DNA helps ID woman 2 decades after body found 2,500 miles away from her home

The body of a missing Canadian woman was identified using modern forensic tests, nearly two decades after her remains were found in 2005 about 2,500 miles away from her home.

Tammy Eileen Penner was last seen early that year, with an official missing person report filed to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Feb. 7, according to Othram, a U.S.-based company that works with law enforcement to help resolve unsolved murders and disappearance cases by identifying victims through investigative genetic genealogy. Canadian authorities used the company’s services to identify Penner, whose remains until recently were known only as Rockwood Jane Doe.

Citing law enforcement involved in the case, Othram said Penner’s body was originally found in August 2005 in the picnic area of a rest stop off of a highway between Guelph and Rockwood in the Canadian province of Ontario. At the time, authorities determined the remains belonged to a woman who was potentially as young as 25 or as old as 45 when she died. They said her left cheek, nose and eye socket had all been broken before her death and had time to heal while she was still alive.

Investigators didn’t — and still don’t — know what caused Penner’s death. But the circumstances around it were deemed suspicious. 

Othram said her body was discovered under a sleeping bag at the rest stop. She wasn’t wearing jewelry or carrying identification, and authorities believed the clothing she wore when she died had been purchased somewhere in or around Montreal, which is almost 400 miles from Rockwood.

Authorities back then created and released composite images showing what the mysterious woman may have looked like, hoping a member of the public would recognize her. 

Despite their efforts, she remained unidentified for years until the Ontario Provincial Police and the Toronto Police Service reviewed the case in 2023 and sought out Othram for genetic genealogy testing. 

The company uses DNA from a victim or crime scene to build a genetic profile that can then be compared with profiles of other people, with the goal of finding potential matches and, in turn, possible relatives. The genetic profile for Rockwood Jane Doe allowed Toronto police to develop new leads in the case, ultimately confirming that the remains were those of Penner, who had lived before she died in British Columbia, on the opposite side of Canada. She was 41 when she died.

Randy Gaynor, a detective inspector with the Ontario Provincial Police, told the Canadian news organization CBC News that he has been in touch with Penner’s family. He said he hopes people who may have known the woman during her life will come forward with tips that could aid the investigation into what happened to her.

“We’re hoping that people will recognize and name Tammy Penner as being in Ontario or even being in British Columbia and coming to Ontario with someone, and we’re hoping that anyone that has information will come forward with any information they have that will assist us in determining her cause of death,” Gaynor said.