Remains found in 1997 in Lake Michigan ID’d as Chicago woman

MANISTEE COUNTY, Mich. (AP) — Police say human remains found in 1997 along Lake Michigan’s shoreline in western Michigan have been identified as those of a Chicago woman last seen weeks earlier at a Wisconsin beachfront park. Michigan State Police said Monday that forensic experts relying on advanced DNA analyses confirmed in December that the remains are those of Dorothy Lynn Ricker. Ricker, then 26, was last seen on Oct. 2, 1997, sitting on a bench at a Wisconsin lakefront park by officers with the St. Francis Police Department. Twenty-five days later, her unidentified remains were found along the lake in western Michigan’s Manistee County. The remains could not be identified at that time.