Her name was Christy Williams and she was so tiny she must have stood out: 4 feet, 6 inches tall and 84 pounds, the height and weight of an average fifth-grader.
Anchorage police found her dead in a tent at a homeless camp near Valley of the Moon Park on Nov. 6. Somebody had called to say she wasn't breathing, the police report said. There were no obvious signs of foul play.
Her body was taken to the State Medical Examiner Office for an autopsy. But 11 days later, she still hadn't been identified.
To identify a dead person, the medical examiner first relies on visual identification by family or friends, fingerprints, dental records, known scars or tattoos. If that doesn't work, DNA testing can be used. But it can take up to a year.
So on Tuesday, for the first time in five years, the State Medical Examiner office put out a bulletin with her physical description and a plea to the public: Help us identify this woman. A sketch artist drew her with full lips, heavy-lidded eyes and a long curtain of dark hair.
It turned out that lots of people recognized the woman. After the bulletin was publicized, more than 50 calls came in about her, Department of Health and Social Services spokeswoman Dawnell Smith said.
By Wednesday afternoon, the tips led the medical examiner's office to her identity, which was then confirmed by family members and medical records, Smith said.
Anchorage police released her name and age: Christy Williams, age 27. Little else is publicly known about her life and what led her to the homeless camp near Valley of the Moon Park.
Williams' case was solved and her family has been told of her death, according to police.
But not every case is. If a body remains unclaimed, the state’s Division of Public Assistance pays for the body to be buried in a local cemetery, said Smith of DHSS.