PORTLAND, Ore. – Valerie Nagle spent decades grappling with the mysterious disappearance of her older sister, Marion Vinetta Nagle McWhorter, who was last seen in Oregon in 1974. In her quest for answers, Nagle utilized various online databases of unidentified persons and submitted her DNA to an ancestry website, hoping to uncover any information about her sister's fate.
This journey took a significant turn in June when Oregon authorities unexpectedly contacted Nagle to discuss a match with a cold case known as "Swamp Mountain Jane Doe."Following this, Nagle’s DNA played a crucial role in identifying remains discovered near a mountain creek in Oregon's Central Cascades in 1976 as belonging to her sister.
Oregon State Police announced this breakthrough publicly after the remains were confirmed in June. Nagle, now 62 and living in Seattle, expressed both surprise and relief at being located through DNA. She was only 11 when her sister vanished. McWhorter's last known whereabouts were at a shopping mall in Tigard, a suburb of Portland, when she was just 21 years old.
As the eldest of five siblings, McWhorter carried a poignant legacy; she was named after an aunt who tragically passed away in a boarding school for Indigenous children in Alaska in 1940. Nagle, reflecting on her family's situation, acknowledged that high rates of disappearances among Indigenous peoples, particularly women, remain a concerning issue exacerbated by inadequate public safety resources.
At the time of McWhorter's disappearance, Nagle was residing in New York with her parents and one brother. While her mother may have reached out to authorities, Nagle remained uncertain about the extent of efforts made to find her sister. She mentioned that although there were some search initiatives, they were limited due to the scant information available.
Nagle recounted that McWhorter had come from California to Oregon with the intention of continuing to Seattle and ultimately Alaska. She had called her aunt, who lived close to the Tigard mall, for a ride in October 1974, but the visit did not materialize. Nearly two decades later, the aunt revealed to Nagle that McWhorter had mentioned a man in a white pickup truck offering her a ride when she called. The delayed revelation left Nagle searching for answers with even more determination.
"I remember spending a lot of time on those pages, just scrolling through and trying to look," Nagle recalled, as she devoted herself to exploring databases for unidentified persons cases.
In 2010, a bone sample from McWhorter's remains was sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification, resulting in a profile being created in the national missing persons database, NamUs. Another bone sample was submitted for DNA extraction in 2020, leading to the production of a unique genetic marker profile.
In 2023, while hoping for clues regarding her sister through Ancestry, Nagle took a DNA test. A crucial breakthrough occurred in April when a first cousin once removed uploaded their genetic profile to FamilyTreeDNA, further unraveling McWhorter's family tree and enabling genealogists to identify Nagle as a surviving family member.
State Forensic Anthropologist Hailey Collord-Stalder remarked on the significance of the case, highlighting that it had remained cold for 49 years, resulting in family members living their lives without closure regarding their loved one. This raises concerns, as McWhorter is believed to not have gone missing voluntarily. The Linn County Sheriff’s Office is currently investigating the circumstances surrounding McWhorter’s death.
For Nagle, the identification of her sister's remains represents the end of a painful chapter. "I never forgot about her," she affirmed, reflecting her enduring hope and devotion to uncovering the truth about her sister’s fate.
