Orange County Jane Doe Jane doe identified as Andrea Kuiper 26

news wrote:
A woman who was fatally struck by two cars in Huntington Beach nearly three decades ago has finally been identified as a 26-year-old woman from Virginia, officials announced.

Andrea Kuiper, 26, is seen in a photo released by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department on May 11, 2017.

Andrea Kuiper was identified through fingerprints on May 4, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said in a released statement Thursday. Kuiper was struck and killed by two cars on April 1, 1990 while trying to cross Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach. She was unidentified for 27 years.

“We never forgot her and would regularly pull out her file to see if we could think of anything new to try,” Kelly Keyes, supervising deputy coroner at the OCSD, said.

Kuiper was wearing a black dress, pink sweater and size 6 pink heels when she died. She also had a ring made of human hair wrapped around her left ring finger and black toenail polish.

SEAL BEACH, CA — For nearly 30 years, a Virginia family has waited for word on their missing daughter, who had left home to find information on her biological family in California.

After confirmation from the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) database, the Kuiper family of Fairfax can at last have closure, thanks to the work of the Orange County Coroner's Division.

“We never forgot her and would regularly pull out her file to see if we could think of anything new to try,” Supervising Deputy Coroner Kelly Keyes said. “The investigators at the Coroner’s Office never stopped trying to figure out who she was, just as they do with the more than 90 unidentified decedents that we have.”

On Thursday, May 4, Keyes received confirmation the 26-year-old woman struck and killed by two vehicles on April 1, 1990, as she crossed Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach was Andrea Kuiper of Fairfax, Virginia.

"My wife, son and I always hoped that one day our daughter would drive up with a car full of beautiful children and say, ‘Hi, it’s me,'" her father, Richard Kuiper said in a recent release.

According to her family, Andrea headed to California from Virginia at 26 years old. Andrea suffered from manic depressive disorder, struggled with mental health issues and eventually began using drugs.

A few months before her death, Andrea reached out to her parents with a phone call, letting them know that she was OK, but that was the last they heard from their daughter.

In April of 1990, Andrea Kuiper's life ended, her identity unknown for 27 years, after being struck by two vehicles on Pacific Coast Highway west of Newland in Huntington Beach. She died at the scene according to police reports.

Known to police only as "Jane Doe" at the time of her death, she was wearing a black dress, black fishnet stockings, a hot pink sweater and pink heels. She was also wearing a ring made of human hair, wrapped around her left ring finger, and wore black toenail polish.

Those details were made known to the TV series "Unsolved Mysteries," which featured the story, and a psychic was reported by OCSD as working with the group trying to locate information on her family.

The Jan. 20, 1995, episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" stated that on April 1, a young woman known only as "Andrea" was struck by a Mazda MX-6 and a Lincoln Continental and killed in Huntington beach.

"She carried no identification, in her possessions were a hotel key and a ring made of human hair," according to "Unsolved Mysteries." "Several people stated that they saw her the day before she died, and that her name was Andrea, and that she had come from the East Coast (either Virginia or New York) to California in search of her biological parents. She said that she was the biological daughter of a well-known couple, but never said who they were."
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According to a Facebook page set up for the unidentified woman, two separate men were reported as having seen and spent time with Andrea before her death: One man gave her money that she used to purchase the shoes she was wearing at the time of her death, and another man, who witnessed Andrea cut her own hair to create the ring she wore. Both learned that she had family, possibly in the Virginia area, which was a vital clue in locating her family.

OCSD’s Coroner Division continued to work the case over the years, even pushing to have it featured on the television show and in numerous newspaper articles, but the woman’s identity continued to elude investigators.

At the time of Kuiper’s death, her information was provided to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). The organization recreated images of what Kuiper might have looked like. Those images were circulated in the media, but she remained unidentified, according to Keyes.

In 2010, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) was created. NamUs provided a searchable database to assist in solving cases involving unidentified human remains. Shortly after its creation, the OCSD Coroner Division input Kuiper’s information and hoped for a hit.

"Coroner investigators revisited the case as recently as eight months ago after learning Kuiper may have had connections in Newport News, Va., but their work didn’t turn out any new information," Keyes said.

In early 2017, NamUs partnered with the FBI on a fingerprint project that more closely examines fingerprints of unidentified decedents against an ever-growing database that has old fingerprints regularly added.

On Thursday, May 4, 2017, the FBI notified the OCSD Coroner Division of the forensic match.

Coroner investigators worked with Fairfax law enforcement to contact Kuiper’s parents and provide them closure after nearly three decades.

“We are thankful to know what happened to our daughter after all these years,” said Kuiper’s father, Richard Kuiper. “Andrea was loved and respected. She was beautiful. But she was manic depressive, and therefore we had been through quite an adventure.”