The skeletal remains found in the Grand River last week have been identified as belonging to Tasha Marie Smith.
The Cambridge woman disappeared in December 2010. At the time, she was 28 years old.
Her remains were found last Friday by a woman fishing in the Grand River near Water Street South in Cambridge.
Found submerged along with the remains were clothing and jewelry.
“Some of those items led investigators to question whether this was Tasha, but it was ultimately the dental records that led the investigators to determine the identity,” said Waterloo Regional Police Staff Sgt. Shaena Morris.
While it’s not clear exactly how long Smith had been in the water, testing showed that it had been “quite a long period of time,” Morris said.
Smith’s parents called the news of the discovery “heart-wrenching”.
“It gives us closure in one day, but it opens the door to questions in an entirely different way now,” said stepmother Linda Smith.
“We’ve searched for her for three-and-a-half years, believing she was coming home – not wanting her to come home this way.”
Police say they don’t suspect foul play in Smith’s death, but still want to hear from anyone who may have information about her whereabouts in the days before Dec. 1, 2010.
“We are still investigating … the circumstances around her disappearance,” said Morris.
Smith also went by the names Punx and Corey.
A funeral service for Smith will be held next week in North Bay, where she lived until 2008.
A memorial service in Waterloo Region will be held at some point in the future, her parents said.
