Iowa cold case victim identified as Cheryl Lynn Edwards after 51 years

Cheryl Lynn Edwards is no longer Iowa’s unnamed Jane Doe. Clinton County authorities identified the teenager on June 22, 2026, more than 51 years after deputies found her body in the Mississippi River north of Clinton, ending the state’s longest unidentified Jane Doe case.

Edwards was 15 and living in Waukegan, Illinois, when she disappeared. Her remains were discovered on April 11, 1975, on the riverbank about half a mile south of the Jackson County line. The original autopsy determined she died from a gunshot wound to the head, and investigators have classified the death as a homicide.

The identification changes the case from an anonymous set of remains to the murder of a named girl with a hometown, parents and relatives who kept looking for her. Officials said Edwards’ family had searched for her over the years. Her parents, Bernice Edwards and Leonard Edwards, were both dead by the time her name was restored.

The breakthrough came through forensic genealogy and DNA work. The DNA Doe Project said a 16-genealogist team from three countries worked the case in October 2025 and traced Edwards through family roots in Louisiana, a branch of the family in the Kenosha area of Wisconsin, and finally a San Diego birth record for a 1959-born daughter named Cheryl Edwards. That lead was then confirmed through DNA and family confirmation that the teen had vanished decades earlier.

The Iowa Department of Public Safety, the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Major Crime Unit, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Astrea Forensics all assisted in the identification. Investigators also said Edwards was about 10 weeks pregnant when she was murdered, a detail that deepens the record of the crime but does not answer the central question that remains open: who killed her?

Clinton County Sheriff’s Office officials said the homicide investigation is still active and are asking anyone with information to come forward. After half a century as a riverbank Jane Doe, Cheryl Lynn Edwards now has her name back. The case does too, and investigators are still looking for the person responsible.