Following is the updated story
By LESLIE EIKLEBERRY
Salina Post
DNA advances have helped the Saline County Sheriff's Office solve a big component of a 34-year-old cold case, and the help came via Minnesota.
During a news conference this afternoon, Saline County Sheriff Roger Soldan identified the woman nicknamed "Miss Molly" as Robin Ann Green, 28, of Los Angeles.
Green was found dead in Mulberry Creek where it crosses under Interstate 70 near mile marker 237 in Saline County on Jan. 25, 1986. Soldan said it was determined that Green had been in the creek for approximately two days.
Although the sheriff's office followed up on hundreds of thousands of leads from all over the world over the years, the case remained unsolved, Soldan said. It was decided that one of the issues holding back the investigation was the lack of a modern DNA profile, he said.
In the spring of 2019, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) offered DNA collection services to the sheriff's office in response to a request from INTERPOL concerning a case in the Netherlands.
"My understanding is that they had someone in the Netherlands that the dental records were a close match. Some teeth were missing, but they thought it would be a good match, and they wanted a DNA profile to match against that person," Soldan said.
With the help of Saline County Attorney Ellen Mitchell, the sheriff's office obtained an exhumation order and a search warrant for the exhumation of the body and the collection of a DNA sample, Soldan explained.
Green's body was exhumed from Salina's Gypsum Hill Cemetery on July 29, 2019. The FBI was on hand to collect the DNA sample.
"In January of 2020, the DNA profile was completed and the FBI entered it into CODIS (Combined DNA Index System), and there was no match," Soldan said.
"After I got notified that there was no match, I started inquiring what it takes to run that DNA profile or move it over to some of the public DNA profile services that are out there," he continued. "We were looking into that when, in late February, we were notified that there was a familial match made and they needed to do some checking."
Soldan explained that the match came about because in 2017, the State of Minnesota had numerous unidentified bodies throughout the state and asked residents who had a missing family member to submit their DNA in the hopes of identifying some of the bodies. Soldan said it was his understanding that Minnesota had more than 50 unidentified bodies when the request was made.
Soldan said the Minnesota DNA profiles were put in a database and were to be run against the DNA profiles of unidentified persons every six months.
In late February of 2020, those Minnesota DNA profiles were run through CODIS and one resulted in a match to Green's profile, he said.
"Since then, through laboratory analysis and dental records, we have a gotten a positive identification of the lady who was found in 1986," Soldan said.
He explained that one of Green's four children who lives in Minnesota submitted the DNA sample in the hope of finding out what had happened to her mother.
Robin Green's last days
Robin Green was last seen on Dec. 28, 1985, when she and her husband, Michael Lewis Green, traveled from Los Angeles to Minnesota to visit Robin Green's children, Soldan said. The children, who were under the age of five, lived with their father in Minnesota, he added.
Less than a month later, Robin Green was found dead in Mulberry Creek in Saline County with wounds to her head.
The next step in the investigation
Soldan noted that the case remains an open homicide investigation. He said that while Michael Green possibly could be a suspect in Robin Green's death, proving such will be further complicated by the fact that Michael Green died in 2007.
Sheriff's office personnel currently are attempting to get all law enforcement case files that they can find concerning Robin and Michael Green. For instance, Soldan said, sheriff's office personnel are aware that Robin and Michael Green owned a home together in California that was seized in a drug raid.
Because Robin Green's body was found in Saline County, the Saline County Sheriff's Office is taking the lead in the investigation, he said.
Closure for the family
Robin Green's children and her ex-husband were in Salina over the weekend to visit her gravesite in Gypsum Hill Cemetery and tour the county, Soldan said.
"They decided that with the history that Miss Molly had here that they want to leave her remains here and they're going to make arrangements for a stone with her proper family name on it," Soldan said.
For now, the family has requested that they not be identified, he said.
"Robin Green's family has made a request to us not to identify them at this time. They didn't say that it would be forever, but they don't feel comfortable right now. They've got a lot to take in," Soldan said.