A trucker saw the smoke from the highway eleven minutes later.

By the time anyone reached the vehicle, the passenger compartment was fully involved.

There were human remains in the driver’s seat.

In the wreck were found: a woman’s handbag, partially burned; a phone; a wedding set — a plain band and a solitaire — recovered from the console area; and a driver’s license.

All of it belonged to Adriana Vance.

There was a presumptive identification made at the scene, on the basis of the vehicle, the personal effects, and a distraught husband in a hospital corridor who was asked whether his wife had been driving and said yes.

A dental comparison was attempted eight days later against records from a practice that had merged twice and had digitized badly, and was recorded as “consistent with.” No comparative DNA analysis was ordered, because nobody asked for one, because nobody had any reason on earth to ask for one.