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Jane Doe From 1985 was Identified After Her family Gave DNA Samples
Alisha Cooks’s case is still open, and police are seeking information on the murder.
On December 16, 1985, two hunters found human remains in a field fifty yards off the junction of county road 50 and county road 90. The remains were discovered to be female, believed at the time to be Hispanic, and they determined the death occurred six to twelve months before the remains were discovered.
There was never much released about the death, but it had been ruled a homicide, and the female victim was never identified. The Doe Network reports the cause of death as a gunshot to the head.
On October 6, the Brazoria County Sheriff’s Office got a DNA report that stated they had found a match for the 1985 Jane Doe. She was identified as missing teen Alisha “Lisa” Marie Cooks.
Cooks had been reported missing by her family in Houston, Texas, in the summer of 1985. This would put her time of death closer to 6 months.
The Cooks family had come forward recently and given samples of DNA that were uploaded to NAMUS (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System), hoping to find any information about where she might be. That is how they managed to identify Alisha Cooks.