which meant sending the half sister s dna sample to the lab and waiting. how long did that take? it took about a month and a half, i believe. that must have been pins and needles? oh, yeah. it was a winters day. late january. when they got the news. it was a match. kevin called lieutenant hope. i was pretty excited. the whole department was excited. i was not prepared for the emotion that i had right then. i couldn t control myself. remember sitting on the couch and just crying, because i was so happy, that the emotion of all this work. all these countless nights. you know? working all day and all night. and trying to figure this out. just all came together right then. so, who was she? who was the young woman who for so long had been a sketch known only as lavender doe.
just the first name, ashley. maybe. but even if ashley was a real first name, that didn t solve the mystery. we had a confession we still don t know that this person was it s not how it s supposed to go. despite his confession, burnett pleaded not guilty. justice for a victim still labeled lavender doe in court documents would take some time, time volunteers couldn t waste. that made it a lot more real and put more weight behind what we re doing. who was lavender doe? that was what was left at that point. lavender doe we tested in a return from the lab on october 2018 and the team want to work looking for potential relatives. just nine days later, they found one. a woman in east axis, right near the spot where lavender doe was found. i contacted lieutenant hope. i told him we have this
in the area in texas. it might be much to one of these missing girls. and that s how we came across hundreds of pages of online forms, about a mystery woman nicknamed lavender doe . could she be one of the missing woman he was trying to locate? and so, given called the great county sheriff s department. and found himself on the phone with a lead detective, lieutenant eddie hope. i was glad people cared. because we live in a world where a lot of people are just worried about themselves and not others. and here was evidence that maybe there are people yes. some other investigator might have blown off. just as other civilian with an internet connection and the theory. but kevin seems to know what he s doing, and his internet skills, way beyond what lieutenant hope could do. and before long, they didn t actually meet in person, they began acting almost like partners.
it can really drain us. the obsession. i was hooked! i was absolutely hooked! this is where it began. october 29th, 2006. hill gore texas. two men out target shooting not far from town. they smelled it first. then they saw it. something burning. it looked like a mannequin. the man approached. what was that? and then, they recoiled. that was a young woman. dead! and burning! we have homicides just like the rest of the world. as far as trying to burn the body? that really struck fear in people around here. lieutenant hope was still a sergeant back then.
to a woman named robert, whose daughter had disappeared. at that point, we were trying to think wow, this is got to be her. except, when they try to find her, this robinhood person they discovered she was dead. so, they kept scouring the internet. and the robin led them to another relative, who, if they were right, would be lavender doe s cousin. they tracked down a number and lieutenant hope called, asked if any young woman in this person s family was missing. he said, i haven t seen her in years. he said, last we heard she had ran away from home. just like she just disappeared. he said, his missing cousin, had a half sister. lieutenant hope called her to. first real times and she agreed to send kevin heard the any kit.