Huge DNA breakthrough in mysterious case of pregnant woman found dead on Interstate 33 years ago
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A woman whose remains were found in a ditch along Wyoming’s Interstate 90 more than 30 years ago has been identified as 21-year-old Cindi Arleen Estrada, thanks to advances in DNA technology, state authorities revealed Thursday.
Estrada’s body was discovered on April 13, 1992, about 15 miles north of Sheridan and for decades, she was known only as ‘I-90 Jane Doe.’
The initial autopsy, performed over three decades ago, revealed that she had been brutally murdered, showing signs of blunt force trauma and strangulation.
Additionally, she was two and a half months pregnant at the time of her death – and had likely given birth before, the Cowboy State Daily reported.
The breakthrough in her identification came when the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) matched DNA from her remains to that of her biological mother.
Investigators now believe Estrada was born in Torrance, California, and may have also lived in Long Beach.
Her case has since been officially linked to Clark Perry Baldwin, a former long-haul trucker and suspected serial killer.
A woman whose remains were found in a ditch along Wyoming ‘s Interstate 90 more than 30 years ago has been identified as 21-year-old Cindi Arleen Estrada. Pictured: A reconstruction of Sheridan County Jane Doe, now identified as Cindi Arleen Estrada
Estrada’s body was discovered on April 13, 1992, about 15 miles north of Sheridan and for decades, she was known only as ‘I-90 Jane Doe.’ Pictured: Highway 90 north outside Sheridan, Wyoming
Her case has since been officially linked to Clark Perry Baldwin (pictured), a former long-haul trucker and suspected serial killer
Baldwin was arrested in 2020 and has since been convicted in Tennessee for the 1991 murder of Pamela McCall – whom he killed in Tennessee around the same time another woman narrowly escaped his commercial truck.
He is expected to be extradited to Wyoming to face charges in the deaths of Estrada and Irene Vasquez – another woman murdered in the state just one month earlier, according to the Cowboy State Daily.
Vasquez, long referred to as ‘Bitter Creek Betty,’ was found nude and frozen off I-80 east of Rock Springs on March 1, 1992.
She, too, had been strangled. However, her identity wasn’t confirmed until several years later, in 2022, through genetic genealogy and family tree DNA.
A key development in 2012 connected the two Wyoming cases as investigators matched a male DNA profile found on both victims, confirming the same suspect was responsible. That profile was later linked in 2019 to the McCall homicide in Tennessee, with public DNA databases and forensic genealogy eventually leading investigators to Baldwin.
Baldwin was arrested on May 6, 2020, in Waterloo, Iowa, after FBI agents retrieved DNA from his shopping cart and home garbage, where his DNA shockingly matched samples taken from all three homicide scenes.
‘Subsequent investigations, including the use of publicly accessible DNA databases and investigative genetic genealogy, provided leads that ultimately identified Clark Perry Baldwin as the unknown DNA contributor,’ a statement from the DCI reads.
Baldwin was arrested in 2020 and has since been convicted in Tennessee for the 1991 murder of Pamela McCall. He is expected to be extradited to Wyoming to face charges in the deaths of Estrada and Irene Vasquez – another woman murdered in the state
The FBI’s reconstruction models of Sheridan County Jane Doe, now identified as Cindi Arleen Estrada
At the time of her death, Estrada was wearing jeans, a midriff-bearing blouse, and a gold belt buckle, with her shoes and socks missing. Pictured: Shirt worn by victim Cindi Arleen Estrada
Baldwin, who once worked as an over-the-road trucker, is also accused of abducting and raping a woman in 1991 who later testified against him at his Tennessee trial.
At the time of her death, Estrada was wearing jeans, a midriff-bearing blouse, and a gold belt buckle, with her shoes and socks missing.
Investigators recovered semen from her body, but early 1990s forensic technology couldn’t identify a suspect, and so the case remained ‘cold’ for years.
According to DCI, the identification of Estrada and the connection to Baldwin mark a ‘significant breakthrough’ in a multi-state serial murder investigation that has spanned more than three decades.
Baldwin is currently serving a life sentence and now awaits extradition to Wyoming to face murder charges in the deaths of Estrada and Vasquez, according to Oil City News.
