A sketch released of an unidentified woman who was hit and killed by two cars in Huntington Beach on April 1, 1990. She was later identified as Andrea Kuiper, 26, of Virginia. 
 
 A woman struck and killed by two vehicles 27 years ago in Huntington Beach has been identified, officials announced Thursday morning.The Orange County Sheriff's Department Coroner's Division confirmed the woman's identify as 26-year-old Andrea Kuiper of Fairfax, Virginia.Authorities said Andrea Kuiper was struck by two vehicles as she was crossing Pacific Coast Highway on April 1, 1990."It was a very tragic death. Not that most of them aren't, this was just particularly tragic because she was just crossing the street in Huntington Beach," Kelly Keyes, supervising deputy coroner said.Investigators said the woman didn't have any identification on her. The only clues they had to go by were her clothes."They believed she was from Virginia, although someone said possibly from Newport in Virginia, which wasn't entirely accurate, and that she said she was adopted," Keyes explained.Andrea Kuiper's information was provided to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at the time of her death, officials said. NCMEC recreated images of what Andrea Kuiper may have looked like and the images were distributed to the media.Investigators said the creation of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System in 2010, and it's partnership with the FBI in March 2017 to check fingerprints, helped lead to Andrea Kuiper's identification."Instead of looking at a 10-print system with all 10 fingers, there were looking at them individually, which is more like they would do at a crime scene," Keyes detailed.Investigators got a hit when her fingerprints matched the ones taken when she applied for a job at the Department of Agriculture just three years before her death."It was one of those once in a career type moments to know that Andrea was Andrea," Keyes described.After Andrea Kuiper was identified on May 4, investigators worked to locate her parents to tell them about the discovery."We are thankful to know what happened to our daughter after all these years," her father Richard Kuiper said in a written release. "Andrea was loved and respected. She was beautiful. But she was manic depressive, and therefore we had been through quite an adventure." ||||| It was 10 p.m. on April Fools’ Day, 1990. As a woman tried to cross Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach, two cars hit her. 
 
 Police found her dead on the road, wearing a black dress with fishnet stockings and pink heels. She had a strand of hair wrapped around her finger like a ring, and a lock of hair in her pocket. 
 
 For 27 years, no one knew who she was, and her family was never told of her death. 
 
 Now, thanks to a push to connect fingerprint databases among U.S. agencies, authorities have finally learned her identity: Andrea Kuiper, a 26-year-old Virginia native. 
 
 A mystery, and no answer in sight 
 
 There was too much trauma to Kuiper’s face to release a photo after her death, said Kelly Keyes, an Orange County supervising deputy coroner. Instead, authorities released a sketch and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children even created and circulated a computer-generated model of what she might look like. 
 
 ( Orange County Sheriff's Department ) 
 
 (Orange County Sheriff's Department) 
 
 The sketches helped investigators in some ways, but they didn’t resolve the matter. The closest police got to learning her identity was a few people telling them that her name was Andrea. One person told investigators that they thought she may be from Newport News, Va. 
 
 This was a case that should have been easier than many others to solve, Keyes said. Investigators had her DNA, dental records, fingerprints, even a first name. 
 
 About seven years ago, they put all her information into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), a national searchable database established in 2010 to help solve cold cases such as this one. 
 
 But the years went on, and Andrea’s identity remained a mystery. 
 
 Decades later, looking for a match 
 
 Keyes has been leading the effort to get answers on unidentified bodies for about a year and a half. There are more than 90 open cases. She has solved two. 
 
 Last year, Keyes reviewed the file and reached out to Newport News police “to make sure they didn’t have any new missing person reports matching Andrea’s description,” Keyes said. They didn’t. 
 
 Shown is a screenshot of Andrea Kuiper's case summary. (Orange County Sheriff's Department) 
 
 The breakthrough came thanks to a partnership between the FBI and NamUs to solve more cases such as this one. Kuiper, it turns out, worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture , Keyes said. Her job application in 1987 included fingerprints, and someone in the federal government had finally put those fingerprints into a system that the FBI accessed and shared with NamUs, she said. 
 
 Finally, last week, there was a match. 
 
 “We were very excited,” Keyes said. “We’re here to serve the public and try to get a family answers and support the deceased. So to finally get Andrea a name was doing exactly what we hoped to do.” 
 
 Who was Andrea Kuiper? 
 
 One of two children, Kuiper loved ice skating and art as a girl — her parents still have some of her drawings, they said in a statement. Her family described her as “smart, clever, attractive and persuasive,” according to a news release from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. 
 
 The last her parents heard of her was from a friend a few months before the accident, who told them Kuiper was safe. They never filed a missing person’s report, Keyes said. 
 
 “We are thankful to know what happened to our daughter after all these years,” Andrea’s father, Richard Kuiper, said in a statement. “Andrea was loved and respected. She was beautiful. But she was manic depressive, and therefore we had been through quite an adventure.” 
 
 All the family has always wanted, Richard Kuiper said, was to see Andrea driving up to their Virginia home in a “car full of beautiful children and say, ‘Hi, it’s me.’” 
 
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 sonali.kohli@latimes.com 
 
 Twitter: @Sonali_Kohli 
 
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– On the night of April 1, 1990, a woman crossing the street in Huntington Beach was hit by one car, then a second, and died at the scene. For 27 years, police have tried to figure out who she was—and now she's finally been identified. Andrea Kuiper of Fairfax, Va., an artist who suffered from manic depression, started using drugs, and moved to California. Two months before her death at age 26 that night in 1990, a friend called her family to say she was safe, and they never heard news of her again. They never filed a missing persons report. Now they have answers, and in a statement, her father says they "are thankful to know what happened to our daughter after all these years. Andrea was loved and respected. She was beautiful. But she was manic depressive, and therefore we had been through quite an adventure." Authorities, thinking she could be a teenager, submitted her data to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and her story was featured on TV's Unsolved Mysteries. In 2010, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) was created, and authorities added her information to that. But none of those measures led to an identification. Then, this year, the FBI worked with NamUs to closely examine fingerprints, and found a match for the unidentified victim: fingerprints given by Andrea Kuiper when she applied for a job with the Department of Agriculture three years before her death, ABC 7 reports. Authorities are happy to have given the former Jane Doe her identity back, but it's a tragic end for her family; per the Los Angeles Times, Kuiper's dad says they always hoped she'd drive up in a "car full of beautiful children and say, ‘Hi, it’s me.'"