Despite the setbacks, the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office didn’t give up. In 2021, they sent her remains to the first private genealogy lab to create a DNA profile and link it to relatives.
Othram specializes in recovering DNA from degraded or contaminated materials. The lab was able to build a profile for Jane Doe. Soon, a family tree began to emerge. Detectives went to work contacting near and distance relatives.
Not long after, the Sheriff’s office learned Jane Doe’s identity. Deputies identified her as Suzanne Gale Poole, who went missing after Christmas in 1972.
Poole was a high school dropout who lived with her family in a trailer-park near the Fort Lauderdale area. After the discover of her identity, speculations began to emerge that Poole could have been murdered by Gerard Schaefer, a serial killer who is accused of committing at least a dozen murders. Schaefer was dubbed the Killer Cop, because he worked as a deputy for the Martin County Sheriff’s Office during his murder spree.
He brutally murdered two teenage girls, 16 and 17. Poole vanished around the same time Schaefer was still working as a deputy. The police is asking anyone with information about Poole to contact the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Officer or crime stoppers.