Nearly a year after skeletal remains were discovered near railroad tracks on Praley Street Southwest in Valdese, authorities still have not identified the woman they belonged to. Investigators say DNA comparisons and familial DNA testing remain underway as they try to put a name to the case.
The remains were found on November 4, 2025, according to whky.com. The Morganton News Herald reports that Valdese Police Department said skeletal remains were found by employees clearing debris near the railroad tracks. A medical examiner later confirmed the remains were human, as reported by morganton.com.
Investigators believe the remains belong to a woman, though her age at death has been described differently across official accounts. The North Carolina Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined the remains are believed to be those of a woman between 44 and 60 years old, per whky.com, while an earlier account from the Valdese Police Department put her age between 33 and 50. The medical examiner also estimated she stood between five feet and five feet eight inches tall, according to the same whky.com report.
Conflicting Timelines On How Long She Was There
How long the remains had been there before they were found is also described two different ways. The Valdese Police Department account cited by the Morganton News Herald said the woman was likely dead for at least three years, while updated information reported by whky.com said the remains may be up to three years old. Either way, the discovery came as employees were clearing debris near the tracks, a detail confirmed in the same morganton.com report.
When the remains were first found, Valdese police were not working alone. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and Norfolk Southern police were also called in, according to wbtv.com. Investigators also looked into whether the remains might be connected to anyone reported missing around the time of Hurricane Helene. The station's report notes Valdese Police said they had no missing-person reports from that time, though Burke County did have a couple of reports from around that period, according to wsoctv.com.
A Statewide Backlog of Unnamed Remains
The Valdese case is one piece of a much larger puzzle in North Carolina. The state has a backlog of about 280 unidentified bodies, according to Nate Thompson of the State Bureau of Investigation, cited by The Assembly. The North Carolina Human Identification and Forensic Analysis Lab works to identify remains from cases that have gone cold using DNA analysis and genealogy, The Assembly reports, and in 2023 Thompson and researcher Ann Ross received a three-year, $700,000 federal grant to fund advanced testing for missing and unidentified persons cases. Each identification through that kind of forensic work can cost as much as $10,000 to $14,000, per the same report.
Cases like this one can take years to resolve even with modern DNA tools. In Conyers, Georgia, skeletal remains found near Christian Circle in 2016 went unidentified for nearly a decade before DNA testing finally linked them this past July to Tammy Fortson, a woman reported missing in 1997, according to wlos.com. Those remains had undergone advanced DNA testing at the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification back in 2019, and the case was reassigned in 2024 for additional forensic work before new analysis found the remains were about 104 million times more likely to belong to Fortson's biological mother's child than to an unrelated person, the station reported.
Investigators Press On With DNA Work
Back in Valdese, officials say the path forward hinges on similar genetic detective work. Efforts to establish the woman's identity will include continued DNA comparisons and familial DNA testing, the Valdese Police Department has said. Investigators have not said whether a specific missing-person case has been linked to the remains.
The Valdese Police Department has asked the public to remain respectful and mindful of the investigation's sensitive nature. Police noted that families and friends of unidentified individuals may be anxiously awaiting answers about a missing loved one, a reminder that behind every unresolved case like this one is someone still waiting to find out what happened.
