Loved ones hope that new leads and developments in DNA technology will crack a 30-year-old Pacific Northwest cold case.
On January 15, 1994, 11-year-old Mistie May Micheletti vanished from her bedroom in Vancouver, Washington, only to be found dead days later in a river.
Her stepbrothers told police they saw a man in Mistie’s room on the night she disappeared and believed he was burglarizing the house, so they went back to their beds for safety.
Mistie’s mom was working an overnight shift at the time.
Police initially believed that Mistie had run away, but her family rejected that notion.
“Mistie wasn’t the kind of child that would’ve taken off and ran away anyway,” the girl’s aunt, Kellie Karlson, told KING5. “She was a very innocent child.”
Two days after the girl vanished, a fisherman found her body in the Columbia River, her home just five miles away. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans that were unzipped.
Investigators believe Mistie was sexually assaulted and died from asphyxia by drowning.
Although police obtained DNA evidence, including semen, it has never matched with offenders in law enforcement databases or in tests with friends and relatives, according to KOIN-TV.
Authorities say they received an unspecified new lead in December 2022. A spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Department told KING5 that investigators will use whatever technologies they can to find Mistie’s killer.
Genetic genealogy has been increasingly used to crack cold cases in recent years. The process entails searching public genealogy databases for people who share family trees of the unknown perpetrators.
“Mistie May Micheletti deserves justice,” Mistie’s cousin, Nicole Peterson, told KING5. “The most important thing is that the case is not forgotten. And that’s why I’ve taken this mantle in supporting our family, to help make sure that never happens.”
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[Feature Photo: Mistie May Micheletti/Facebook]
