BASTROP, Texas — Authorities are exhuming a body in an Elgin cemetery to try to determine her identity.
Bastrop County officials have worked in recent weeks to get permission from a judge to exhume the body in the Elgin City Cemetery on West Second Street. Crews arrived at the cemetery Wednesday morning, using a backhoe and other heavy equipment to exhume the body.
Officials said they initially learned of the case from a person conducting research on serial killer Henry Lee Lucas who was trying to determine if the woman's death is related to Lucas.
However, Bastrop County District Attorney Bryan Goertz said Wednesday that they have no specific evidence that leads them to think the woman's death is connected to Lucas, and that the effort to exhume the woman's remains is part of their attempts to identify her nearly 40 decades later using newly developed DNA technology.
The woman's badly decomposed body was discovered 40 years ago off Texas 95 between Bastop and Elgin. Officials said they have evidence that she may have been struck by a car.
"We are not looking at anything other than to identify the remains of a Jane Doe and help maybe somebody somewhere come to closure with this," Goertz said.
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