AUSTIN, TX — More than 42 years after ranchers discovered a woman's remains in rural Hamilton County, investigators have identified the victim as 44-year-old Betty Jo Norris through modern forensic DNA testing and genealogical research, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Ranchers working cattle along Highway 36 discovered a human skeleton with female clothing on the morning of Sept. 1, 1983. Investigators determined the woman had been left at the location several months earlier after suffering a single gunshot wound to the head.
Clothing and jewelry recovered at the scene included brown knee-length boots, a blue and white polka-dot blouse, stretch blue jeans, a Timex watch with a brown leather wristband, bobby pins and two barrettes decorated with orange roses.
The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office and Texas Rangers made several attempts over the following years to identify the victim through statewide announcements and forensic reconstruction images, but no leads developed. DNA testing available as recently as 2005 also failed to produce results, and the case eventually went cold.
44-year-old Betty Jo Norris
The Texas Rangers began reprocessing evidence from the case in January 2024 in coordination with the Hamilton County Communications Office and Hamilton County Sheriff's Office. Evidence was submitted to the DPS Crime Laboratory in Waco for updated testing.
That testing led to the extraction of an unknown male DNA sample from the victim's clothing in early 2025, but the sample was too degraded to produce a profile.
Over the following year, the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification also attempted to develop a profile from the degraded sample, but it did not qualify for a database search.
Investigators then submitted the woman's remains for additional testing and comparison through DPS' Sexual Assault Kit Initiative program.
The program is funded by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance and provides investigative funding to agencies across the country for unsolved sexual assaults and sexually related homicides.
Using SAKI grant funding, the sample was sent to BODE Technologies for advanced DNA testing and genealogical research.
A breakthrough came in July 2026, when the testing and research led investigators to relatives of the unidentified woman living in Brazos and Bell counties.
After conducting several interviews, relatives directed the Texas Rangers to a male family member living in Belton whose mother, Betty Jo Norris, had disappeared in the early 1980s.
Texas Rangers traveled to Belton, where Norris' son, now in his 60s, provided a DNA sample for testing.
On Aug. 20, 2026, testing confirmed the unidentified woman found more than four decades earlier was his mother, Betty Jo Norris.
The Texas Rangers and Hamilton County Sheriff's Office continue to investigate Norris' killing and are working to identify the person responsible for her death.
Anyone with information about the case is encouraged to contact the Hamilton County Communications Office at 254-386-3300.
The Texas Rangers credited the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, Hamilton County Communications Office, DPS Crime Laboratory Division, University of North Texas Center for Human Identification, Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance and BODE Technologies for their work on the case.
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