DNA evidence identifies 54-year-old cold case victim as Pennsylvania woman

(WHTM) - New DNA evidence helped identify the remains of a Pennsylvania woman and reunite her children.

In July 1971, police located an unconscious woman in a Howard County, Maryland field. The victim of an apparent assault, she was transported to the hospital and underwent brain surgery. She never regained consciousness and died two months later.

Known as the Howard County Jane Doe, she became the Howard County Police Department's oldest cold case homicide.

That is, until this summer, 54 years later, when DNA samples from the unknown woman were compared with potential relatives using a KinSNP Rapid Relationship test. The woman had a name, Sarah Sharkey (born Sadie Belle Murray), and she had two living children.

Cold case detectives reunited the siblings -- Charles Leroy Sharkey, 79, o