Woman Slain By Trooper In 1980 Finally Identified
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- After 35 years the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) reports it was able match DNA from family members to the body of missing Texas woman Michelle Busha.
Busha was 18 years old when she was killed in Faribault County.
Seventy-five-year-old retired Chief Deputy Sheriff Jerry Kabe was one of the officers who investigated Busha's murder.
She was found in a ravine off Interstate 90 east of Blue Earth on May 30, 1980.
"It is something that never leaves your mind," Kabe said. "I've thought about it almost every day."
Robert Nelson, a Minnesota state trooper at the time, confessed to killing the woman in Minnesota nine years later, but he did not know her name.
While in custody for other charges, Nelson was also convicted of the Jane Doe murder and is currently serving a life in prison sentence in Texas.
The BCA used a national DNA database filled with samples from family members of the missing to find a match using bones exhumed from the Jane Doe's unmarked grave.
Because Busha's family members gave DNA to be matched to unidentified remains around the country, the BCA said the case is finally officially closed and the family can have peace.
"The plea we keep making is if people have missing family members they should contact us so we can get samples of their DNA," said BCA Assistant Superintendent Drew Evans.
According to the National Institute of Justice, there are 40,000 sets of unidentified remains held in medical examiners offices across the nation.
Only about 15 percent of those remains are in the FBI missing person database.
Kabe said he is glad Busha's family, which had no idea she was ever in Minnesota, will finally have some closure and be able to give her a proper burial.
