Forensic tests allowed Mississippi authorities to identify the remains of a woman killed almost two decades ago in Hurricane Katrina.
Almost two decades after a woman’s death during Hurricane Katrina, modern forensic tests finally allowed authorities to identify her remains. Citing anecdotes from her family, the forensic genetic genealogy company Othram said Tonette Waltman Jackson was swept away by floodwaters that split her Biloxi, Mississippi, home in half during that slammed into the Gulf Coast in August 2005. She was 46 years old.
Jackson had been hiding in the attic of the house she shared with her husband, Hardy Jackson, as water levels rose, said Michael Vogen, a case management director at Othram. The company routinely partners with law enforcement agencies to help solve cold cases using DNA technology and worked with Mississippi authorities to identify Jackson. Both Jackson and her husband were swept away in the floods, but Hardy managed to grab hold of a nearby tree and ultimately survived the hurricane. As far as her family knew, Jackson’s body was never found.
About a week after Katrina made landfall, in September 2005, a search and rescue team discovered remains between the rubble of two homes that had been destroyed in St.
