Burned body found near Ohio interstate in 1987 identified as missing Michigan teen

TOLEDO, Ohio (WOIO) - For decades, the burned body of a young woman found near an interstate in Northwest Ohio went unidentified.

Now, nearly 38 years after her remains were discovered, “Toledo Jane Doe” finally has her name back.

On Tuesday, the Toledo Police Department announced the positive identification of Tammy Lowe, an 18-year-old from Taylor, Michigan who was found dead in Toledo on June 16, 1987.

A driver traveling on I-75 made the discovery after seeing flames from the highway.

“There was a motorist that was traveling on the interstate that saw what he thought was a smoke, a fire of some sort,” Cold Case Unit Det. William Goodlet told 19 Investigates during an interview in 2023.

The driver got off the highway to check it out.

“He ended up in an alley behind a closed auto shop and he saw something burning. It was wrapped up in carpet and he took a closer look and realized it was a human body,” Goodlet said.

According to police, Lowe also had a blue plastic bag over her head.

“So they really didn’t know what they had. There was no identification on the body. And so it was initially carried as a Jane Doe,” Goodlet said.

Over the years, police tried to connect her to missing persons cases, including cases from the Cleveland area.

They entered her DNA into CODIS, a national criminal database used by law enforcement, but no hits came back.

A forensic artist with Michigan State Police even made a clay reconstruction of the young woman’s face in hopes of drumming up leads.

Years passed by and the case went cold.

But during that time, DNA technology changed.

Investigative Genetic Genealogy can match DNA samples from unidentified remains to distant relatives in publicly available ancestry databases, giving police new leads.

Back in 2023, we asked Det. Goodlet if that could be the next step in this case.

“I spoke to BCI just last week to try to get some suggestions. We’re talking over, where do we go? You know, how do we get the funding? Who do we go with, things like that,” Goodlet said.

In October 2024, The Porchlight Project, a local non-profit that offers funding for Ohio cold cases, announced they would assist Toledo Police by funding further genetic genealogy DNA testing through Othram, a Texas-based company that specializes in forensic genetic genealogy.

According to Toledo Police, Othram’s testing pointed investigators to a possible relative in Michigan.

“Further follow up by detectives from Ohio Bureau of Investigation, Toledo Police Department, and the Lucas County Coroner’s Office located the possible family members near Detroit, MI,” police said in a press release issued Tuesday.

A final DNA test from a relative closely related to Lowe then confirmed the match.

Despite the positive identification of Lowe’s remains, the circumstances surrounding the teen’s death still remain a mystery.

The coroner determined she had died a day or two before the fire.

“The cause of death was ruled overdose. She had cocaine in her system. There was no other signs of trauma to the skeletal remains. So the official ruling is overdose,” Goodlet told us in 2023.

But that’s a ruling police told us was complicated by a lack of evidence, as clues were destroyed in the fire.

Her body was in such bad condition, the coroner couldn’t determine anything else.

We asked police whether she could have been murdered or she died accidentally and someone covered up her death.

“So it’s hard to tell if there was something else happening and we can only go by what they you know, what they find out positively and that that was cocaine,” Goodlet said. “It’s one thing if we say that as a cocaine overdose, you know, that’s tragic enough. But then why someone would go to the length of attempting to you know, totally conceal her identity, that’s hard to figure.”

If you know anything about the 1987 death of Tammy Lowe, call Toledo Police Detective Bureau at 419-245-3142.

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