Chain of Custody & The Bone Lake Discovery
On May 13, 1993, two mushroom hunters searching heavily wooded terrain near Bone Lake in Scandia, northern Washington County, Minnesota, discovered partial human skeletal remains lying on a wooded incline.
Deputies from the Washington County Sheriff's Office and criminalists from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) processed the scene. Investigators excavated a wider perimeter, uncovering additional skeletal elements scattered by scavengers across approximately forty yards. No clothing, wallet, or identifying artifacts were recovered with the remains.
Forensic Pathological & Anthropological Examination
The autopsy and anthropological profiling were conducted at the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office and the University of Minnesota. The decedent was determined to be an adult White female, estimated between 24 and 32 years of age, standing approximately 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 7 inches in height.
The postmortem interval was estimated at six months to two years, indicating the victim had died between late 1991 and 1992. Due to extensive taphonomic animal activity and skeletonization, a definitive medical cause of death could not be determined, but the remote woodland disposal was classified as suspicious and investigated as a potential homicide. She was cataloged in NamUs as UP4836.
The 2022 DNA Doe Project Resolution
In 2021, the Washington County Sheriff's Office partnered with the DNA Doe Project. Skeletal elements were processed by HudsonAlpha Discovery to extract nuclear DNA for high-density SNP genotyping.
Genealogists navigated Upper Midwest family trees, mapping genetic links to families in Hennepin and Ramsey counties. In October 2022, after twenty-nine years of mystery, the Washington County Sheriff announced that Bone Lake Jane Doe was 29-year-old Denise Hartley, a Minneapolis mother who had disappeared in late 1992.