DAVIE, Fla. – It was Dec. 23, 1975, when Carolyn Dunn Moudy was found in a canal in Davie.
It took nearly 46 years for her to be identified.
But now, after more than four and a half decades, Edna Moudy has finally learned what happened to her mother, who went missing in July of 1974.
“Glad I got closure,” Edna Moudy said Tuesday. “I’m never going to forget my mom.”
Carolyn was 21 at the time, and what happened to her is unclear.
She went missing from Indianola, Mississippi, and the next time she was seen, she was found floating in a canal, nearly 1,000 miles away in Davie.
Detectives determined she was murdered but couldn’t figure out who she was, and eventually, the case went cold.
But in 2019, Davie detectives and crime scene techs began looking back over their old cases and thought they may be able to identify her through new DNA testing.
They exhumed her body from the Forest Lawn Cemetery, and with the help of several other organizations, they were able to re-create a new sketch and even found a DNA match – relatives that eventually led them to Edna.
“It was amazing,” said Davie police crime scene technician Bertha Hurtado. “Quite frankly, these are emotions that you can’t articulate. Even to this day, everything seems so surreal.”
Carolyn Dunn Moudy was born Dec. 24, 1953. She was found in Davie one day before her 22nd birthday.
This is now an active homicide investigation. If you know anything about this case from decades ago, you are urged to call Davie police.
“These cases all deserve to be closed, at least to be worked on,” Davie police Det. Eddy Velasquez said. “These families, they deserve the closure that they need to get.”