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The adult skeletal remains, which were found on Sept. 18, 1995, in the woods behind the Club House Diner on Street Road, belong to Merrybeth Hodgkinson, according to the Bensalem Police Department.
She was unclothed and wrapped in a plastic tarp, police said.
The death was classified as a homicide by unspecified means and investigators said that the body had been there for two to three years.
At the time, police only knew the victim was an adult white female between the ages of 35 and 45, approximately 4'8' to 5'2" tall with brown hair, and had given birth at least once.
With no clear leads on her identity, she was buried in Telford under the name "Jane Doe," police said.
Bensalem police exhumed her remains in May 2004 and sent them to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification, where a DNA profile was extracted and uploaded into the CODIS system in an attempt to identify her, they said.
The DOE Network was able to provide a forensic sketch and sculpture of the victim, authorities said. The DOE Network is a non-profit organization of volunteers who work with law enforcement to connect missing persons cases with John/Jane Doe cases.
Over 50 missing women were excluded as being Jane Doe between 2004 and 2021, according to investigators.
Last month, BODE labs uploaded the DNA profile into GEDmatch and FamilytreeDNA.com.
With the help of genealogy research and DNA comparison testing, the remains have been identified as 31-year-old Hodgkinson of Warminster, police said.
Investigators say she vanished sometime in September 1992 after visiting family in Warminster.
She worked as an exotic dancer in Lower Bucks County and lived in Philadelphia, Feasterville-Trevose, and Allentown, police said.
Anyone who knew Hodgkinson is urged to contact Detective Chris McMullin of the Bensalem Police Department at 215-633-3726 or Detective Greg Biedler of the Bucks County District Attorney's Office at 215-348-6344.
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