Nashville Woman’s Remains Identified 26 Years After Being Found In River

The remains of a woman found in a Nashville river 26 years ago have been identified thanks to advancements in DNA technology.

Remains pulled from the Cumberland River in 1998 belong to Diane Minor, 54, who had vanished sometime earlier, though no missing person report was ever filed, The Tennessean reported. Before her remains were identified, they were referred to as Leo Jane Doe due to a necklace found on the body containing the Leo Zodiac sign.

Now that her remains have been identified, investigators can work to find out who murdered her, as her remains revealed she had been shot twice.

Minor’s high school friend Beverly Peeler told WTVF she “always wondered what happened to” Minor and said she was “very popular” and “real bubbly, a great cheerleader.”

Another friend and coworker, Mark Degon, told the outlet Minor was “full of life, full of energy, always happy.”

“[Her disappearance] perplexed everybody,” Degon continued. “We were all like, where’s Diane, it was so out of character, it was like, where is she?”

While no missing person report was filed for Minor, Degon said he remembered someone saying she had moved to Colorado.

“It makes you feel things. It makes you feel like, should we have called somebody else? But when you’re told she moved…you gotta take it at face value at some point,” he told WTVF.

Before her murder, Minor lived a quiet life working as the manager of the now-closed Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville. Her introduction as manager was posted in a 1993 advertisement, saying she had been hired by the bookstore five years earlier as the human resources manager, according to the Tennessean.

In her youth, however, Minor was an up-and-coming singer and beauty queen. Shortly after graduating high school, Minor signed a record contract with Wilburn Brothers. In June 1962, she was first featured in the newspapers after being named “Miss Congeniality” in the Miss Nashville Pageant.

“Diane Minor, 18, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. R.N. Minor, 3112 West End Circle, captured the audience by singing ‘Misty,'” the Tennessean wrote at the time. “Her voice has a kind of husky Eartha Kitt quality, with sweetly sad tones excellently controlled.”

A few weeks later, the same outlet named her the “Discovery of the Week,” and she was runner-up in its “Discovery of the Year” contest.

She also previously worked as an IBM operator for National Life and Accident Insurance Co. and had a regular gig on the Stu Phillips show on Channel 8 in the mid-60s as a vocalist and weather girl.