WESTPORT — The identity of a woman, whose charred body was found atop a pile of burning tires near Interstate 95’s Exit 18, has been confirmed after nearly four decades.

Barbara Heyward Manners, who was 33 at the time of her murder, was publicly identified this week in a statement published by Othram, a forensics testing lab in Texas, which was commissioned in 2022 by the state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to help crack the 1985 cold case using advanced DNA technology.

Investigation into the “Fairfield County Jane Doe” case had remained open from the time the unidentified woman’s body was found in May 1985 alongside the highway’s southbound exit onto the Sherwood Island Connector. She was about 5 feet tall and weighed about 110 pounds, and was wearing  Russler brand blue jeans and a wool wrap-around sweater with a pack of Salem brand cigarettes in the pocket, according to Othram.

Manners was killed “by a blow to the head shortly before someone set fire to her body, and her hands and feet were missing, the autopsy showed,” the Associated Press reported at the time.

Her death has been certified as a homicide, the medical examiner’s office said Wednesday. 

According to Michelle Clark, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner investigator who investigated the death, the “office submitted skeletal samples to Othram’s laboratory and they were able to extract DNA for SNP [single nucleotide polymorphisms] testing.”  

DNA was collected from the family believed to be the victim’s relatives by State Police and submitted to the Department of Scientific Services in Meriden, which confirmed Manners identity. 

Investigators in 1985 had recovered “several personal items” next to the woman’s body. But by 2012 when there had been no resolution of the case, details were entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.

Two years ago, the state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner teamed with Othram “in hopes that advanced forensic DNA testing could help establish an identity,” according to the lab. 

Using forensic evidence submitted to Othram’s laboratory in the Woodlands, Texas, the lab reported that its “in-house forensic genetic genealogy team then used the profile in a genetic genealogy search to develop new investigative leads that were returned to investigators.”

Armed with new leads, a renewed investigation was carried out, leading to relatives of the woman and confirming her identity.

Manners was born June 9, 1951, and was 33 years old at the time of her death. Her remains will be returned to her family for interment.

On Tuesday, Othram posted the following statemernt on X, formerly Twitter: “Honored that Othram could assist the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in identifying a 1985 homicide victim as Barbara Heyward Manners, born June 9, 1951. We are grateful to RTI, NIJ, and NamUs for funding for this case.”