Missing Wisconsin woman's remains identified; Homicide remains unsolved

OREGON (WKOW) - More than four decades after a Wisconsin woman went missing, her family is finally getting answers. 

Christensen left home in March of 1982 and headed to Nashville Tennessee. 

Officials said she had left her 1-year-old daughter with relatives while she was away and they reported her missing after she failed to return as planned to Wisconsin.

At 20-years-old, Christensen was a mother, a daughter and one of nine siblings.

"She left on her daughter's first birthday and I remember her saying goodbye," Shelley Christensen.

"When she left, we didn't know where she was going," Diann McConnell explained. 

When 27 News interviewed Christensen's sisters, Shelley Christensen and Diann McConnell in 1993, a decade after her disappearance, the question of where Christensen could be was the focus.

"I think some of the siblings believed that she was out there. And for whatever reason didn't want to be found," Shelley said. 

"We always expected her to come back because as far as we knew she was still alive," Diann added.

Nine months after her disappearance, her then-unidentified remains were found in rural Indiana.

However, since the remains were unidentified, the family had no idea Christensen was dead. 

In November of 2022, genealogists at the DNA Doe Project matched the DNA of the found remains to two of Christensen's relatives.

"A lot of tears, it's just a big thump to the head," Shelley said remembering when she heard the news. 

Officials said Christensen died from a gunshot wound and her death was ruled a homicide investigation. 

"So much time has passed and a lot of people that may have been connected are probably no longer here," Diann said. "So that's kind of a dead end for us."

The sisters said answers bring more questions and the word closure doesn't resonate with them. 

"We missed out on so much on her life," Diann said. "She never got to know all of her nieces and nephews and daughter."

For now the family is grieving and processing an outcome no one wanted but peace they needed.

"We buried some of her ashes where both our parents and her younger brother are," Diann said. "And then we also planted an apple tree the following day here on our property in her honor, on what would have been her birthday."

Shelley said it's the little things they hold on to that help the family cope. 

"They're very precious," she said. "The apple tree is a big thing for us. She would sit up in the apple tree eating apples with salt shaker."

The family is hoping to fill the gaps between when Christensen left Wisconsin through her time in Nashville.

Her homicide remains under investigation.  

Anyone with information is asked to contact police.