DENVER (AP) - The exhumed remains of a mysterious woman killed in 1954 have been reburied without an answer to who she was, but some people believe they're close.

Investigators argue the remains are those of a Denver woman who had been reported missing just days before the battered, nude body of a woman in her 20s was found along a Boulder Canyon creek on April 8, 1954. There is even speculation that she may have been the victim of a serial killer.

Boulder Sheriff's Cmdr. Phil West said authorities need a family member to step forward and provide a DNA sample to determine whether the woman is Katharine E. Farrand Dyer. Farrand Dyer, who would have been in her late 20s, had separated from her husband and was living in a Denver boarding house when she was reported missing.

"Until we can locate some matrilineal relative of Miss Dyer's we are not able to make a confirmation," West said Tuesday, noting that very little is known about Farrand Dyer.

But the lead investigator, Boulder Detective Steve Ainsworth, is not convinced the woman is Farrand Dyer because a doctor who examined the remains believes she was no older than 19.

A marriage certificate examined by Silvia Pettem, a Boulder historian, states that Farrand Dyer was born in San Antonio, Texas, but a volunteer genealogical team has been unable to find any family members. A comparison of a photo of Farrand Dyer with the remains was inconclusive, Ainsworth said.

After the June 2004 exhumation of the mysterious body, investigators extracted DNA and developed a profile that ruled out at least two other potential victims, including a Nebraska woman initially believed to be Jane Doe but who, it turned out, had run away and lived in Boston until her death in March 2006.

Jane Doe's DNA profile is now in the FBI's national database of missing persons.

New injuries found after the exhumation led police to believe they have a suspect: Serial killer Harvey Glatman, who was executed at California's San Quentin State Prison in September 1959 after confessing to three slayings in California.

Glatman lived blocks away from Farrand Dyer in Denver at the time of Jane Doe's death. He had previously served prison time for assaulting women _ and had an obsession with bondage and ropes, according to Ainsworth.

A forensic anthropologist and a forensic pathologist found that Jane Doe's legs were broken, suggesting she may have escaped her captor and was running away before being run down by a car and left to die.

West said the injuries were consistent with "bumper fractures," and that measurements were consistent with a 1951 Dodge Coronet that Glatman was driving at the time.

"There's just a lot of circumstantial evidence that points in that direction," West said. "If this was a current investigation, a current event, he would figure very prominently as a suspect."

At the request of then-Boulder Sheriff Arthur Everson, Los Angeles police questioned Glatman about pictures of three Denver women found in a toolbox belonging to Glatman. Ainsworth, citing transcripts of the interview, said Glatman was evasive about the identity of one of the women but provided details _ names, ages, hometowns _ for the other two.

"I'm way more convinced that Glatman is the killer than I am that Katharine Farrand Dyer is the victim," Ainsworth said. "I believe our Jane Doe is in one of those pictures."

Boulder Sheriff's Department files older than 1969 are no longer available, and Los Angeles police have been unable to find Glatman's pictures.

Jane Doe's remains were reburied at Boulder's Columbia Cemetery on Sept. 9. The headstone marking the grave still reads, "Jane Doe. April 1954. Age about 20 years."

"It would be nice to put her own name on the grave stone," said Pettem. "It just seems to be the right thing to do."