A childhood photo of Marion Vinetta Nagle McWhorter, who was last seen at a Tigard shopping mall in 1974. She was just 21 years old when she went missing. Remains found a few years later in 1976 in Linn County, Oregon were later identified as those of McWhorter.
A rendering of a woman whose remains were found on July 24, 1976 in Wolf Creek near Swamp Mountain in Linn County, Oregon. The remains were identified decades later as Marion Vinetta Nagle McWhorter.

Using DNA and genetic genealogy, investigators have identified remains found in western Oregon nearly 49 years ago as a missing 21-year-old woman last seen at a shopping mall.

The remains have been identified as Marion Vinetta Nagle McWhorter, a 21-year-old Native American woman last seen in 1974 at a mall in Tigard.

The skeletal remains were found on July 24, 1976, in Wolf Creek; it’s near Swamp Mountain in Linn County, about 110 miles southeast of where McWhorter was last seen, Oregon State Police said in a news release.

Although investigators and later genealogists tried to find out who the remains belonged to, it wasn’t until April 2025 that they got a break in the case. Someone uploaded their genetic profile to the Family Tree DNA database, allowing genealogists to look deeper into the unidentified woman’s family tree. In June, the remains were positively identified as McWhorter.

According to Oregon State Police, the Linn County Sheriff’s Office is working to find out how she died. USA TODAY has contacted the office for updates.

Here’s how investigators identified McWhorter, and more on the DNA upload that made her identification possible.

Investigators only had skeletal remains, clothing to go on when working the case

Oregon police said it was a moss hunter who found the remains in July 1976. The moss hunter first found a skull with several teeth, and let police know.

The hunter then took Linn County Sheriff’s Office investigators to the site, where they found:

  • More skeletal remains
  • A clog-style shoe
  • A fraying fringed leather coat
  • A leather belt with Native American-style beadwork
  • Two metal rings
  • A pair of degraded Levi’s jeans

Investigators kept the items as evidence, Oregon State Police said. The skeletal remains were transferred to the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office, where a pathologist and odontologist examined the remains. Because there was a limited number of remains found, the examinations came back undetermined. The odontologist who conducted the dental examination noted several restorations, police said.

Biological profile created 34 years later

In 2010, 34 years after the remains were found, the Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History completed an anthropology report after examining the remains, Oregon State Police said. A biological profile gave investigators demographic information on the individual, noting that she was likely a white female under 35 years old when she died. Still, she remained unidentified.

A National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) profile was created for her, and investigators also ran her DNA through the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which allows federal, state, and local laboratories to electronically compare DNA profiles, to no avail.

Over the past two decades, the investigation has included:

  • The creation of a potential forensic rendering of the decedent’s face based on cranial features.
  • The creation of a clay model featuring different hairstyles and colors she may have worn to create an image people who knew her may recognize her.
  • Grant money that allowed Parabon NanoLabs to create a DNA Snapshot Report, which uses genetic material to determine eye color, hair color, skin tone, and ancestry, predicting that the woman the remains belonged to was of European and Indigenous North American descent, had unfreckled, fair skin, brown eyes, and brown hair.

In April 2025, someone uploaded their genetic profile to the Family Tree DNA database, allowing investigators to look more into the unidentified woman’s family tree. Forensic scientists followed genetic leads and concluded that McWhorter was likely the unidentified woman.

They were then able to connect with her sister, who gave them an oral swab for DNA comparison. In June, genetic evidence confirmed that the remains belonged to Marion Vinetta Nagle McWhorter.

Woman said stranger offered her a ride in October 1974

According to her sister Valerie Nagle and police, McWhorter was born on Jan. 7, 1953. Her family told Oregon Live that she was the oldest of five children. She was escaping an abusive relationship when she disappeared, her sister told Oregon Live.

In 1974, she hitchhiked from California. She had plans to travel to Seattle and at some point, Alaska, her sister told Oregon Live. On Oct. 26, 1974, she stopped in Tigard, where she used a pay phone to call her aunt near Washington Square Mall.

McWhorter wanted to stay at her aunt’s home in Tigard, but her aunt was too busy to pick her up, Nagle, her sister, told Oregon Live. The last time her aunt spoke to her, McWhorter told her that a man in a white pickup truck offered to give her a ride, Oregon Live reported. She was never heard from again.

Her sister wasn’t sure if her parents ever filed a missing person’s report, but said the family had no idea where to look for her.

During her life, McWhorter had two daughters. She put one of the girls up for adoption when she was 16 and left her other daughter with her ex-husband, Oregon Live reported. According to her sister, she may have been going to Alaska to look for work, and their grandfather lived there at the time she disappeared.

“I always hoped to find her,” Nagle told Oregon Live.

Missing woman was one of many American Indian women who have disappeared

According to McWhorter’s younger sister, their mother was Alaska Native and a descendant of the Ahtna Athabascan people in the Copper River area in southeastern Alaska. Her sister’s name came from one of her aunts who died in 1940 in an Alaskan American Indian boarding school.

Research has shown high rates of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls, according to Indian Affairs, a department within the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Citing a 2016 study by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Indian Affairs reported that more than four in five or 84.3% of American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime. The agency added that 56.1% had experienced sexual violence, and more than 1.5 million American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence in their lifetime.

In 2021, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Oregon released a report on Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) that analyzed numbers of Native American individuals who were reported missing.

An analysis found that among the missing or murdered connected to Oregon, there were:

  • 11 missing Indigenous people (six females and five males)
  • 8 murdered Indigenous people (five females and three males)

The report noted that a major issue impacting these cases is the lack of consistent and current data. On Oct. 10, 2020, Savanna’s Act and the Not Invisible Act were signed into law to address rising numbers of missing and murdered Native American women in the United States. According to the report, Savanna’s Act requires the Offices of the United States Attorneys to report annual MMIP data.

Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: She was last heard from 51 years ago. Her remains have finally been identified.

Reporting by Saleen Martin, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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