Nearly 34 years ago, a 19-year-old Michigan woman told her mother she was planning a road trip.
Stacey Lyn Chahorski wanted to visit North Carolina before returning north. She never made it home.
To her family, Chahorski seemingly disappeared. But investigators now know she was the woman found dead in northwest Georgia in December 1988. And that brings peace to her family in Michigan and those who have worked the case, the GBI said this week.
One big question remains unsolved: Who killed Stacey Lyn Chahorski?
“Today marks the day where we hunt for the killer now,” GBI Special Agent Joe Montgomery said Thursday.
Chahorski last talked to her mother on the phone in September 1988, according to the Michigan Live news site. The teen told her mother she planned to go from North Carolina then to Michigan, according to the report.
On Dec. 16, 1988, at around 2 p.m., the Dade County Sheriff’s Office and the GBI were called to the scene where two DOT workers located a body, about five miles from the Alabama state line on I-59 in an area known as Rising Fawn. The woman was a homicide victim, and for decades would be known only as the Rising Fawn Jane Doe.
The following month, Chahorski was reported missing from Norton Shores, Michigan. Her mother said she had not heard from Chahroski in several months.
For years, GBI agents and Dade investigators tried unsuccessfully to determine the woman’s name. A GBI forensic artist made clay renderings and drew composites to recreate what the victim would look like in hopes of identifying her.
The case was reassigned in the mid-2000s and new investigators found additional evidence that was sent to the FBI lab, the GBI said. Analysts developed a DNA profile of the victim and entered the profile in a missing person database.
In 2015, a GBI forensic artist did new clay renderings and composites of the victim to show an age progression. The GBI contacted the FBI about the possibility of using a new type of genealogy investigation that had been used to solve other cold cases. With this technology, Chahorski was identified, the GBI said.
Chahorski was buried in a Dade cemetery, the GBI said. Now her remains will be returned to her family. Her mother was recently told the news, the GBI said.
The investigation remains active and ongoing as the search for a killer continues.
Montgomery said he thinks authorities have a good probability of solving the case and “bringing the killer to justice.”
“The biggest problem in being able to solve this case is we had no identity of the victim, so we had no starting point,” the agent said. “Now we have a starting point and that’s a big jump for us.”
Anyone with information can submit anonymous tips by calling 1-800-597-TIPS(8477), online, or by downloading the See Something, Send Something mobile app.
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