CINCINNATI — The identity of a Jane Doe found in 2018, partially buried in a mulch bed with a rose placed delicately on her chest, has been learned.
She was 71-year-old Patricia Colina Goodwin.
Goodwin's body was discovered in a shallow grave near a playground outside of an Avondale apartment complex on Glenwood Avenue on May 31, 2018 — Memorial Day weekend, nearly seven years ago.
She'd been wrapped in cloth, a rose placed carefully on her chest.
Since then, the Hamilton County Coroner's Office has been working to discover her identity. Months after she was found, a sketch was released depicting what Goodwin may have looked like; one year later, in 2019, a clay sculpture of her suspected likeness was also unveiled.
Her fingerprints were taken, her DNA was uploaded and run through CODIS with no results. Then, in 2023, the coroner's office held a press conference to release digital 3D images created by BCI.
The woman was wearing gray, silky pajama bottoms and a gray tank top. A name, possibly “Schrader,” was written in permanent marker on the tag inside the pajama bottoms. A white metal hair stylist-type hair clip was in her hair. She was wearing silver hoop earrings and three hair ties on her wrist.
During Tuesday's press conference, Sammarco pointed out that earrings Goodwin is wearing in a BMV photo taken for her driver's license match the earrings found on the woman in Avondale.
Over four separate press conferences in the last seven years, Hamilton County Coroner Lakshmi Sammarco has said her office did not suspect Goodwin was a victim of foul play.
Goodwin's autopsy had revealed she'd had drugs in her system and her cause of death is believed to be an overdose.
That's the same cause of death determined for Goodwin's son, whose body arrived at the Hamilton County Coroner's Office one year after Goodwin was discovered.
Elena Iatarola, special agent in charge for FBI Cincinnati, said the department's Investigative Genetic Genealogy team were able to use Goodwin's DNA to tie her more closely to family trees already in the FBI's database.
That led to Goodwin's family.
Hear more from the coroner about how Goodwin was identified:
Through that connection, officials discovered Goodwin's son had died from an overdose in 2019. DNA testing performed on the Jane Doe discovered in 2018 and Goodwin's son's body showed that it was 99.99% likely the Jane Doe was his mother, Patricia Goodwin.
Sammarco said some of the other details of the case have been cleared up in speaking with Goodwin's family, and others who knew her son.
"It's likely that they were together and that he tried to bury his mother the best that he could and left a rose on her chest," said Sammarco. "That's what we think might have happened, but it's sort of a guess at this point."
At least one person who knew Goodwin's son said that he'd mentioned being with his mother, but that she'd died a year prior.
Sammarco said unfortunately, Goodwin's brother died a year ago, without ever learning what happened to his sister. He'd never stopped looking for her, Sammarco said.
Still, she said now the rest of Goodwin's family knows.
"This kind of closure, it's one of the things we do in this office is try and bring that peace and closure to these families," Sammarco said.
You can watch the full press conference in the player below:
Jennifer Lester, a criminal intelligence analyst with BCI who's worked on Goodwin's case since 2018 had a message for families who may be missing a loved one.
Even if your loved one has been reported missing to a local law enforcement agency, you can still call 855.BCI.OHIO to report them missing with BCI.
Through Ohio Project LINK, Lester said officials are working to use genealogy and DNA matching to help with the search for missing people.
