Tracy was murdered and left in a riverbed. After 36 years, police have finally connected the dots.

At 18 years old, Tracy Whitney had her whole life ahead of her. She was a happy teen who always had a sparkle in her eye. A beloved daughter, sister and friend.

Her life was cruelly taken from her on August 28, 1988. Tracy was last seen leaving a Burger King in Washington after an argument with her boyfriend at the time.

Less than 24 hours later, her naked body was found dumped in a riverbed. She was strangled and is believed to have been raped.

For almost four decades, her family has waited with bated breath for her killer to be brought to justice. Despite countless interviews, police were never able to link anyone to her murder, until now.

Thirty-six years on, investigators finally have answers to the cold case, naming John Guillot Jr as her murderer.

In a cruel twist of fate, Guillot Jr died in 2022. For Tracy's family, learning his name is a sense of closure, but they feel "empty" they will never truly understand what happened to their darling girl.

Watch: Arrest made in Chevy Chase cold case murder. Post continues below.

What happened to Tracy Whitney?

On August 28, 1988, Tracy was last seen storming out of a Burger King in Federal Way after arguing with her ex-boyfriend.

She walked away from that restaurant and, less than a day later, was found dead.

What happened in the hours in between had Pierce County deputies puzzled for years.

A fisherman discovered Tracy's body right where the Puyallup and White Rivers meet and called for help. She had several blunt-force injuries and was believed to have been sexually assaulted.

Her cause of death was ruled asphyxia caused by strangulation and probable smothering. It was ruled a homicide and DNA swabs were taken from the body.

It took two months before dental records identified Tracy as the victim.

Detectives worked tirelessly to bring her killer to justice but hit dead end after dead end.

They questioned countless potential suspects — friends, ex-boyfriends, anyone in her life who may have known something — but slowly everyone was eliminated as a person of interest. Eventually, the case went cold.

In 2005, Pierce County Sheriff's Detective Lindsay Kirkegaard said a DNA profile of the suspect was uploaded to the national database. But, like everything else, it was a dead end and no match.

For years, the case sat cold until a sergeant decided to reopen it. In March 2022, the cold case detective sergeant submitted the DNA sample to the lab for genetic genealogy.

In August 2022, there was a match — John Guillot Jr.

Guillot Jr died of cancer in January that year, but police were able to confirm the match with his son's DNA.

"If John G Jr had been alive today, law enforcement would have probable cause to arrest," Kirkegaard said. "From our standard, he was the suspect, and he would have been arrested for the crime."

There were no connection between Tracy and Guillot Jr and detectives believe this was a stranger abduction, rape and murder.

Tracy was last seen leaving a Burger King in Federal Way. Image: Pierce County Sheriff's Department.

An "empty" sense of closure.

Because of Guillot Jr's death, no charges could be filed against him. But for Tracy's family, it still brought some sense of closure.

"One of the hardest things for families in these types of cases is the unknowing. Even though there's no arrest that could be made in this case, it's still very important that we do what we can to try to give the family some of those answers, a little bit of closure and hopefully help with some of the healing process," Kirkegaard said.

Tracy's sister Robin, who was just 11 when her sister was murdered, said she was happy Tracy could finally rest peacefully.

"Tracy was a good big sister. She's been really missed throughout my lifetime," she said.

Her father, Ronald remembered her as a "good kid" and someone all the kids in the neighbourhood looked up to.

Robin said shortly before Tracy's death, she felt like her sister was "only truly beginning to know who she was".

"In my head, I imagined that we'd be going to court, and I'd be sitting in the courtroom looking him in the eyes and watching him get sentenced to death or life in prison," she told King5.

"It's kind of an empty feeling because now we know who did it. We know some background on him, but we'll never find out the true story of what actually happened," Ronald said.

Feature image: Pierce County Sheriff's Department.