Cold case murder victim identified after 29 years, CMPD says
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s Cold Case unit announced Friday night that it had identified a 1996 murder victim using forensic genetic genealogy.
Human skeletal remains were found in a wooded area next to the Bank of America Stadium in July 1996, police said. The Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the remains as belonging to a female and ruled the death a homicide.
Any further attempts at identification through conventional means were unsuccessful, according to detectives.
The victim’s remains were sent to Raleigh in 2022 for an osteological examination by a forensic anthropologist, CMPD said. Then, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Foundation funded further examination at the Othram Labs in Texas.
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The initial attempt to obtain DNA was unsuccessful, CMPD said. But in 2024, the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner’s Office sent additional bones to the lab for DNA extraction.
The labs were successful in the DNA extraction, CMPD said, and the victim’s profile was uploaded to two genealogy databases.
The CMPD Cold Case Unit said it partnered with Ramapo College of New Jersey’s Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center, and the team identified the victim as Betty Jean Benton. Family confirmed the victim’s identification.
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Detectives learned, after contacting Benton’s next of kin, that Benton had been missing since the early 1990s, according to CMPD. She was born in Louisiana in 1954 and spent most of her life in Chicago, Illinois.
Benton’s family had not heard from her since February 1991, when she told them she was in North Carolina. The family reported her missing in 1992. Detectives said they could not find a record of Benton living in North Carolina.
The CMPD Cold Case Unit has asked that anyone who may have had contact with Benton in North Carolina or who has information on her murder call 704-432-TIPS to speak directly with a detective. Benton’s case is still considered to be under investigation, CMPD said.
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