After 30 Years, We Finally Know The Name of This Deceased Black Girl but Questions Still Remain

Atlanta authorities spend the last 30 years trying to identify a young Black girl who was found buried in a shallow grave. We finally have her name but... mystery still surrounds her case as police try to figure out what happened to her.

In April of 1995, a group of playing children had their fun interrupted upon a grisly discovery. They came across the remains of a teenage girl who was buried in a shallow grave behind an empty home on the southwest side of the city on Atwood Street, per Atlanta-Journal Constitution. Authorities noted her description as being 5 feet and 8 inches, 140 pounds and wearing Bugle Boy jeans, a button-down shirt as well as Adidas shoes.

“She didn’t have a mark on her. It appears that whoever buried her there dragged her face-up, then dug a shallow, shallow grave. We think she was a West Ender, that she lived right there in the area,” said Richard Eskew, investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiner, per a dated AJC report.

Medical officials at the time assumed the girl died of either a natural death or drug overdose, considering where she was found was a hot spot for narcotics. They also said she died just days before she was found. Her manner and cause of death is still unclear. In the meantime, investigators asked the public to help them accomplish the most basic task: identifying her. Authorities believed she had gone by the alias “Wanda” but a nickname wasn’t enough to solve the puzzle.

The report suggests no one really went looking for her around the time she was found. Back then, forensic evidence testing wasn’t advanced enough to do a successful DNA match. By 2007, the girl’s profile made it to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System but still, no tips came through. By 2022, AJC reports that the Fulton county medical examiner’s office joined forces with the Othram lab based in Texas.

As the lab tested forensic evidence for DNA, they said a potential relative came forth whose DNA was also used as a comparison. Then, they finally found a match: Kiyona Arnold born on March 1, 1980. The lab said she was a mere 15 years old at the time of her death.

Questions still swarm Arnold’s death and disappearance but investigators aren’t giving up. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Fulton County Medical Examiner at 404-613-4400.