Wanda Jean Mays

Early life Wanda Jean Mays was born in 1959 to Jim and Dorothy (Dot) Mays in Panama, where her father had been stationed in the military. Mays grew up in Arkansas, Alabama and Texas. After accessing the room, the Dormans found the double-paned Venetian glass bedroom window had been broken from inside the house, and discovered blood on the window; however, no one in the house reported hearing the window break during the night.

Alleged sightings On the morning of May 12, 1986, a local resident reported seeing a young woman matching Mays' description walking along Alabama State Route 62 near Guntersville, wearing oversized jeans. The witness stated that the woman's hair was wet, as if she'd been swimming.

Discovery In October 2003, a hiker searching for ginseng plants discovered human bones at the foot of a cliff approximately from the Dormans' home in Guntersville. The remains were unidentified until 2008, when they were sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's DNA lab in Quantico, Virginia for testing; the FBI confirmed in January 2008 that the remains matched Mays.

One of Mays' brothers, John, made a public statement after the discovery, agreeing with the police's determination, citing his sister's frequent and unprovoked panic attacks as a probable cause for her death: "You know the window was broken from the inside that she went out of. She had an attack and it was something that scared her. She would just get terrified when she had these attacks. She would just be terrified of everything."