Bernalillo County Government

A tip led detectives to determine that Sandra Jean Brady was the homicide victim who had gone unnamed for seven years.

Bernalillo County Government

The artist's rendering of Boots that showed on "America's Most Wanted"

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She was a free-spirited, free-loving woman who traveled the Southwest in her pickup truck, sending occasional postcards to relatives in Sandusky, Ohio, until January 2000.

Three months later, hikers spotted her cowboy boots jutting from a shallow grave near Nine Mile Hill west of Albuquerque.

She became Jane Doe, an unidentified corpse whom detectives nicknamed Boots, an unsolved murder, a cold case, a mystery.

More than seven years later - and with the help of "America's Most Wanted" - Bernalillo County sheriff's detectives said Friday they now know her name.

Sandra Jean Brady.

A tipster, an old friend of the missing woman, called the Fox-TV show after seeing a segment on the unknown woman, which aired nationally Jan. 12.

"She was watching the show and had this sickening feeling and thought, `Oh my goodness, that's Sandra,' " show producer Jenna Naranjo said.

Bernalillo County sheriff's Cold Case Detective Bill Peters, who had contacted "America's Most Wanted," said a message about the tip was waiting for him when he arrived at work the Monday after the show aired.

Through the tipster, Peters said he contacted one of the woman's daughters, who confirmed a number of unique traits, including tattoos, hair color and indications that the 51-year-old woman had undergone an appendectomy and a hysterectomy, had her gallbladder removed and was missing all toenails but those on her big toes.

"The information was absolutely irrefutable," Peters said. "Over a period of a couple of days, there was no doubt in my mind that we had the right person."

Peters said he also matched the woman's fingerprints with those on file in El Paso, where she had been arrested.

Brady, he said, had been estranged from her family in Ohio and had spent most of her life prowling the highways of the Southwest.

"She was what you might call a swinger, both sexually and otherwise," Peters said. "She had female and male partners and had never been married. She had a little Ford truck that she would go traveling across the country, living in campgrounds."

Her family rarely heard from her except through an occasional postcard, he said.

The last card was mailed from Albuquerque. In it, she mentioned she had planned to get married but that the marriage plans had soured, he said.

Hikers spotted the woman's boots March 4, 2000, in a field south of I-40. An autopsy report indicated she had been shot in the chest and had been buried for about 10 days.

A set of CDs with the name "Sandy" written on two of them and a cane with the initials "RK" scratched on it were found nearby.

The cane had belonged to Brady's grandfather, Naranjo said.

Brady went unidentified for so long because no one had filed a missing person's report and no one had come to claim the woman's body, which was later cremated, Peters said.

"One of the ladies in the family said they tried to report her as missing, but no police department would accept it," he said. "She was an adult who left on her own free will."

Had the family posted information on various missing persons Web sites, Peters said he might have been able to solve the mystery of Boots far sooner.

Naranjo said she is pleased that her show could help crack the mystery. The show is expected to air an update in the next few weeks, she said.

But the mystery of why Brady was killed and who killed her is still unsolved.

Perhaps the 40 to 50 tip sheets gleaned from the "America's Most Wanted" episode will yield those clues.

"We don't give up easily," Peters said. "We'll do everything we can to find the pea picker who did it."