Anonymous tip helps police identity a severed head found in Louisiana as that of missing Texas woman

Police have identified the head found along a Louisiana highway in 2018 as that of a missing 58-year old Texas woman.

Sally Ann Hines, 58, was last seen December 2017 in San Antonio before going missing. 

On March 1, 2018 her head was found in a plastic bag by a sheriff’s team picking up litter along Highway 27 in Cameron Parish. 

Investigators used dental records to identify Hines after they received a tip last week about a missing person who looked like a computer-generated image of the head, Cameron Parish Sheriff Ron Johnson said. 

Johnson told the San Antonio Express-News that killers leave bodies in the marshlands where Hine’s head was found because ‘they believe that if they dump a body here, the alligators will eat it and they will disappear. Tragically this isn’t unusual for us.’

The anonymous tipster recognized Hines’ face from a composite image from LSU’s faces lab and a missing person’s flyer. 

Police said after years of intense investigations the case was ultimately solved through a random tipster who has an interest in trying to match missing people online.  

‘The irony of the cases though, even though we were getting to the very detailed forensic examination, the case was basically solved by just an individual looking on the internet,’  Cameron Parish Corner Kevin Dupke told KPLC-TV.

The identification was confirmed on Wednesday through dental records and Hines’ next of kin was notified. 

In 2018, Hines’ husband Harold said his wife of 35 years just disappeared. 

‘When I got up she was gone, she hadn’t come back, put it that way, ‘ Harold told Fox San Antonio. 

Police said Hines suffered from a medical condition and was under a doctor’s care. 

Her husband told Fox San Antonio that his wife went missing without her medication, leaving behind her purse, cell phone, and car.  

Hines’s sister Barbara Gauthier said she hopes that investigators find out what led to her death. 

‘There are no words to express our heartache and emotions that we feel,’ she told KPLC-TV. ‘We can only pray that they find out what happened to her and whoever did this horrific act pays for what they did to her. We will not rest until we know what happened.’

Johnson said the positive identification might bring closure to the family.  

‘We are very happy that we have the head ID’d but I am sure for the family, they are very sad about the negative news,’ he told Express-News. ‘Perhaps this helps them have some closure.’