PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. — Investigators in Pierce County are hopeful someone has details about a woman found dead near Bonney Lake in 2019, a case which has resurfaced as new tests on the person's remains are awaiting results.
Detective Sergeant Lynelle Anderson is assigned to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department's Cold Case Homicide Unit.
“For us if the detectives at the time had worked through all of the evidence and everything that they believed would leave to the conclusion and have not been able to resolve the investigation they turn it to the cold case unit and with pick that up from there,” Anderson said.
This case picks up on Aug. 28, 2019, on a then-vacant lot on 9th Street East just north of Lake Tapps. Construction workers near Bonney Lake found what they believe to be body parts in a yard debris container that was sealed shut.
“When the excavator operator was looking at it he noticed that there appeared to be a blanket, the shape of the blanket and with some duct tape on it caught his eye and he got a sinking feeling in his stomach,” Anderson said.
A forensic anthropologist determined the human remains belonged to a female. They determined it was a woman likely between the ages of 24 and 44, between 5-foot-1 and 5-foot-7. She’s believed to have a set of dentures and the anthropologist said that’s unusual for someone of that age range.
Detectives suspect she was murdered as they found her remains bound in duct tape.
“There’s a family out there that should know what happened to their loved one,” Anderson said.
As of Sept. 6, the department is waiting on results of genetic genealogy – hoping her DNA will connect her to family members who submitted their own data to public database. A life that could have been lost and gone had it not been for the workers who called police.
“Had they not slowed down in that moment and thought, 'that just seems not right,' she would have been removed and we never would have found her,” Anderson said.