Missing Woman's Skull ID'd 41 Years After She Disappeared

SNOHOMISH COUNTY, WA — The Snohomish County Sheriff's Office says new DNA testing has identified the skull of a missing woman, 41 years after she first vanished.

The skull was first discovered, partially intact, by US Forest Service employees. They stumbled upon the remains while surveying a steep ravine just north of Skykomish back on October 10, 2009. Despite a thorough search of the area, deputies say no other remains, clothing, jewelry or any additional hints to the skull's identity turned up. Forensic anthropologists were able to determine that the skull likely belonged to a woman over the age of 40, but little else could be discerned. A fragment of the skull was sent to Quantico, VA for DNA extraction, but no hits registered when its DNA was run through the Combined DNA Index System in 2012.

Years passed, and in 2017 and 2019 two other attempts to catalog or cross-reference the skull's DNA failed.

After so many attempts with little to show for it, the Snohomish Medical Examiner's Office says in June 2021, it decided to make one last attempt to identify the deceased, and hired Othram, Inc. in The Woodlands, Texas, to make one last DNA extraction attempt. This time, the extraction was successful, and by uploading the Othram DNA profile to GEDmatch, investigators found a potential ID: Alice Lou Williams, a woman who had gone missing from a Lake Loma recreational cabin in July 1981, and who appeared to be a genealogical fit.

In March of this year, investigators contacted Alice's adult children, who volunteered their DNA for testing, after which the Medical Examiner's Office was able to conclusively determine the cranial fragments belonged to Williams— finally identifying her more than four decades after her disappearance.

Due to the suspicious nature of her disappearance and the fact that only a portion of her remains could be found, the Medical Examiner's Office has updated her cold case and reclassified her death as a homicide.

The Snohomish County Sheriff's Department has promised to continue investigating the case, and are asking anyone who may know anything about Williams' disappearance in the early 80s to give them a call at (425) 388-3845.