Ottawa County detectives identify Jane Doe, mystery since 1994, as Minnesota woman
WEST OLIVE — After over 26 years, the skeletal remains of a woman found in Ottawa County have been identified as those of a Minnesota woman.
The remains were found in Wright Township near Coopersville on Nov. 6, 1994, by hunters at the dead end of 32nd Avenue south of Arthur Street. After a forensic autopsy, it was ruled the woman died by homicide.
While the case has remained open since the body was found, the woman has been referred to only as "Matilda," since police didn't know her actual identity. Through DNA forensics, the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office has now identified the woman as Shelly Rae Kephart, who went by the name Shelly Rae Christian.
Christian, who was 29 when she went missing in 1993, was from Minnesota's Hennepin County (near Minneapolis), but was last known to be in Grand Rapids in February 1994.
Although Christian has now been identified, no suspect in her murder has been identified and no criminal charges have been filed in her case. The "Matilda" cold case is Ottawa County's third-oldest unsolved cold case. The only cases that have gone unsolved longer than is the 1977 death of Deb Polinsky and the 1967 death of another unidentified woman, known as "Jenny."
More:Missing person: Shelly Rae Christian
More:Delayed Justice: "Matilda"
More:Sheriff's office cold case team highlights unsolved Ottawa County murders
The Ottawa County Sheriff's Office obtained a DNA profile of Christian in 2007, but she could not be identified because her DNA was not in the national Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) used by the FBI. Since February 2021, the sheriff's office has been working with federal, state and local law enforcement along with the DNA Doe Project to identify Christian.
The DNA Doe Project uses forensic genealogy to identify victims of crime, matching victim DNA to living relatives' DNA in various DNA databases. In September of last year, Ottawa County detectives Sara Fillman and Allison Anderson traveled to Minnesota based on information from the DNA Doe Project to make contact with the family of missing woman Shelly Rae Christian.
Ottawa County Sheriff's Office Capt. Jake Sparks said Christian's mother is still alive, as are Christian's children.
"Although as investigators it's exciting to have such a breakthrough, we want to acknowledge it's also a sad time for the family," Sparks told The Sentinel.
DNA samples taken from the family of Christian were compared to the sample from the victim. Earlier this week, the FBI Crime Laboratory confirmed a kinship association with the family in Minnesota and the victim. Ottawa County's medical examiner Stephen Cohle, who performed the original autopsy on "Matilda" back in 1994, positively identified her remains as those of Christian.
While it's still too early for the sheriff's office to have any specific theories about how or why Christian was killed, Sparks is optimistic their investigation may yield results.
"All this time, the investigation has been into trying to identify the victim," Sparks said. "Now that we've identified the victim, we can really start the investigation. We're looking at all theories and we're remaining objective."
It's possible Christian was killed as part of several murders of women in the Grand Rapids area at the time of her death.
“In 1994 there were a lot of prostitutes being killed in the Grand Rapids area, and then their bodies were being discarded in various areas,” Fillman told The Sentinel in 2019.
Sparks hopes that now the victim's name and photos have been released, investigators can backtrack to see who Christian was with, why she came to Michigan and hopefully who she was associating with.
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"Until you know whose death you're investigating, it's very, very difficult to do an investigation," Sparks said. "Maybe we have someone who steps forward and says, 'Yes, I knew her,' an old roommate or coworker who can provide some answers, and we can try to drill down into it and figure out who was in her life at the time. None of that can really start until we have her name."
Anyone with any information about this investigation or who knew Christian is asked to contact the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Office or Silent Observer at 1-877-88 SILENT (745368) or mosotips.com. Christian was known to wear unique glasses as can be seen in one of the photographs. She may or may not have worn them near the time of her death.
— Contact editor Audra Gamble and reporter Carolyn Muyskens at newsroom@hollandsentinel.com and follow them on Twitter at @SentinelAudra and @cjmuyskens.