Appalachian Unsolved: The twin whose bones were found in a box

[Music] [John] Time combined with the state-of-the-art technology is unraveling decades of old mysteries [Robin] In tonight's Appalachian Unsolved, investigators hoping a little more time will reveal who killed the girl in the woods. [James] We're in an area of Grainger  County known as Powder Springs. This is Dale Road. [Robin] Just off this rural stretch on Joppa Mountain is a swath of woods holding a secret found in a box. [James] A big size box, sort of like a stove or  a refrigerator or that type of a bigger box. [Robin] In and around that box found some 400 feet off the roadway, the remains of a woman. Sheriff James Harville remembers the call. [Dispatcher] 1043 in the area of Dale Road. [Robin] A call placed more than 25 years ago on September 29, 1996. Then a young deputy, Harville rushed to the scene where hunters made that grisly find. [James] Whoever put this body there knew the area and/or had been from the area. [David] Whoever did her in, they fought her. [Robin] The case fell to Fourth District Criminal Investigator David Hutchison and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Their mission identify the victim then find out who killed her and why. [David] Somebody knew where they were at to have to leave it there. It's a place that you just wouldn't be driving down the road to get rid of something. [Robin] Hutchison says at the time, there was a missing person case in Grainger County. Glenda Fields had disappeared. Authorities suspected the unidentified body could be her. They ran tests comparing DNA from the remains with the twin brother of that missing woman. [David] He said, "Well, that's not Glenda Fields." More or less, we had another homicide at that point. [Robin] For more than two decades, the case of the bones in the box sat cold. But with each passing year, TBI Special Agent Brandon Elkins said crime-fighting tools and techniques were becoming more precise and accurate. [Brandon] We are limited to, oftentimes, the technology that exists at the time. And sometimes, unlike other things in our lives, the aging actually helps. And so thankfully, DNA technology has come an incredible way since 1996. [Robin] In 2018, Elkins says the TBI sent the remains to a forensics lab at the University of North Texas that works in tandem with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. The new lab work produced a hit. [Brandon] When Agent Brown submitted the DNA profile of these remains, we got back the DNA of a living person. We were able to find that the person that had been identified as these remains actually had a twin sister. [Robin] Through that DNA match this past August, the TBI could finally put a name to the woman found in the woods. Brenda Clark. [Brandon] Brenda Clark was, you know, a community member here in Knoxville. She was very well-known, had a lot of friends in the area. She was a young mother, had people that cared a great deal for her. [James] It gave me some closure from the law enforcement, from being an officer for that many years. And I'm sure it was a great closure to the family, and my condolences go out to that family. [Robin] Still, 26 years after Sheriff Harville rushed to Dale Road, this murder case is far from closed. [Brandon] We start to look about, what was going on in the victim's life at the time? What people did they associate with? What could have led to the situation? [Robin] All questions Elkins knows could answer, who killed Brenda Clark? [Brandon] Relationships change, technology changes, people's mindsets and philosophies change, their willingness to cooperate with law enforcement changes. For cold cases, time is our friend. [Robin] If you have a tip in this case, please contact the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI-FIND.

Channel: WBIR Channel 10

Views: 10,219

Keywords: appalachian-unsolved, investigations, local, news, appalachian unsolved, true crime, cold case, appalachian unsolved wbir, true crime stories, unsolved murder, unsolved murders, appalachian unsolved mysteries, east tennessee, appalachian unsolved podcast, jane doe, unsolved murders true crime stories, unsolved mystery, unsolved mysteries, cold cases unsolved, true crime stories 2022, local news, cold cases, knoxville tn, jane doe mystery, brenda clark, brenda clark missing

Id: VCnXfsesuPg

Length: 4min 14sec (254 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 14 2022