Hall County sheriff’s investigators are asking for help to solve a murder mystery that happened more than 30 years ago.

On Saturday, Aug. 11, 1979, when a man and his son decided to go fishing in a cove near Gainesville Marina off Dawsonville Highway, they spotted a body floating in the water and called officials.

Deputies, investigators and Dive Team members found Denise Hicks, 22, who was last seen in Gainesville around midnight on Wednesday, Aug. 8.

“She died of blunt force trauma, so she was killed before the person put her in the lake to dispose of the body,” said Lt.

Gerald Couch with Hall County Sheriff Office’s Criminal Investigations Division. “A large weighted object was tied to her body, but it wasn’t enough to keep her submerged, and she floated.”

The last time she was seen, Hicks was with a white male in a white van. When investigators contacted him, the man said she got into a brown Ford pickup truck with two white males and a white female. Investigators have not been able to identify them or locate them, Couch said.

The rest is speculation. Evidence shows Hicks was dead in the water for several days before the residents saw her body.

“Someone could have thrown her off the bridge, which was a two-lane highway at the time,” Couch said. “She also could have been dropped off where Old Dawsonville Highway runs into the lake on the other side of the bridge. That was a popular place for people to park and swim at the time.”

Investigators are trying to get in touch with family and friends again and piece together some of the notes that may have been lost over the years.

“We don’t know much about her friends or family at the time. Sometimes that information doesn’t make its way into the file,” Couch said. “Finding the files and piecing everything together can be interesting but also frustrating. It takes a lot of time and research.”

Investigators check into all cold cases every six months and often reassign them around the office to get a fresh set of eyes on the details.

“So many people look at the cases. I’m quite familiar with all of them,” Couch said. “We review all of the unsolved cases on a continuous basis to keep the details in mind because you never know what you may find. We have a database for any investigator to pull up in case one of us isn’t there.”

Couch declined to explain what type of blunt force trauma killed Hicks or what type of object was tied to her body.

“Sometimes people will confess those types of details, and we use them for our checks and balances in an investigation,” Couch said.

Though the Dawsonville Highway area has changed over the years, investigators hope friends, family or acquaintances will come forward with new details.

“People talk over the years, and just a little bit of information could go a long way,” Couch said. “We’re hoping that the right piece of information is out there and will come up. We never give up.”