GENESEO, N.Y. -- Former Livingston County Sheriff John York was emotional at Monday's press conference where police officially announced they were able to identify Tammy Jo Alexander.

“With our partnership with the FBI, the state police and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the medical examiner’s office, the leads everybody ran, we knew it was just a matter of time," York said.

"We knew someday, somehow, as Sheriff (Tom) Dougherty stated, the internet, social media, was going to make a difference and it did. Once she was reported [missing] the sheriff and his team did the rest. It was just a matter of time.”

On Nov. 9, 1979, a farmer and his son found the body in a field just off Route 20. The woman had been shot to death.

After Alexander's body was found, her case went cold, but police in Livingston County never gave up on the case, pursuing thousands upon thousands of leads in the case.