ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) _ St. Petersburg cold case investigators have identified a Virginia girl missing for 42 years as the victim of a traffic accident in Florida in 1973.
Police announced in a press conference Thursday that investigators could confirm a teenager who died in June 1973 in St. Petersburg was 16-year-old Janice Marie Young, a runaway from Virginia.
Arrest reports say 24-year-old Lawrence Dorn pushed Young into traffic during a fight. He was arrested for murder but the charges were later dropped. Authorities weren’t able to identify Young’s body.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited posted a reconstructed picture of the unidentified girl on Facebook in 2014. Her brother found the post in January and submitted to DNA tests. The results came back positive this month.