NASSAU COUNTY, Fla. — This week marked 35 years since Linda Anderson’s body was found near I-10 in Nassau County. But until 2011, she was known only as “Jane Doe.”
It wasn’t until Anderson’s children submitted their DNA decades later that the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office was able to identify her.
Detective Charity Rose says this is just one of 14 cases they hope to solve.
“Trying to put a lot of focus on where she’s been who she knows and where she was working, and I think it needs some closure on that case," said Rose. "It's been since 1987."
Sheriff Bill Leeper says that kind of focus requires a specialized unit. So last month he created the cold case unit with Rose in charge.
“We felt like we needed somebody to focus on those cases because our other investigators have a lot of other things to do so we are just focusing in on our missing persons that we have not successful at yet and see if we can bring closure to the families," said Leeper.
Another case they hope to focus on is Jacquelyn Markham who disappeared in 2000. A case we recently covered in our Unsolved series. The unit is new, but they hope to expand over time.
“Right now, I'm the only person in here, but I do believe that we need more detectives working in here it's always better when you can kind of bounce ideas off of each other," said Rose.
Leeper says new technology and a fresh set of eyes offer real hope of finding new clues in cold cases.