Missing Mississippi teen identified… 43 years later!

A Mississippi resident missing for 43 years has been identified as the unnamed teenager killed in a traffic accident in Texas City, Texas, in 1973.

Harrison County Sheriff’s Investigator Kristi Johnson tells The Sun Herald that Mary Raskin, mother of missing teen Joseph Spears, ended up looking at pictures of her son’s body to positively identify him. He died on Aug. 23, 1973.

Johnson said Monday officials with the Galveston, Texas, medical examiner’s office were unable to get a proper DNA sample from Spears’ body to confirm the identity. Instead, she says officials called on Harrison County cold case investigators to provide all the facts they had on the case for comparison to the evidence Texas officials had on hand.

Authorities say Spears had escaped from a youth detention center on July 31, 1973.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.