MOUNT VERNON — Investigators on Friday identified a woman whose remains were found nearly three decades ago in southern Illinois.

The head of the woman previously known only as Ina Jane Doe was found by two girls on January 27, 1993, along a road in Wayne Fitzgerrell State Park near Ina.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said the woman was Susan Lund of Clarksville, Tennessee, who was 25 when she disappeared on December 24, 1992. She had gone walking to a grocery store but never returned At her place. When the woman’s head was found in the state park about a month later, investigators were unable to identify it.

University of New Hampshire anthropologist Amy Michael contacted the sheriff’s office in February 2021, offering to reconsider the case, according to a press release from Redgrave Research Forensic Services in Massachusetts.

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A new forensic sketch of the woman has been released and samples taken from the woman’s remains have been used to create a DNA profile of her. This profile was sent to the forensic genealogy team.

One of Lund’s siblings provided a DNA sample for comparison. On March 6, he confirmed the woman was Sudan Lund, the statement said.

Her family, including her three children who were 6, 4 and 2 at the time of her disappearance, have received some peace, said one of Lund’s sisters, Pamela Reyes.

“I’m just speaking on behalf of his three children,” Reyes said. “They really want people to know that they are grateful to find out that they weren’t abandoned by their mother.”

Investigators are asking anyone with information about what happened to contact the sheriff’s office.