BEAUMONT, Texas — In 2016, a construction crew discovered the skull of Rebecca Sue Meyers in an empty field near the Lower Neches Valley Authority (LNVA) canal. Since then, police have been working to locate her family members.
Meyers was last seen August 31, 2009.
Police tell us she also went by the name Becky Burroughs. They're desperate to find any relatives they believe family could help shine a light into how Meyers may have died.
Beaumont police say Meyers lived as a transient, making it especially difficult to locate anyone who may have known her. They say the public's help and DNA technology are needed to unravel the mystery surrounding her death.
"At this point it's a cold case," said Beaumont Police Department Public Information Officer Haley Morrow.
Meyers was last seen on Highway 69 near the Jefferson County Correctional facility on August 31, 2009.
"We don't even know exactly when she may have gone missing. She was not a reported missing person," Morrow said.
In September 2016, Meyers' skull was found in a field at the dead end of South 23rd Street next to the LNVA canal, according to Morrow.
Her skull was sent to the University of North Texas and identified through DNA records more than a year later.
Morrow says the data collected was not enough to go on.
"With just a skull we're not able to know the cause of death. So we're not quite sure if it was a homicide or self-inflicted or anything else," said Morrow.
Investigators were able to track down Meyers' parents but they had passed away. Now they're hoping genealogy will help them locate other family members which could help them determine how she died.
"We're not sure if she had children or if she has siblings, or cousins, aunts, uncles, we hope that there is somebody out there who wants to know what happened to their family member," said Morrow. "We did receive a lot of information last year looking for any acquaintances or family members. We got a lot of leads in different areas, Oklahoma, the Dallas area...but unfortunately those didn't pan out."
Morrow says investigators are hoping advances in DNA technology along with the public's help, can help investigators clear a hurdle nearly eight years later.
"This is a perfect example of how our detectives never stop. We want to do as much as we can to bring some type of justice to her if there was any criminal act involving her death," Morrow told 12News.
Beaumont police are asking anyone with information that could lead to the location of Meyers' family, or on the case in general, to call Beaumont police.
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This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.
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