DES MOINES, IOWA (AP) -- A Texas police department is investigating whether a cold case involving a strangled woman might be connected to a Davenport runaway.
Amarillo police are analyzing DNA from an elderly Quad Cities couple. Officials want to see if there is a link between the couple's daughter, Bambi Lynn Dick, who disappeared Sept. 29, 1983, and a young woman found strangled in a culvert in early October of that year.
"There's a good chance it could be her," said Lt. Gary Trupe, who leads Amarillo's Special Crimes Unit. "I'm not sure enough to open a full-fledged investigation."
Trupe said distinguishing characteristics from Dick matched the unidentified murder victim in Amarillo. But Trupe also said that Dick's parents listed other characteristics for their daughter that did not match.
Trupe said Amarillo police were contacted earlier this week by the Jane Doe Network, which asked whether they had considered Dick as a match for their cold case.
Trupe said Dick's brother had recently posted a missing person report for his sister. Trupe had not spoken to the brother and said he did not know why the report was only recently filed.
Dick's parents indicated they had filed a missing person report in 1983, but that it expired on Dick's 18th birthday, Jan. 4, 1984.
Iowa Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Jessica Lown said Thursday that investigators have been helping Amarillo police gather information in Iowa.
Trupe said DNA results may take up to six months.
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