Stunt driver identified as man who killed Michigan woman in Georgia 34 years ago
Georgia investigators said they have identified the man who killed a Michigan woman 34 years ago.
Using genealogy DNA testing, Henry Fredrick Wise, also known as Hoss Wise, was identified as Stacey Chahorski's killer, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced Tuesday.
Chahorski, who was from Michigan, was reported missing in January 1989. Her body was positively identified in March, decades after it was discovered on a highway in Dade County, Georgia, on Dec. 16, 1988, the GBI said.
For years GBI agents and Dade County investigators tried to identify the victim, including creating clay renderings and composites to recreate what the victim would look like. When the case was reassigned in the mid-2000's, investigators found more evidence and sent it to the FBI in Washington, D.C., for further testing. A DNA profile of the victim was created, investigators said.
In 2015, the case was reassigned again and new clay renderings and composites of the victim were made for an age progression. Investigators contacted the FBI about using a new type of genealogy investigation that had been credited with assisting in solving other cold cases, according to the GBI.
The FBI and GBI turned over genealogy DNA to Othram lab, and they received positive results on June 13, 2022. After interviewing family members and obtaining DNA swabs for comparison, they positively identified Wise as the killer, the GBI said.
Investigators said Wise, then 34, was a truck driver for the Western Carolina trucking company, and his route was from Chattanooga to Birmingham to Nashville.
Wise was also a stunt driver who burned to death in a car accident at Myrtle Beach Speedway in South Carolina in 1999.
He had a lengthy criminal record that spanned across multiple states, including Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, for theft, assault and obstruction of a police officer, investigators said, but his arrests predated mandatory DNA testing after felony arrest.
