Nearly three decades after a 78-year-old Gainesville woman went missing, police have identified her remains.
Ella Mae Williams went missing March 25, 1990. After multiple searches spanning years, no one could find her, said Gainesville Police spokesperson Officer Ben Tobias at a Thursday morning press conference.
Williams was believed to have wandered from her Gainesville home, then located at 814 SW 20th St., while living with her daughter, Eloise. Williams reportedly had dementia, which may have contributed to her going missing, Tobias said.
The remains were found in a wooded area south of Southeast 43rd Terrace and Southeast 24th Avenue intersection by children who were playing nearby in March of 2001, wrote Alachua County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Art Forgey in an email.
It was only about six months ago when investigators, using the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System database to find the victim of an unrelated case, happened upon a report of the human remains.
Investigators found the location of the remains and Williams’ old home were within 2 miles of each other, near the Lincoln Estates neighborhood.
“They thought it could possibly be her,” Forgey said. “That’s when we contacted the family.”
Detectives then sent DNA samples of the remains to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement forensics lab in Jacksonville and were able to find a match with Williams’ family, he said. Now that Williams’ remains have been identified, police will investigate what exactly caused her death.
Sheriff Sadie Darnell asked everyone at the press conference to think of the family and honor the hardship they’ve endured.
“They have had a long, 27-year journey filled with emotions and filled with pain and grief,” Darnell said. “This is a painful time for them.”
