Thursday, October 4, 2018

A PSA: PLEASE READ AND SHARE (ESPECIALLY TEXAS READERS)

   The anniversary of an especially tragic event is coming up in Texas this year. At the request of some interested readers, we're passing along some information about an incident that occurred now 38 years ago and remains unresolved. Some readers may be old enough to remember this story. 

   On Halloween Night, 1980; at around 6:30 PM, a pretty young woman with sandy brown hair got out of a blue '74 Chevy Caprice at a truck stop near Huntsville, Texas with an unidentified man and asked directions to a state prison facility. She stated that she was from around the Rockport/Aransas Pass area. (This is just north of Corpus Christi). Almost 12 hours later, she was found dead off I-45 near Huntsville by a passing trucker. She had been murdered. Here is the summary from the Walker County Sheriffs Office, circa 2006:

"Case History 
The victim's body was dumped on side of I-45 north, 2 miles north of Huntsville, TX. 
The general condition of the body and her overall health and nutrition indicated she had probably come from a middle class home. There were no distinguishing marks or any identification with the body. 
When the murder became known through media accounts, several people came forward and said they’d seen a teenager matching her description the day before her body was found. 
A witness identified the victim as a girl who had been at the South End Gulf station around 6:30 p.m. Halloween night asking for directions to the Ellis prison unit. She had been wearing blue jeans, a yellow pullover sweater with big pockets that hung below her waist, and she was carrying high-heeled sandals in her hand. To the best of his recollection, she had been let out of a 1973 or ‘74 blue Chevrolet, possibly a Caprice, with a lighter colored top, which was being driven by a white male. She looked disheveled like she had been traveling and perhaps sleeping in her clothes. 
She left the station, walking north on Sam Houston avenue. A waitress working at the Hitchin’ Post truck stop out on Interstate 45 said the girl came into the restaurant the same evening and again, asked for directions to the Ellis Unit, saying she had a friend there. A map was drawn for her and she departed. The waitress asked the girl how old she was and the girl responded 19. The witness claimed that was an obvious lie and she then asked her if her parents knew where she was. The young girl replied, "Who cares". The witness then stated she asked her where she was from. The girl replied Aransas Pass/Rockport, TX area. It has not been verified that the girl was the unidentified victim. "


     She is currently still known only as 'Walker County Jane Doe.' The case has never been solved, though in 1999 she was exhumed to recover DNA samples. In 2015, the case was officially reopened. Here are some of the better reconstructions of how she looked in life:


    I don't know the source of this next one, but it appears to have been a profile based from one of her autopsy photos:



      The general consensus today is that she was about 15 years old. She was 5-6 and slender, about 105-110 lbs., according to the autopsy report. She had a distinguishing scar about 1 1/2 inches long next to her right eyebrow and another scar on her right elbow. It's determined that, although a runaway, she probably came from a middle-class home and had access to hygiene. Her hair was styled and her nails were painted. She also had pierced ears. 

      After her case was reopened in 2015, a citizen produced a Polaroid photo taken in April 1980 at a motel in Beeville, Texas. 


    The girl on the right is the informant's sister who was then 12 years old. The other girl, whose name was 'Kathy' or 'Katie' was a friend whom she met at the motel. Kathy told the other girl that she was a runaway from Corpus Christi, and staying with some friends at the motel. She also mentioned planning to visit a friend in prison. The picture was taken after the girls had been swimming, but a close-up shows a remarkable resemblance, possibly including the scar near the eye:



     This girl is also unidentified, but there's a fairly good chance she and the 'Jane Doe' are one and the same. 

     As to the circumstances of the murder, they were horrible. She died of ligature strangulation after being beaten badly, even bitten, and violently raped with a blunt object. Her time of death was estimated at 3 A.M. Except for her necklace and shoes, she was found naked and lying face-down near a watershed. 


     Several theories have circulated as to the perpetrators of the crime. The author of the Facebook page dedicated to identifying her believes it was a passing trucker. Some commenters there have made a good case that the couple with whom she lived were responsible (their whereabouts are unknown and they've never come forward). Another recently suggested, based on the time and date of the killing, that it may have been a cultish ritual murder. Police have theorized that it also could have been a Lesbian/homosexual attack. There were known serial killers active in the area then, but none fit the modus operandi; or have been ruled out for other reasons. An interesting corollary to the cult and serial killer theories is that this murder occurred exactly one year after another unidentified girl was found near Georgetown, Texas under very similar circumstances. 

     Be all this as it may, we're reaching out to our readers in the Blogosphere for information, either to the girl's identity or her death. Feel free to leave comments here and we can pass them on, or contact the Walker County Sheriff's Office at (936) 435-2400.





      

16 comments:

  1. I pray for justice...so so sad.

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    1. I think that it's going to happen. The investigator in charge of this case said lately that he was committed to solving it and has even traveled all over Texas hunting leads. My suspicion in this case is that more than one person was involved in this crime; and a that a lot of people who were close to this girl aren't talking. We can draw our own conclusions from that; but I think that the detective's of the same mind. He recently said that identifying the victim would lead straight to her killer.

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  2. I think it could be a long-haul trucker SK. And the violence points to the girl upsetting him in some way. Maybe she resisted sexual advances, maybe she angered him by fighting back. Her clothes were probably ripped off during the attack. Maybe he kept her bra as a souvenir. The man who sexually assaulted me stole my bra and undies. I was lucky to keep my life that night.

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    1. A lot of women have had some narrow escapes. I met a girl at a party a few years ago who told me that a fake taxi driver tried to pick her up, but before she got in the car she saw an Asian guy hiding in the backseat and ran away. A few months later she saw the same two guys on the news: it was serial killer Charles Ng and his accomplice.

      The trucker-theory is the going one in WCJD's case. The only problems I see with this is: 1) if it was a random crime, it seems that she would have been identified. Related to this issue is that she was apparently was legally a minor but never reported as a runaway. 2.) 'Kathy' mentioned knowing someone at Sugarland Prison in the Spring and WCJD was going to Ellis in the Fall. Sugarland was a work camp and prisoners were transferred in the Fall when the camp closed for winter. So she was aware of this inmate's movements. It's not uncommon that relatives of an inmate move to the area next to a prison. When WCJD left the truck-stop at 6:30 PM on foot, she might have been heading for the home of somebody close by who knew both her and the inmate. Also, she wasn't carrying any luggage: that may be because she knew that she could get a change of clothes where she intended on staying.

      It's harsh to think of this, but it may have been killed there. A possibility is that she wasn't killed for a sexual motive. She might have had some information that she intended to relay to the inmate (or even the prison authorities) and was tortured to find out what she knew, and killed to 'send a message' to others not to talk.

      One thing's for sure, though: this case has a lot of anomalous aspects to it.

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  3. Law enforcement used GEDmatch the genealogical database investigators reportedly used to catch the Golden State killer. Why not use this girl's DNA to find her relatives by comparing her DNA to this database and others including the penal system databases since it was told she was going to visit a prison.
    inmate.

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    1. Her DNA is on file, but as far as I know hasn't matched anybody. I've heard of using GEDmatch, but I'm not sure if WCJD has been compared for analysis. Actually, a good place to look also would be Interpol's database

      https://www.interpol.int/INTERPOL-expertise/Forensics/DNA

      I don't personally know Detective Tom Bean who's handling the case, but I have a suspicion that he hasn't told us everything he's done and what he's found out just yet. I also suspect that this case is closer to being solved than we think.

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  4. DNA wasn't a factor in 1980 so why did the killer leave WCJD nude? and why didn't he take her shoes too?

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    1. As Sgt. Joe Friday used to say: 'When we catch him, we'll ask him.'

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  5. Jack Webb or Quincy M.E. would have been good to put on this case. Jessica Fletcher, even. the TV piece on WCJD from earlier in the years says she was most likely 15. She looks so young in the morgue photographs, doesn't she?

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    1. Yes, or Bulldog Drummond or Dirty Harry for dealing with the scum who did this to her. She does look really young in the postmortems. I've seen the unretouched photos, it was horrible what she went through. As far as her age, modern forensic analysis has gotten really precise at estimating ages under 20 or so. Because the body is still growing, they can pinpoint the age accurately. WCJD was no older than a little over 14 or younger than a little under 16 by their calculations.

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    2. Charles Bronson would be good too to deal with whoever killed WCJD - "Do you believe in Jesus? Well, you're going to meet him"

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    3. Yes, and the justice they'll meet from God is far more sure than anything our dysfunctional legal system can do.

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  6. They finally ID’d the Jane Doe from NY with a friend looking for her! I am really surprised even a good friend is not looking for her, if not the family. She seems very pleasant and it really blows my mind. So young! Someone must be wondering about her!

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    1. Yes---there have been a few tips from people who remember seeing her or somebody like her: but close friends or family? Not a peep. There are sadly some families who just don't care. Or, as some have speculated, families who might have ulterior motives for not saying anything.

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  7. I just came across this and have not looked elsewhere about this case yet. I know that it's a long-shot and probably very time consuming, but did anyone ever get a list of the prisoners housed at the Ellis Prison Unit at the time she was alive? If no one has reported her missing then perhaps her only family was incarcerated at the time and not in contact with her (thinking that she wanted nothing to do with them).

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    1. From the stories that I have so far, it appears that an employee at the prison was involved in her murder. His house was in the general direction of the prison, just on the outskirts of Huntsville, and it appears that's where she was going the night she died.

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