Texas Murder Victim ID'd 43 Years After She Was Found Dead

The Texas Department of Public Safety announced Monday a 43-year-old cold case had been solved, resulting in Betty Jo Norris being identified as a 1983 murder victim. According to TX DPS, “On the morning of Sept. 1, 1983, ranchers discovered a human skeleton with female clothing while working cattle along Highway 36 in rural Hamilton Co. Investigators determined that the female victim had been left at the location several months before, after suffering a single gunshot wound to the head.” They added, “In the years that followed, the Hamilton Co. Sheriff’s Office and Texas Rangers made several attempts to identity the victim using statewide announcements and forensic reconstruction images – but no leads developed and DNA testing available even as recent as 2005 did not yield any results. The case went cold.” They noted that the case received another look in 2024 and that “an unknown male DNA sample” was extracted from the clothing of the murder victim in 2025, but nothing definitive regarding the identity of the female victim or the male. TX DPS then “submitted her remains for testing and comparison through DPS’ Sexual Assault Kit Initiative (SAKI) program. In July 2026 a breakthrough occurred and “led investigators to relatives of the female victim living in Brazos and Bell counties.” Once there they located a son in his 60s, took a DNA sample, and identified his mother, Betty Jo Norris, as the victim. She was 44 years old when she was murdered. Law enforcement is now working to identity the person who killed her. AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He holds a PhD in Military History with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. He enjoys reading Philosophy and novels by Jack Carr and Nelson DeMille. He is a lever action man in an AR-15 world. Follow him on X: @awrhawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.