CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, Ill. (WAND) - Bones, DNA, and perseverance. They are three things credited for cracking a decades old cold case in Champaign County.

"Her case was complicated," Yolanda McClary, the founder of the Unknown Doe Project, told WAND News reporter Chris Carter, talking about her work in solving the mystery of human remains found in a field outside of Thomasboro.

The break in the 1995 mystery of unidentified remains came in October 2020 with the help of McClary, a retired Las Vegas CSI, and her team. The Champaign County Sheriff's Office announced because of McClary's work they were able to identify the bones as Keri Wyant. 

"Nobody deserves to die without their name," McClary said. "No body. I do not care if you're good, bad or indifferent." 

With the decade old bones, McClary set out to get answers. She worked with the Champaign County Coroner, and Sheriff to create a genetic genealogy profile of the bones, which eventually came back at Wyant.

"It is a shot, a shot in the dark, but it is a shot," she said. 

After sending the bones to the lab, scientists were able to create a DNA profile which McClary and her team uploaded to an open DNA database hoping for a match. They got it. 

"When we first looked at her matches, we went 'ugh , that is not good,'" Yolanda said. 

The results from the DNA database were hundreds of pages long. Yolanda and her team started looking at other profiles in the databases, slowly narrowing it down to those who also had similar DNA and started creating a family tree. 

"You can end up with five to ten thousand people in it," Yolanda said. "It is like a needle in a haystack. It is complicated, time consuming and her case was no different."

The progress of conducting the family tree started in January, and McClary said it took five months to complete. 

"I started having my doubts that it would get solved," she said. "Like I said, her matches weren't great, it was complicated, and it was no easy task." 

With the bones identified, McClary does not believe the work is done. The Champaign County Sheriff's Office is conducting a homicide investigation, and McClary believes with the help of DNA, a killer will be caught. 

"DNA changes daily," she said. "Daily. So, I think that statement that 'you can run, but you can't hide' will be a very true statement at some point." 

McClary, in addition to being retired from Las Vegas Police, is a producer of real-life true crime shows. She says if Champaign County officials hit a road block in Wyant's case, there is a possibility it could become part of a national show.