Family of Goldsboro woman whose remains were identified after 20 years hope for justice
Nearly 20 years after a Goldsboro woman was reported missing, the Goldsboro Police Department says it’s identified her remains.
For some of Felicia Coleman’s family members the discovery feels like a path to closure, but others still have questions about the investigation up to this point.
“It’s devastating,” Coleman’s brother, William Watson, said. “You’re angry, but at the same time you’re sad and you’re confused.”
“You have a lot of questions and no one has answers,” he continued.
In a release from the Goldsboro Police Department sent out in late July, the department said that in November 2001, 23-year-old Felicia Coleman was declared missing and never seen again.
Less than a month later, human remains were found by hunters in Wayne County. At the time, State Office of the Chief Medical Examiner identified them as a male.
A spokesperson for the department said the next development in the case came in January 2011 when the state contacted the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, telling them the remains found nearly a decade earlier actually belonged to a woman. Officials had still yet to make the connection between the remains and Coleman's body.
More than ten years after that discovery, a new investigator was assigned to the case. He decided to check a DNA database called the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
“In the process of updating those files, I did meet with Felicia’s family last year and got samples from three of the family members,” Goldsboro police investigator James Sturgill said. ”We got this connection through DNA a couple of weeks ago.”
GPD sent the news to Coleman’s family, and some of them felt like they could finally start to grieve.
“No matter how long it is, it still hurts the same, because it’s my sister, you know?” Janice Thompson said. “She left behind kids, a family, my mother, my brothers, my sister.”
Other relatives of Coleman were left with questions, asking why it took nearly 10 years after the remains were initially found to discover they belonged to a woman.
“They had DNA testing in 2001 as well so you could’ve ran the same testing you did in 2011 to find out whether this was a male or a female, and then go further with the investigation,” Watson said.
WRAL News asked that question to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which didn’t respond in time for this story.
The investigator with GPD said Coleman’s remains were DNA tested in 2011, but due to faulty dental records, the state didn’t consider them to be a match for her.
The police say they're still continuing to investigate Coleman's death. The family hopes this investigation could finally bring them justice.
“At this time, we’re just hoping and praying that they can come up with something,” Thompson said. “Give us some kind of closure.”
Coleman’s family said their next step would be to hold a memorial for Felicia, and then monitor the investigation closely in the months ahead.
