ST. FRANCIS, Wis. — An unidentified woman who was found dead on the shore of Lake Michigan in 1997 was recently identified as Dorothy (Thyng) Ricker.
Ricker was last seen in St. Francis on Oct. 2, 1997. She was at a Lake Michigan beach sitting on a park bench. According to police, officers spoke with her and she said she was from Chicago and was "enjoying the lakefront and the sun." At that time, she had not yet been reported missing and nothing had appeared abnormal to police officers. At the time of her disappearance, Ricker was 26 years old and had been residing in Chicago.
The next day, an abandoned vehicle was found nearby. When police officers ran the license plate, it came back to a "missing/endangered person" entered by the Chicago Police Department.
Later that month on Oct. 27, Michigan State Police (MSP) troopers responded to a call for a dead unclothed woman who appeared to have washed up on the Lake Michigan shoreline. The body had no identifiers except for a lone earring, police say. Messages were sent by MSP troopers to surrounding states when the woman's body was found but there were no credible leads.
The cause of death was determined to be asphyxia due to accidental drowning.
Over 20 years later, in September 2020 the case was reexamined by MSP detectives and the MSP Missing Persons Coordination Unit. Bone samples were sent to Astrea Forensics under the DNA Doe Project for Forensic Genetic Genealogy (FGG).
A possible familial match to Ricker's unidentified body was located in July of 2021 via FGG.
The possible match of the unidentified human remains was to the Thyng family in Acton, Maine, police say. With help of the York County Sheriff's Office in Maine, DNA reference samples from a possible brother to the unidentified woman were obtained.
Detectives also learned that the unidentified woman had a possible daughter currently residing in Chicago. MSP detectives were able to get DNA samples from her.
Due to the state of the samples, they were not found to be suitable for traditional testing, so they were sent to Intermountain Forensics in Salt Lake City, Utah for further attempts at identification.
In December of 2022, after two years of the case being re-examined, the DNA Diagnostics Center and Intermountain Forensics were able to confirm the identity of the human remains as Dorothy Lynn (Thyng) Ricker.
