying a clear plastic bag with clothing and a brown cutting board. Described as having a slender build, McNeil stood approximately 5’9″ tall and weighed only around 100 pounds. She had medium length, dark brown hair.

Although forensic DNA technology did not exist at the time of McNeil’s murder, DNA evidence was collected at the scene of the crime and preserved for future testing. Throughout the course of the investigation, DNA technology was developed. In 2000, DNA from the crime scene was analyzed and an STR profile was developed and entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a consortium of local, state, and national databases of DNA profiles from convicted offenders, unsolved crime scene evidence, and missing persons. There were no matches detected in the CODIS search. With all leads exhausted, a suspect was not identified, and the case remained cold.

You can read more about this story in an article in the forensicmag.com web site at: http://bit.ly/3WpZIXc.