Kiski woman's fate remains mystery
The disappearance in 1979 of Kiski Township native Nellie Cornman Flickinger is still a mystery after recent attempts to determine whether exhumed remains were hers failed.
The attempt failed because not enough DNA could be gleaned from remains first discovered in a remote area of California in 1982. Yet Flickinger's family continues to hope that more advanced scientific methods might still reveal some answers.
Flickinger, born Nellie Florence Cornman, was a 30-year-old mother of five when she left her Erie home in March 1979 in search of a new life in California.
She hasn't been seen since.
Last spring, hopes were raised.
Through some amateur detective work, Flickinger's niece, Joni Lapeyrouse, learned that an unidentified body found along a lonely road in a remote California county seemed to match Flickinger's description.
The "Jane Doe" seemed like a promising lead because the remains have a steel plate and screws in the right leg.
In 1966, one of Nellie's legs was shattered in a motorcycle wreck in Niles, Ohio, and a doctor had to screw a steel plate into her leg, Lapeyrouse said. The body matched the age and general size of Nellie, too.
Nellie's family was excited when Colusa County, Calif., officials agreed to exhume "Jane Doe" so DNA could be compared to DNA from Nellie's kin.
That was the plan until the failed test results came in last month.
Lapeyrouse's father, who is Flickinger's brother, was in the kitchen when he received a telephone call informing him there wasn't enough DNA to do a test to prove it was or wasn't his sister.
In addition, he was told her identity couldn't be proven through the steel plate because there was no serial number on it. And Flickinger's family can't prove which leg was the one she injured.
"He sat down at the table and hung his head," Lapeyrouse said.
She said there wasn't much of the remains left for scientists to check because the body had been out in the weather for a year or more before a migrant worker found the remains in a drainage ditch in 1982.
"There wasn't much found and when she wasn't identified, she was put into a simple wooded box and buried," she said. When the box deteriorated, the remains were further exposed to the moist ground.
The family had also hoped that the surgical repairs could provided answers about the identity of the Jane Doe.
It's a matter of trying to match the plate on the Jane Doe to Flickinger, who would be 58 this year.
"We think it was on Nellie's right leg, but we can't prove it," Lapeyrouse said. "I have looked for hospital records or photos and haven't come up with anything. Today, those metal plates have serial numbers on them. But not the ones they used before 1980 like the one Nellie had."
Though disappointed, Flickinger's family isn't giving up.
Lapeyrouse said another type of DNA test can be done using very, very little DNA, but the test is extremely expensive.
She asked a forensic lab to donate the cost of the test to solve the mystery.
"I'm asking the University of Texas to see if they will accept this," she said. "It's my understanding they are waiting to get a sample from Colusa County," she said, hopeful that finally the fate of her aunt might be revealed.
Additional Information:
Cold case info sought
Relatives of the missing Nellie Cornman Flickinger ask that anyone with information about the Kiski Township native contact her niece, Joni Cornman Lapeyrouse at 850-602-2743 or Erie Police Cpl. Jon Dibello at 850-870-1148.
