On a summer day in July 1983, a 17-year-old Native American girl named Lori Megan Longchase vanished from Phoenix, Arizona. The specific details of her disappearance on July 21, 1983, were initially unclear, creating a painful void for her family. That same day, Lori had started a new job at a pizza restaurant. When her mother arrived to pick her up after her shift, she was informed that Lori had been fired because her boyfriend had been causing disruptions at the workplace.
That was the last time any family member saw or heard from her. Just shy of her 18th birthday, Lori had recently experienced the loss of her newborn son, who passed away at only four days old. For decades, her whereabouts and what happened to her remained a heart-wrenching mystery.
Tragically, just under a month after she was last seen, the unidentified remains of a young woman were discovered on August 15, 1983, on the banks of an irrigation ditch in a rural farming area south of Ahwatukee. The location was near the Gila River Indian Community, where Lori's family had recently moved. Investigators determined the cause of death was homicide by asphyxiation and believed she had been killed elsewhere before being left at the location. Despite the discovery, the remains could not be identified, and the case of the 'Ahwatukee Jane Doe' went cold. Lori's family did not officially report her as a missing person to the Phoenix Police Department until 2021. Her sister, Memory Longchase, spurred the report after seeing a composite drawing of the unidentified woman and believing it strongly resembled Lori.
The path to identification was complex because Lori had been adopted from the San Carlos Apache Reservation as an infant, which meant her sister's DNA could not be used for a direct comparison. Investigators had previously explored the possibility that the remains belonged to another missing woman, but DNA from that woman's family did not match. The breakthrough in Lori's case came through a painstaking and innovative forensic process. In a final effort to give her a name, authorities received funding to exhume the remains of Lori's infant son. In September 2024, after more than four decades of uncertainty, DNA testing confirmed that the remains found in 1983 were indeed those of Lori Megan Longchase. The identification closed her missing person case but opened a homicide investigation, bringing a bittersweet resolution to a family that never stopped searching for answers.Last Seen: Jul 21, 1983
