PHOENIX — A single name has solved a nearly 40-year-old mystery, but there is still more to find out.
It has been almost 40 years since a girl's body was discovered on Valentine's Day. The body was of a young, blonde girl, with only jeans on, dumped off the Interstate 40 near Williams, Arizona.
Investigators dubbed her "Valentine Sally."
“You always have those ones that haunt you, they linger, and you never forget them,” Coconino County Sheriff Jim Driscoll said.
Driscoll remembers when the case began all the way back in 1982. He said lead after potential lead would end up going nowhere.
“Until you can identify a victim, it’s really difficult to identify a suspect,” Driscoll said.
A major break came last week when DNA evidence confirmed, "Valentine Sally" was actually 17-year-old Carolyn Eaton who ran away from her home in December 1981.
Driscoll said it is likely Eaton hitchhiked her way to Arizona, before walking into a Williams truck stop.
“It eats at my heart every day," Patty Wilkins said.
Wilkins was one of the last people to see Eaton alive. She served the 17-year-old and another man Wilkins said was around 50.
She saw no signs that Eaton was in danger.
“He didn’t act like he was going to hurt her or anything, it was like they were best of friends,” Wilkins said.
Wilkins remembers Eaton complaining about pain in her teeth. Wilkins would crush up aspirin to help the pain.
A later autopsy found the aspirin was still in Eaton's system at the time of her death.
“We believe she was killed shortly after she left the truck stop. Within hours,” Driscoll said.
Wilkins to this day wonders if she missed a sign that could have saved the 17-year-old's life. Wilkins said she asked Eaton if she wanted to stay at the truck stop, but that Eaton told her no.
Still, Wilkins wonders if there was something else she could have done.
Investigators are now hoping the break in the case will solve other mysteries, like who was the truck driver Eaton was with, and who killed her.
Hoping solving one question may lead to more answers, and eventually justice.
"That’s the icing on the cake, the full closure we seek for both the victim and the family," Driscoll said.
"Find out who did it and let me go stomp on his toes, OK?" Wilkins said.