Overview
- Broward Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday that genetic genealogy confirmed the skeletal remains found off U.S. 27 in September 1983 belong to Shelia Ann Nichols of Decatur, Georgia.
- Crime lab genealogists built a family tree using a Department of Justice Missing and Unidentified Human Remains Program grant, and a DNA match to Nichols’s father, Clyde Nichols, confirmed the identification last year.
- Detectives say the death was a homicide but the killer remains unknown, and investigators are asking the public for information with a reward of up to $5,000 for tips that lead to an arrest.
- Cold‑case investigator Detective Andrew Gianino located Nichols’s sister, Virginia Gail, alive in Georgia after tracing family leads, and the discovery led to a late reunion but not to a suspect.
- Authorities caution that decades of time have degraded some evidence, investigators remain uncertain whether a blue work shirt found with the body is linked to the crime, and officials are using media outreach including a YouTube episode to generate new leads.