Police in Maine are investigating new information that suggests a Mi’kmaq woman from Cape Breton who disappeared in the U.S. state 24 years ago was murdered.

Family members of Virginia Sue Pictou say they have received a copy of a Facebook conversation in which a man from Maine claims he knows she was killed and who is responsible.

Maine State Police confirm they have obtained copies of the conversation and are investigating the claim.

Members of Pictou’s family testified at the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls in Cape Breton on Nov. 1.

They said Pictouwas brought to a medical centre in Bangor, Maine, by police after being beaten on April 24, 1993. But they said she disappeared from the hospital and was never seen again.

They also testified that Pictou had experienced domestic violence, and they have always believed that she was murdered.

“It really has taken a whole new avenue since this national inquiry, and for us as a family, it has finally confirmed what we have been suspecting for years and years, that our sister is dead,” Pictou’s sister, Agnes Gould, told CTV Atlantic.

Gould says they simply want Pictou’s remains to be found so they can bring her home to Cape Breton.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Ryan MacDonald and The Canadian Press