New technology and DNA from under a postage stamp help identify missing Marine after 25 years

Investigators used DNA evidence they extracted from a decades-old postage stamp to confirm that a body they found belonged to Marine Corps veteran Stacey Boothe-Wilson.

Here's what we know

Boothe-Wilson disappeared in 1994 after leaving the home of a relative in Greenburgh, New York. In 1995, the body of a then-unidentified woman was found in a remote section of Jacksonville, North Carolina, roughly 600 miles away. The body was in such bad condition that police could not determine a cause of death.

Several years after her disappearance, a postage stamp that Boothe-Wilson had licked was submitted to authorities. DNA was extracted from the stamp and submitted to a national database.

But it was only recently that technology advanced far enough to allow police to get a useable DNA sample from the body they found in North Carolina. Sgt. Will Lugo from the Greenburgh Police Department said that this was his department's "only open missing cold case" and "a really big deal."

The DNA evidence proved that Boothe-Wilson met a tragic end 25 years ago, but investigators still need to find out how this happened and how she ended up so far away from home.

News 12 Westchester reported that Boothe-Wilson and her husband had once lived in Jacksonville, but it was unclear why she would have returned there.

Boothe-Wilson's sister, Xenia Freeman, told WLNY-TV that she always knew in her heart that her sister was dead.

"I knew that she wasn't with us anymore because my sister was not the kind of person that would just walk away, leave her three kids, and not be in touch with me for all these years."

Booth-Wilson had spent 13 years in the Marines, according to WCTI-TV, and had been discharged in August 1994. She had only recently moved to New York with her three children after separating from her husband, who was also a Marine.