By Dan Nienaber, Mankato Free Press

BLUE EARTH — A murder victim left in a Blue Earth ravine 35 years ago has been identified as a teen from Texas, ending a local woman’s long quest to put a name to the victim’s remains.

The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension announced Tuesday that Michelle Yvette Busha, 18, of Bay City, Texas, is the woman whose body was found in the ravine on May 30, 1980.

Busha had been assaulted and strangled with a cord from her jacket hood before her body was dumped off I-90 east of Blue Earth, said Drew Evans, BCA assistant superintendent.

Robert Leroy Nelson, who was working as a Minnesota State Patrol trooper when Busha was killed, confessed to killing her in 1989 after picking her up on I-90 near the Bricelyn exit. He did not provide a name for the victim and investigators were unable to identify her then.

Nelson is in prison in Texas where he is serving concurrent 15-year sentences for child molestation in Texas and the murder.

A DNA sample taken from Busha’s remains after they were exhumed in August 2014 provided the information needed to match the body to Busha. She was reported missing on May 9, 1980, in Texas and two of her family members provided DNA samples to a missing person database in 2007.

 

Community effort

The effort to exhume Busha’s body so a more modern DNA test could be completed was the work of concerned citizens, led by Deb Anderson of Blue Earth. Anderson, who works in Mankato, has been striving since 2003 to identify Busha.

Anderson spoke to Busha’s sister Monday after she was told about the DNA match.

“They just found out,” Anderson said. “They were grateful, but it’s been a pretty emotional deal. I never thought I’d see it happen.”

Many things had to come together before Busha’s body was exhumed, which ultimately led to her identification, Anderson said. Anderson pushed to get the work done, a friend volunteered to do the work, the funeral home agreed, and law enforcement officials eventually allowed the work to move forward.

“It should have been done many years ago,” Anderson said. “We had to have all the players agree or it wasn’t going to happen.

“It was just the right thing to do. I know I would want to know what happened to my child. We have to do it for strangers if they’re going to do it for us. I’m still absorbing it all. It’s a sad end to a beautiful life and we just have to go forward from here.”

There are still 50 to 60 bodies found in Minnesota that have not been identified, Catherine Knutson, BCA forensic science services director, said during the news conference. There are DNA samples for some of those bodies that have not been connected to missing people.

Knutson encouraged the families of other missing people to contribute DNA to the missing person database.

 

Texas link

What’s still not clear is whether there is a connection to Nelson being in prison in Texas and his victim being from there. When Nelson confessed to Busha’s murder, he told Faribault County investigators she had been hitchhiking on I-90 just west of the Bricelyn exit on May 26, 1980.

Nelson said he was on patrol as a trooper at the time and asked her to get into his squad car at about 9:30 p.m. He drove her to a rural area, forced her to have sex and strangled her with a drawstring from her “outer clothing,” said the criminal complaint filed in August 1989.

The clothing was taken from Busha’s body before Nelson placed her body in a nearby drainage ditch, Nelson said. Her clothing and other possessions were taken and disposed of later in another location. Busha’s body was found floating May 30, 1980, in a flooded ditch, about a mile from where Nelson said he had left her.

No evidence has been found that would link Nelson to Busha, said Sgt. James Orr of the Matagorda County Sheriff’s Criminal Investigation Division in Bay City. If there is any evidence found that shows Nelson was in Texas around the time Busha went missing, that would be investigated, Orr said.

There is evidence Busha left Texas before her body was found in Minnesota. Her family last saw her in December 1979 when she left for Louisiana, Orr said. She later made collect telephone calls from Indiana and charged them to her father’s phone. Busha’s family had no contact since those calls and no other charges were made.

Faribault County Sheriff Michael Gormley said Busha’s family had made no connection between Busha and Nelson’s murder confession and the remains in Blue Earth before being notified about the DNA match.

“They did not know where she was at,” Gormley said during the news conference. “They were surprised that she was up here. It was a very good ending for the family to at least know that they have found her.”

Arrangements are being made to have Busha’s remains, which have been buried in an unnamed gravesite in Blue Earth, sent to her family, Gormley said during the news conference.