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Jessica Ramirez has looked through the police reports of her mother's 1998 disappearance too many times to count.
"I always thought she left us," the 19-year-old said, "but after [I got the reports three years ago], I knew something bad happened."
But even as police confirmed Tuesday a DNA match had allowed them to identify the remains of a woman found in the west desert last summer as those of Mireslaba Ramirez, family members say they still don't have total closure in the matter.
"It's not really closure when whoever did this is not in jail," Jessica Ramirez said.
Mireslaba Ramirez was 29, a mother of three and a blackjack dealer at a Wendover casino when she disappeared in October 1998.
Her husband, Jose Ramirez Rodriguez, told a family friend that his wife ran away from him as they were driving from Wendover to Elko, Nev., to see an attorney. The couple were having marital problems and their children were staying with relatives, officials said at the time.
Nobody at the nearby Ibapah Indian Reservation reported seeing Ramirez or her husband's truck, police said. Searchers combed the area, even rappelling down mine shafts, but all that was found was a pair of the woman's earrings.
"She didn't run away," said Jesus Vasquez, the woman's brother. "She was a caring mom. She loved her kids. Right there, that was the first sign that something was wrong."
Jose Ramirez Rodriguez, who has not been seen since, remains a person of interest in Ramirez's disappearance, the Tooele County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday. A warrant was issued for his arrest in 1998, charging him with kidnapping.
Police did not release the cause of the woman's death, citing the ongoing investigation.
Ramirez's "badly decomposed" body was found in June by a potash worker who was at a vacant Intrepid Pot Ash site outside Wendover. That's when the detectives came and swabbed the inside of Jessica Ramirez's mouth, said the teen, who doesn't remember much of her mother and has bounced between foster homes since.
The DNA sample was sent to a lab to compare with DNA taken from Ramirez's bones. Because of the decomposition, it took nearly eight months to declare a match, police said.
"I knewit was her from the start," Jessica Ramirez said. "There's been bodies found all the time in Wendover and, this one, I just knew it was her. I would always call the cops — three or four times a month — just to let them know I still believe it's her, I'm still here and I care."
Vasquez said the word from detectives Monday was "something we've been waiting for for a long time."
"You never want to hear that, but at the same time, at least you now know where she's at," he said.
Just as importantly, Vaquez said, identifying the woman's remains could help the case move forward.
"I think now that there's a body there can be justice," he said.