Cold Case Files: Woman's body found in overturned truck in Leflore County has been unidentified for over 35 years

On a cold January day in 1990, an overturned semi-truck lay on U.S. Highway 259 near the remote community of Big Cedar in LeFlore County. Inside the sleeper cab, troopers discovered the body of a woman no one could name.

She was a Black female, estimated between 30 and 50 years old. She stood just 5 feet 1 inch tall and weighed only 87 pounds. Her short black or dark brown hair framed a face that remained recognizable. Brown eyes. A small 3/8-inch horizontal scar on her forehead, just left of the midline. A 2¼-inch vertical scar on the front of her upper left arm. And a clear transverse surgical scar across her lower abdomen -- the mark of a C-section.

She wore a long-sleeve blue-and-gray striped shirt under a beige long-sleeve sweater, blue corduroy pants, a tan fabric belt, and pantyhose. On the middle finger of her left hand was a gold-colored ring set with a small pink or purple stone.

According to Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Tim Baker, the surviving truck driver said he had picked her up as a hitchhiker a few days earlier in Cleveland, Ohio -- near the intersection of East 55th Street and Euclid Avenue, roughly a thousand miles from the crash site.

She may have gone by the name “Beth” or “Baby.” The estimated time since death was only about one hour. The circumstances surrounding her presence in the cab and the manner of her death raised enough questions that investigators treated the case as a suspicious death and possible homicide.

More than three decades later, she remains unidentified.

The case was entered into NamUs as UP7857. In 2017 her remains were exhumed so that advanced DNA testing could be performed. The DNA Doe Project took on the case, fully funded through its Doe-Nate program with support from donors including Adept Cosmetics. Forensic genealogists have been working the DNA profile since at least the fall of 2020, but the genetic trail has proven challenging.

As of the most recent public updates, no match to a named individual or close family member has been confirmed.

Oklahoma Highway Patrol continues to investigate. Trooper Tim Baker has remained associated with the case for years. Public appeals have repeatedly circled back to Cleveland, asking anyone who knew a woman matching this description -- a petite Black woman who may have been hitchhiking or traveling through northeast Ohio in mid-January 1990, possibly using the names Beth or Baby, and who carried the physical scars and jewelry described above -- to come forward.

She left no identification. No one filed a timely missing-person report that matched her. The rural stretch of highway where the truck crashed offered few witnesses. What remains is a set of precise physical details, a possible nickname, a Cleveland connection, and a DNA profile still searching for its family.

If you recognize this woman -- if you knew someone who disappeared around that time, if you remember a hitchhiker, a traveler, a mother, a sister, or a friend who matches this description--contact the Oklahoma Highway Patrol or submit information through NamUs.