COLD CASE

Human Remains Found in 2013 Finally Identified as Texas Girl Who Vanished Decades Ago

Sylvia Nicole Smith vanished without a trace in 2000, when her mother reported her as a runaway.

Human remains found in a rural part of Texas nearly a decade ago have been identified as those of a 16-year-old girl who vanished in 2000, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. When workers surveying an oilfield well site in Midland County stumbled upon her remains in August 2013, no one connected Sylvia Nicole Smith’s years-old disappearance to the discovery. Though forensic work done on the remains revealed that the unidentified person had likely been a Black girl aged 14-21 killed in a homicide, no DNA matches were made until the victim’s body was sent for advanced analysis in 2020. “A genetic genealogist who examined the DNA assisted with a match which led to a distant relative,” the Texas agency said in a statement, adding that investigators eventually traced Smith to her mother, who shared that she had reported her daughter as a runaway in February 2000. The Texas Rangers have opened a homicide investigation into Smith’s death.