Galesburg, Ill.  —  

The remains of an East Galesburg woman who has been missing for nearly 15 years were identified at a Knox County Sheriff’s Department press conference this morning at the Knox County jail.

Knox County Sheriff’s Department Detective Sgt. Jason Landers said a series of DNA tests confirmed the remains of the woman, long-known as Jane Doe, belonged to that of Helen “Ruth” Alps,” who was in her late 40‘s and had gone missing in the late 1980’s and whose remains were discovered in an East Galesburg brickyard in May 1996.

Alp’s biological daughter, Faye L. Philips, provided a DNA sample on a hunch of Jane Doe’s true identity in May 2013. A comparison was conducted by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Forensic Science Laboratory, and the results revealed a biological mother-daughter connection between Philips and Alps.