Human remains in 1978 unsolved homicide probe linked to Florida woman

The Collier County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday they have identified the victim in a decades-old homicide, hoping to find her accused killer.

The remains of Joan Shirley Joyce, who was born in 1936, were found in 1978 in a shallow grave.

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The sheriff's office explained Tuesday that DNA tests have positively identified Joyce.

On June 3, 1978, Joyce's body was discovered in a shallow grave on a dirt road off State Road 29, a half mile south of Alligator Alley, the sheriff's office said. The Collier County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Joyce died from blunt-force trauma to her head.

A DNA sample extracted from Joyce was submitted to Othram Inc., a Texas-based lab specializing in forensic genetic genealogy, on a grant for genealogical testing.

The sheriff's office said tests positively identified the victim as Joyce recently. A relationship testing report revealed Joyce had family in California, the sheriff's office said.

Further investigation by detectives found Joyce went missing in the 1970s while living on the east coast of Florida, although authorities never found evidence of a missing person report linked to her disappearance.

The sheriff's office said Joyce had a young daughter at the time she went missing.

The sheriff's office said authorities continue to probe Joyce's death, hoping to find her killer.

"Our efforts to identify all of the exhumed remains continues," the sheriff's office said in a release posted to their Facebook page.

The sheriff's office on March 6 said it is the largest exhumation project ever completed in Florida.

Tomas Rodriguez is a Breaking/Live News Reporter for the Naples Daily News and The News-Press. You can reach Tomas at TRodriguez@gannett.com or 772-333-5501. Connect with him on Threads @tomasfrobeltran , Instagram @tomasfrobeltran and Facebook @tomasrodrigueznews .

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Human remains in 1978 unsolved homicide probe linked to Florida woman