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The family of a Filipino woman who went missing 23 years ago finally found closure with the confirmation that her skeletal remains matched their DNA samples.
According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, the skeletal remains of Jovita Collazo were found in the high desert of San Bernardino County. Collazo was 38 years old when she was reported missing in 1992.
Back then, Collazo’s boyfriend, Michael Richardson, was considered a suspect. However, they couldn’t arrest him due to lack of evidence.
Police finally got a break in the case in Jun 2010 when the bodies of Richardson’s wife, Thao Richardson, and her mother were found dumped near Lakeside in San Diego County. In Aug 2010, Richardson was charged for their deaths.
The case led the San Diego County district attorney’s office to also charged Richardson with Collazo’s death. Then, in 2013, Richardson pleaded guilty to all three killings and was sentenced to six life sentences.
A write-up in the Missing Persons of America website indicated that “back in October 31, 1994, a rock hunter from Victorville found a skeleton in a shallow grave in Apple Valley near Stoddard Wells Road. There was no DNA back there and the remains were buried in a county cemetery as a Jane Doe.”
In 2006, John and Jane Does were being exhumed to take DNA samples. It wasn’t till 2008 before they got to Collazo’s remains but there was no match for her in the database as her family had not provided any DNA samples.
In 2010, Sgt. David Bavencoff began working on Collazo’s case and he asked the Collazo’s family for DNA samples. After five years, those samples were cross-checked with Collazo’s DNA.
Photo: CBS News (screengrab)
This article has been re-published with permission from ABS-CBNnews.com.
