IRONTON The woman found dead in a cistern 38 years ago in rural Lawrence County, Ohio has been positively identified using her DNA and DNA on a genealogical database.
Louise Virginia Peterson Flesher was the name of the woman who was found in 1981 by children playing around the cistern, Lawrence County Coroner’s case investigator Bill Nenni said Monday.
Establishing her identity solved a mystery that has consumed Nenni and other investigators for decades, and about which locals have speculated for as long.
Flesher was born in West Virginia, lived for some time in Wyoming, and had three children, according to a biographical sketch authorities assembled after pinning down her identity.
How and why she ended up in the cistern with a rope around her neck attached to a concrete block remains unknown and may never be known, although authorities hope the identification will prompt friends, family and associates to offer new information, Lawrence County Sheriff Jeff Lawless said.
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