By Joe Johnson
Remains that were found over 30 years ago in North Carolina have been identified as belonging to 20-year-old Lisa Coburn Kesler of Jackson County.
Investigators believe someone strangled Kesler one week before her body was dumped along the side of Interstate 40.
“Throughout the decades, some of our finest investigators kept plugging away,” Orange County, N.C. Sheriff Charles Blackwood said on his agency's Facebook page. “When you can’t close a case, it gets under your skin. You might set the file aside for a while, but you keep coming back to it, looking to see something you didn’t notice before, or hoping information gathered in ensuing cases has relevance to your cold case. Investigators also monitor new techniques and technologies in the field, which is what eventually led to the breakthrough in Ms. Kesler’s case.”
After they identifyied Kesler, investigators began interviewing people who they believed could be related to her and eventually they obtained
DNA from a suspected relative and the results came back as a match.
Anyone who has information regarding this case is asked to call 919-245-2951.