Skeletal remains found in northern Ohio have been identified as those of a young woman who vanished 18 years ago while acting as an informant for police in a drug case.
The Lorain County Sheriff's Office confirmed recently that the remains found in March on Huntington Township farmland belonged to Angela Marie Hall. Hall was last seen in January 1998 when she was 25.
A mother of four children, Hall worked with Lorain city police to convict three drug dealers, who police say later threatened her life, according to The Chronicle-Telegram in Elyria. No one has been arrested in her disappearance.
A property owner found the remains March 22 while checking for damage from a wreck in the area a few days before.
"Everyone is sad," Hall's half-sister, Myrna Solis, told the newspaper. "We kinda expected for her not to be alive after all these years, but when you actually know it, it feels like it just happened yesterday to actually finally know for sure."
Solis said the family didn't speak much with her before she disappeared. They waited a month after she disappeared to report her missing because it wasn't unusual for her to leave for long stretches of time.
Hall had felony warrants when she disappeared and was a material witness in a Lorain case, Elyria police Capt. Chris Costantino said.
"She left a note indicating she was in trouble and was going to hide," he said. "The thought was it was a fugitive situation and not a missing person's case."
