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Goldsboro woman's remains identified after 20 years

Officials have found a woman's body who was reported missing in Goldsboro in 2001.

Posted Updated
Felicia Coleman's body was found on Thursday after missing for more than 20 years.
By
Maggie Brown
, WRAL multiplatform producer
GOLDSBORO, N.C. — Officials have identified the remains of a woman who was reported missing in Goldsboro 20 years ago.

Felicia Dishelle Coleman, 23, was reported missing on Nov. 12, 2001. The case remained open until Thursday.

Less than a month after Coleman went missing, hunters found human remains in the area of Bill Lane Boulevard in Wayne County.

The state's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner initially said those remains were from a young, Black male. But, in 2011, the Office revised its findings to say that DNA testing showed that the remains were from a Black woman.

A new investigator took over the case in 2020, and obtained a DNA sample from Coleman's family and entered it into the National Missing Unidentified Persons System. A year later, NAMUS reached out to the Wayne County Sheriff's Office and said that the body found in 2001 was Coleman's.

The Goldsboro Police Department is still investigating her death.

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