Forensic genealogy cracks 43-year-old Michigan cold case murder of Sheri Jo Elliott

Michigan State Police say forensic genetic genealogy finally identified the man they believe kidnapped, sexually assaulted and killed 16-year-old Sheri Jo Elliott, closing a 43-year dead end that began when she vanished after leaving home in Flint.

Elliott was reported missing on Nov. 16, 1983, after she did not come home from school. She had left her Seneca Street home around 6:30 a.m. and was last seen waiting for a bus near W. Dartmouth and Clio roads. Four days later, her body was found in a rural ditch area in Blumfield Township in Saginaw County. Investigators said Elliott had been sexually assaulted and shot multiple times, with one account saying she was shot four times.

The break came after the case was reopened in 2023. Michigan State Police worked with the MSP Forensic Science Division, Othram Labs and the Western Michigan University Cold Case Program to reorganize and digitize decades of case files, then use Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing to build a DNA profile from evidence recovered from Elliott’s body. That profile led investigators to Roni Collins of Grand Blanc, a man born Feb. 9, 1950, in Chicago. His obituary says he died Jan. 20, 2026, and police said he died by suicide in January before detectives could obtain a voluntary DNA sample.

DNA from Collins’ autopsy was later matched to the forensic evidence in Elliott’s case, giving detectives the identification they had spent decades chasing. The case now has a named suspect, but Collins cannot be prosecuted because he is dead.

For Elliott’s family, the identification brought a long-awaited answer to a mystery that shaped their lives. Her aunt, Judy Sika, said the years without answers were “hell” and remembered the family and community putting up missing-person flyers and searching for days. Elliott’s mother, Joyce Schultz, said the unresolved case was devastating. Police had initially suspected Elliott’s stepfather, Robert Schultz, who died before the case was solved.

Sheri Jo Elliott, who was born March 27, 1967, was 16 when she was killed. The answer that came more than four decades later does not erase that loss, but it finally gives her family a suspect, a timeline and a case that no longer sits in the dark.