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BOULDER, Colo.—Investigators say a woman they believed might have been killed in 1954 and found along a Boulder creek has actually been living in Australia for the last 46 years.

The Boulder County sheriff’s office announced Thursday the woman they thought was the most likely candidate for Boulder’s infamous “Jane Doe” murder case was located last week after “a bit of dumb luck” through an Internet contact in Queensland, Australia.

Investigators thought Katharine Ferrand Dyer, now 84, might have been the victim in the unsolved homicide. An unknown murder victim is buried in a Boulder cemetery.

The sheriff’s office called the development “good news, bad news.”

“While it’s a relief to know that Katharine is alive, it’s also discouraging in that we are back to square one with essentially no viable candidates for who ‘Jane Doe’ might be,” said Phil West, Operations Division Chief at the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff’s office reopened the “Jane Doe” murder case in 2004. It was Boulder historian Silvia Pettem who helped persuade authorities to reopen the case after spotting Jane Doe’s headstone and researching the case. She became interested in Jane Doe in 1996 and wrote about the unknown woman, whose gravestone reads “Jane Doe. April 1954. Age about 20 years.”

Even before last week, the lead investigator in the case, Detective Steve Ainsworth, had expressed doubts that the woman buried in the Boulder cemetery was Dyer. Ainsworth said a doctor who examined the woman’s remains believed the woman was no older than 19, and Dyer was in the late 20s at the time of the crime.

Dyer was reported missing in Denver just days before two men walking along a creek west of Boulder found a woman’s nude body in April 1954. She had been beaten and left to die at the bottom of a highway embankment.

Boulder investigators said they believed Dyer might be the dead woman because they were never able to determine whether she was ever found after being reported missing and because of other circumstantial evidence.

Then last week, Dyer’s caretaker discovered her address book and found that the woman she knew as “Barbara” went by several other names, including Katharine Farrand Dyer. The caretaker entered that name on the Internet and found Pettem’s Web site dedicated to the unsolved crime, the sheriff’s office said.

Investigators said they would not release any more information about Dyer to protect her privacy. The sheriff’s office said the investigation into 1954 slaying is still open.

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On the Net: Boulder Jane Doe: