MACON, Ga. — Mike Smallwood still thinks about Barbara Crenshaw every time he drives past the Echeconnee River , where her body was discovered nearly three decades ago.

"You think about it, I mean every time you get around it," said Smallwood, who served as the lead investigator on Crenshaw's case in 1996.

The case went cold after investigators were unable to make any arrests, hindered by limited forensic technology available at the time. DNA analysis, now a cornerstone of criminal investigations, was not widely accessible to local law enforcement agencies in the mid-1990s.

"Probably about this time, I don't even know DNA was available," Smallwood said. "We identified them through fingerprints and stuff."

Now, the Bibb County Sheriff's Office is taking a new approach to unsolved ca

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