DNA evidence confirms remains found were of Mandy Ciehanoski

Investigators have recovered the remains of Mandy Ciehanoski, a woman who was killed in 2011 but whose body went undiscovered for years despite repeated searches.

According to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office, detectives were notified Thursday that DNA from remains found in 2016 had matched familial DNA in the case, confirming her body had been found.

Ciehanoski was last seen alive in February 2011, when she left her Holly Hill home to help a friend with an errand.

Her mother reported missing a week later. her

Investigators soon identified an onagain, offagain exboyfriend, Michael Annicchiarico, as Ciehanoski’s likely killer. He initially claimed not to have seen her in two years, but investigators would later find evidence he was with her the day she vanished.

According to sheriff ’s investigators, Ciehanoski’s family considered Annicchiarico violent and controlling, and she had confided to them that he had once dragged her outside to show her a hole in the ground — threatening to bury her if she ever cheated.

Bloodstained bed sheets were later found in Annicchiarico’s closet, stuffed inside a trash bag, and blood was also found in his car and the trash outside his home, according to investigators.

Meanwhile, a friend of Annicchiarico’s told deputies he had been threatening to kill Ciehanoski for years and had discussed where he could discard her body if he did so, the Sheriff ’s Office said.

Authorities conducted more than a dozen searches after her disappearance, but weren’t able to find Ciehanoski’s body.

Annicchiarico was indicted in Ciehanoski’s killing in October 2011. In 2014, he struck a deal with prosecutors, pleading no contest to second degree murder. The deal offered a lighter sentence of 15 to 50 years if he led authorities to Ciehanoski’s remains.

He said he had dumped her in a wooded area near Ormond Beach, but a three-day search again came up empty. Annicchiarico was sentenced to life in prison. He’s currently serving