Bone Lake Jane Doe has her name back.
Thirty-three years after her remains were found in Bone Lake in Scandia, Minnesota, she has been identified as Denise Elaine Sexton Hartley, a 27-year-old who was last known to be in St. Paul in 1993, according to a press release from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
Dateline covered Bone Lake Jane Doe’s case in its ‘Cold Case Spotlight’ series in June 2025. At the time, Detective Clayton Evens of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office was hopeful that DNA testing would help identify her. “With new and ever-evolving technology with DNA, the hope is that something will match,” Evens told Dateline at the time…