Boone County identifies 17-year-old in 1992 cold case
LEBANON, Ind. (WISH) — In May 1992, a Boone County farmer named Don Lawson found a body on his property near the ramp connecting State Road 47 to northbound Interstate 65.
Efforts to identify the body were unsuccessful and it was buried in an unmarked grave in front of the sheriff’s department.
On Wednesday, Boone County Sheriff Mike Nielsen said the deceased has been identified as 17-year-old Margaret Ann Sniegowski Jr., of Toledo, Ohio. Sniegowski was last seen by her family in April 1991.
At the time her body was discovered, police thought she had been strangled, but an autopsy never confirmed a cause of death.
When Sniegowski was found, police could not locate a missing person report for someone matching her description. The sheriff’s department exhumed her body twice for DNA samples. Eventually, the department got a match from a sibling who had submitted DNA from an ancestry search.
Her brother, Leonard Sniegowski, struggled through tears Wednesday as he described his little sister as “happy” and a “joy to be around.” He says the family never gave up hope that one day, someone would find her.
“My family is grateful for everybody that looked, worried and cared and cried and handled my little sister over these years and this case as if she were your own,” Sniegowski said.
Sheriff Nielsen says the department is investigating Sniegowski’s death as a homicide.