Pregnant teen murdered in 1975 identified as Cheryl Edwards of Waukegan thanks to DNA genealogy
A pregnant teen who was found murdered more than 50 years ago in Iowa has been identified as a girl living in Waukegan thanks to DNA testing.
The DNA Doe Project announced the results Tuesday. On April 11, 1975, a fisherman in Clinton County, Iowa, found the remains of a Black girl in the Mississippi River with no clothing, jewelry or other possessions. At the time she was estimated to have been between 12 and 23 years old, and had been shot in the head at some point earlier this year.
An autopsy ruled her death a homicide and found she was 10 weeks pregnant when she was killed.
The girl was known as Jane Clinton Doe. In the decades since her discovery she had not been identified, and her killer had not been caught. Last year, the case was brought to the DNA Doe Project, which uses genetic genealogy to identify Jane and John Does.
In October 2025, a team of 16 genealogists from three countries convened for a weekend to work on the case and quickly made a breakthrough, the organization said. They were able to identify the girl's grandparents in Louisiana, then realized they had eventually settled in the Kenosha are in Wisconsin.
From there, they were able to identify the couple's eldest child, who had served in the U.S. Navy and lived all over the country but eventually settled with his wife and sons in the 1970s. they also uncovered that he also had a daughter.
"We found a birth record for a daughter of his, who was born in 1959 in a Navy hospital in San Diego," said team member Trish Bird. "Her name was Cheryl Edwards, and it seemed like she had just vanished from the records in the 1970s."
The team told the Iowa Department of Public Safety that they believe Jane Clinton Doe could be Cheryl Edwards, the missing daughter. A DPS investigator found and visited a member of Edwards' family, who confirmed she had disappeared.
Further DNA testing confirmed that Jane Clinton Doe was in fact Cheryl Edwards, officials said.
