For 27 years , investigators at California ’s Orange County Sheriff ’s Department ’s Coroner Division would periodically deplumate out a case filing cabinet that kept nagging at them . On April 1 , 1990 , a woman was attempting to cross the Pacific Coast Highway when she was fall by two passing cars and snuff it at the conniption . Police sketches , fingerprints , and other methods of recognition had proved fruitless ; a spot onUnsolved Mysteriesadded little . Somewhere , the 26 - class - old woman ’s family must be wonder what happened to her .

The Division ’s dogged interest of her identity has eventually paid off . Last week , the Sheriff ’s Department announced [ PDF ] that the accident dupe was Andrea Kuiper , a woman who had latterly moved to California from Fairfax , Virginia , and who had apparently fallen out of tactual sensation with her family due to a drug habit and bouts of frenzied Great Depression .

Kuiper ’s name was revealed as the resultant role of a recent partnership between the FBI and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System ( NamUs ) , a database of inquiry selective information for cold cases . As part of their enlargement of resources , NamUs was recently able-bodied to get at fingermark data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture ’s employ account . As it turns out , Kuiperonce workedfor the department . When her employee information was added to the database , investigator got a match .

NamUs/Orange County Sheriff’s Department

The Orange County Coroner Division apprise Fairfax authorities , who make out to Kuiper ’s family . “ We are thankful to know what happen to our daughter after all these years , ” Andrea ’s father , Richard Kuiper , was cite as saying in a press release . Until the discovery , he said they maintain promise that they would one mean solar day find her come back home in a “ railway car full of beautiful children . ”

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