Friends remember the woman at the center of the 26-year-old unsolved case in Nashville as a talented singer

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – A Dickson man said he was watching WSMV4 when he recognized a name in an update. The name was Diane Minor and she is the woman at the center of a 26-year-old unsolved case, but Metro Nashville Police recently identified her.

It’s July 1964 in Nashville, and Diane Minor’s song “When (Will I Forget You)” has been released on record. She’s the same Diane Minor that Dan Buckner once knew. He was looking through the Dickson High School yearbooks from the 1960s and saw that she was the “Spirit of Christmas” and a cheerleader. Buckner said Minor was a friend of his sister’s and sang at her wedding.

Previous story: Police reveal identity of woman found shot in the head in the Cumberland River in 1998

“She was very lively, very personable, had all kinds of friends and was very talented,” he said.

Buckner added that Minor eventually moved to Nashville to pursue her music career.

“After that, my sister lost contact with her and she tried by all means to find her,” he said.

In 1998, MNPD investigators pulled a body with two gunshot wounds to the head from the Cumberland River near Cleeses Ferry. She was wearing a Leo necklace and Tweety Bird pants. They didn’t know who she was, so they named her “Leo Jane Doe.”

For years, they only had a computer-generated photo of her. Until a nonprofit organization called the DNA Doe Project stepped in.

“I’m more of what you would call a ‘tree builder’ or librarian and data searcher,” said Chelsea Harnahan of the nonprofit.

She was one of the volunteers in the Leo Jane Doe case, which involved building a family tree using DNA samples and websites like Gedmatch.

“You may think it’s just Leo Jane Doe,” Harnahan said. “But in reality it’s someone’s mother, sister, friend.”

After three months, Harnahan said, they confirmed it was Diane Minor. She was 54 when she died.

“She had a really vibrant, full life,” she said. “And that was just the way fate had dealt her.”

“That’s how the ball got rolling, and that’s the Diane Minor I know,” Buckner recalls.

After 26 years, just a few photos but a recognizable voice, this is the Diane he remembers. And he hopes this closure will give him some peace of mind.

“It would bring closure to the family, or whatever family there is,” Buckner said.

According to MNPD, charges could be brought at some point. First, they will question friends and family.

Those who worked the case believe Minor may have had two daughters. She was also the manager of the Second Story Café in Nashville in the early 1990s. A missing person’s report was never filed.

All rights reserved.