CLEVELAND, Tenn. (AP) -- Officials say human remains found last year at the bottom of a lake in an isolated section of East Tennessee have been identified as those of a woman missing since her car ran off an icy road in 1956.

The Bradley County Sheriff's Department said in a news release Friday that the human remains recovered from Parksville Lake were those of Kathleen Wrinkle.

The medical examiner ruled she died from accidental drowning.

Wrinkle is believed to have left home on an early morning in February 1956 planning to drive 40 miles to Copperhill to find a job in the then-booming copper industry when her car slid on an icy road and into the lake.

The missing persons case was reopened in 2007, and several searches of the lake were made.

Officials last year said they found the remains in a submerged vehicle. Wrinkle was driving a black-and-yellow 1951 Chevrolet Bel Air.

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