Chain of Custody & The I-94 Embankment Recovery
On April 8, 1988, Michigan Department of Transportation highway workers clearing brush and trash along the eastbound embankment of Interstate 94 near the New Buffalo exit in Berrien County, Michigan—less than two miles north of the Indiana state border—discovered human skeletal remains concealed in woodland brush.
Deputies from the Berrien County Sheriff's Department and Michigan State Police investigators secured the interstate perimeter. The body had been dumped down a steep highway embankment and was in an advanced stage of decomposition and partial skeletonization. Taphonomic analysis placed the postmortem interval between six months and one year, indicating the victim had been abandoned in 1987.
Forensic Pathological & Anthropological Examination
The autopsy was performed by regional forensic pathologists. The decedent was determined to be a young Black female, aged approximately 20 to 25 years old, measuring 5 feet 3 inches to 5 feet 5 inches in height and weighing approximately 110 to 125 pounds. She had distinct dental work including composite fillings and bore physical indicators of past pregnancy.
The cause of death was ruled homicide resulting from violent blunt force trauma and strangulation. No clothing or personal effects were recovered at the scene, indicating the perpetrator had stripped the victim to obstruct identification before transporting her along the interstate corridor. The decedent was entered into NamUs as UP6731.
The 35-Year Genomic Breakthrough
In 2021, Berrien County Sheriff's Office cold case detectives partnered with the DNA Doe Project. Skeletal elements were processed by HudsonAlpha Discovery to extract nuclear DNA for whole-genome SNP microarray genotyping.
Genealogists mapped family trees through challenging African-American ancestral lines, tracing shared DNA segments to families originally rooted in Mississippi and Chicago. In July 2023, after thirty-five years of anonymous classification, the Berrien County Sheriff formally announced that New Buffalo Jane Doe was Dorothy Glanton, born in 1965 and aged 23 at the time of her murder.