BY KYM LIEBLER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
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Laura Cecere |
Sandra Cecere's hopes were dashed Thursday when she learned a skull found in Bowling Green, Ky., is not her daughter's.
Although at first it appeared the skull matched the case profile of deceased Army Sgt. Laura Cecere, a Butler County native, forensic tests that compared the skull to Sgt. Cecere's jawbone showed the bones did not match.
"It's up and down and back and forth," said Mrs. Cecere, of Richmond, Ind., who had hoped to find her daughter's body before Sept. 20, which would have been Sgt. Cecere's 27th birthday.
"It's a letdown. It's someone else's child," she said. "I've learned to take everything with a grain of salt."
Sgt. Cecere, who grew up in Seven Mile near Hamilton, disappeared Dec. 6, 1996, from Clarksville, Tenn., not far from the Fort Campbell Army base where she was an instructor with the Sabalauski Air Assault School.
She was presumed missing until her jawbone was mailed in a plastic container to a Hopkinsville, Ky., television station in July 1997. The skull found Monday along the bed of the Gasper River was missing a lower jawbone and, at first, was thought to be that of a woman.
Kentucky State Police Sgt. Mark Haynes said Thursdaythe skull is the remains of a small-framed person, likely a female, but possibly a male.
The agency is reviewing its missing persons cases to determine the skull's identity.
