[9][10] Following the identification of her body, Marcia King's family erected a new headstone at her grave in Riverside Cemetery, inscribed with her actual name.

The medical examination revealed she had suffered extensive blunt force trauma to the head and neck, before she had been strangled to death approximately 48 hours before her body was discovered.

[26][27] The young woman was dressed in blue bell-bottom Wrangler jeans, a brown turtleneck pullover sweater with an orange crisscross design on the front, a white brassiere[9] and a hoodless deerskin poncho with purple lining, which appeared to be handmade.

[28] Early police efforts to identify this decedent also involved the creation of a composite drawing of her face which was published in local newspapers and broadcast on television networks on April 28, 1981.

[14] Investigators theorized that Buckskin Girl had been a runaway teenager, a foster child, or a transient wanderer unlikely to have spent a significant period of time in Ohio prior to her death, although her high quality of personal hygiene strongly indicated that she had not lived as a vagrant.

[9] As her body was located close to a town road instead of a highway, the probability of her being a wanderer for a significant amount of time was considered to be negligible.

[22] A 2016 isotope analysis of the decedent's hair and fingernails revealed Buckskin Girl had spent approximately four months in areas within the Southwestern and/or Southeastern United States, as opposed to Ohio, prior to her murder,[34] although forensic palynology had revealed she had most likely originated from either the Northeastern United States or Canada, or had spent a significant amount of time in these regions in the year prior to her murder.

[39][40] All the victims of this suspected serial killer had been murdered via bludgeoning or strangulation, and items of clothing or jewelry were missing from each crime scene.

[14] In 2001, the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory generated a DNA profile of Buckskin Girl,[4] this data was entered into the newly established National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) database in 2008, through which her fingerprints, dental and DNA information were made nationally accessible to law enforcement.

[41] The following year, the NamUs case management of Buckskin Girl was assigned to Elizabeth Murray, a Cincinnati based forensic anthropologist and professor of biology, who remained active in her pursuit of the decedent's identity.

[4] In April 2016, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children released two versions of an updated forensic facial reconstruction of the victim and added her case to their website, depicting her with and without her braided pigtails.

[6] In 2016, the Miami County Sheriff's Office approved forensic palynology testing upon the victim's clothing in their efforts to identify her and her murderer(s).

[34] The results of this testing suggested Buckskin Girl had either originated within the Northeastern United States, or had spent a significant amount of time in this region in the year prior to her murder.

Her clothing also contained high levels of soot from exposure to vehicular traffic and/or industrial activity, supporting investigators' initial suspicions she may have been a habitual hitchhiker.

[42] In addition, the pollen[43] recovered from her external clothing suggested that, shortly before her murder, she had been in an arid climate such as the Western United States, or northern Mexico.

[44] On April 9, 2018, the Miami Valley Regional Crime Laboratory announced they had identified the decedent as 21-year-old Marcia Lenore King of Little Rock, Arkansas.

[51][n 3] Addressing the media to announce the formal identification of Buckskin Girl, a spokesman for the Miami County Sheriff's Office informed all present: "Law enforcement never forgets.

[55] In July 2018, the Miami County Sheriff's Office announced they had received further information regarding King's actual whereabouts shortly prior to her death.

[15] Addressing these latest developments, Miami County Sheriff Dave Duchalk stated: "We always have hopes to bring justice for homicide victims and their families.

King had been buried as a Jane Doe at Riverside Cemetery in Miami County, Ohio weeks after her death, with several officers assigned to investigate her murder serving as pallbearers at her funeral.