DENVER (KDVR) — The body of a woman found dead near Platteville over 50 years ago in November 1973 has been identified as Roxanne Colleen Leadbeater, according to the Weld County Sheriff’s Office.

She was previously only known as “Jane Doe 1973” after the year in which she was found.

Leadbeater’s body was found on Nov. 19, 1973, near the bank of the St. Vrain River north of U.S. Highway 66 west of Platteville.

In April 2022, her remains were exhumed so that investigators could obtain DNA for genetic genealogy. In February 2024, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation provided a report that showed evidence that “Jane Doe 1973” was likely Roxanne Leadbeater.

However, both her parents and her brother were already deceased, and the closest living relatives were first cousins of hers.

WCSO Cold Case Detective Byron Kastilahn contacted the cousins and learned that they were not that close to Leadbeater and her family because they lived in different states.

The cousins said they remembered she went missing around 1972 and that she was only 15 years old when she went missing.

They said Leadbeater and her family had no connections to Colorado and they did not know why she would be there. The cousins also said that the family did not know if she was kidnapped or ran away.

Her cousins believed she and her family lived in the Los Angeles area around the time she went missing. Detective Kastilahn contacted law enforcement agencies in the area and none of them had any record of Leadbeater being reported as a runaway or missing person.

One of the cousins agreed to provide their DNA to confirm her relationship to the remains. On Dec. 3, a report was submitted confirming that the unidentified Jane Doe found in 1973 was in fact, Leadbeater.

Because she went missing from the Los Angeles area and the circumstances of her death were suspicious, the case will remain open, according to the sheriff’s office.