New Brighton Jane Doe (2000) Identified.

On September 15th 2000, two teenagers walking in a marshy, wooded area at Long Lake Regional Park in New Brighton, Minnesota, made a horrifying discovery. In the tall grass lay the body of a white woman aged between 25 and 50 with strawberry blonde/red hair and around 5’5”.

The Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office was tasked with completing her autopsy. However, they were unable to determine a cause of death due to the level of decomposition. The DNA Doe Project noted the woman had likely been stabbed, and her case was considered a possible homicide. A DNA sample was obtained and submitted to databases, but no matches were made.

Nobody came forward to claim her body, and investigators took to calling her the New Brighton Jane Doe. Two decades later, in 2023, the New Brighton Dept of Public Safety partnered with the DNA Doe Project to perform genetic genealogy on the New Brighton Jane Doe. According to their press release, whilst this case was challenging, they found Jane Doe’s maternal line came from Norway, whilst her paternal line came from Sweden.

Using this information, genealogists were able to dig through records and family trees to find the right candidates for Jane Doe’s parents. After finding a possible candidate, the DNA Doe Project contacted members of the family and requested a comparative DNA sample. In mid-September 2023, the DNA Doe Project and law enforcement announced the case of the New Brighton Jane Doe (2000) had finally been solved.

The body found that fateful September belonged to 40-year-old Gail Marlene Johnson of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Gail often partook in sex work on Lake Street in Minneapolis, MN, around the time she disappeared and drove a black/grey 1989 Ford Mustang. Little else is known about Gail or her final days, and investigators urge anyone with information to come forward. Contact the New Brighton Department of Public Safety at 651-288-4141.