CASPER, Wyo. — An unidentified female whose body was discovered abandoned near Interstate 90 on April 13, 1992, has been positively identified using DNA technology.
According to a release from the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, the victim has been identified as Cindi Arleen Estrada, which was confirmed using DNA matching from her biological mother.
Investigators say the case of Estrada is related to a similar case of a woman known as “Bitter Creek Betty,” whose body was found a month earlier on March 1, 1992, about 40 miles east of Rock Springs near Interstate 80. She was years later identified as Irene Vasquez.
“A significant breakthrough occurred in 2012 when a male DNA profile found on evidence related to the I-90 Jane Doe case was matched to a male DNA profile developed from evidence in the Bitter Creek Betty investigation, conclusively linking the two Wyoming homicides to the same DNA contributor,” the release said.
In 2019, the male DNA profile gathered from the two Wyoming cases was linked to DNA from a 1991 homicide investigation in Tennessee of Pamala Rose Aldridge McCall.
Investigators used DNA to eventually identify Clark Perry Baldwin in May 2000. Baldwin was recently convicted of the first-degree murder of McCall in Tennessee and sentenced to life in prison. He will now be extradited to Wyoming with charges for the murders of both Vasquez and Estrada.
Baldwin is a former long-haul trucker from Iowa who investigators believe could be linked to multiple unsolved murders, according to the State Journal-Register.