Author Topic: GRAND BAY JANE DOE: WF, 50-60 - floating in Sessions Creek, south of Grand Bay, AL - May 18, 1976  (Read 160 times)

Scorpio

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https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/13574

Found floating in Sessions Creek at the Potter Tract Road bridge about a mile south of Grand Bay.

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Scorpio

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https://www.facebook.com/Mobilecountysheriffsoffice/posts/missing-personcold-casein-1976-jane-doe-x-1-was-murdered-and-placed-into-session/10156131738488191/



MISSING PERSON/COLD CASE

In 1976 JANE DOE X-1 was murdered and placed into Sessions Creek, near the Potter Tract Road Bridge in Grand Bay. It is believed that she may have been from another state. JANE was shot in the back of the head and both her hands were cut off.

HENDERSON JAMES WILLIAMS has been identified as the probable suspect and is linked to this homicide, however, he passed away while serving time in prison for the murder of his mother, ERMA STANLEY WILLIAMS. ERMA was found floating in a body of water within the area of Hall Road and Interstate 10 in Grand Bay. ERMA's cause of death? Blunt force to the head,severly beaten and both hands cut from the body. At the time of his mother's murder we know HENDERSON JAMES WILLIAMS lived at 9500 Hall Road in Grand Bay, Alabama.

MCSO is looking for any informtion about identity of this person or any information on her murder. If you would like to speak with the detective in charge of the case, call 251-574-8633. If you would like to email information about this case you may do so to coldcase@mobileso.com.

Scorpio

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https://www.al.com/pr/2007/09/the_jane_doe_file.html

The 'Jane Doe' file

Updated Mar 29, 2019; Posted Sep 14, 2007

By Paul Cloos, Press-Register

The woman was shot in the head, her body partially covered by a garbage bag and thrown into a murky creek in south Mobile County in 1976. Her hands were chopped off, leaving no fingerprints to help identify her.

She had no teeth because they had fallen out or been removed over the years, long before she was killed. Another form of identification eliminated.

For more than 30 years, those two things have crippled investigators' attempts to identify the woman and track down her killer or killers.
(Photo courtesy Mobile County Sheriff's Office)
A case file at the Mobile County Sheriff's Office holds evidence related to the 1976 death of a woman whose body was found dumped in a creek. The woman remains unidentified.

Duncan Crow, one of the Press-Register reporters covering the story at the time, said recently that seeing the woman's body pulled from the creek was an unsettling experience.

Crow, who was 19, said it upset him even more when Mobile County deputies told him that the corpse was missing its hands.

"It was disturbing, for obvious reasons," he recalled. "You don't think about stuff like that, normal people don't."

Now an assistant state attorney general and assistant counsel with the Alabama Department of Revenue, Crow said he had been a naive teenager who assumed the victim would be quickly identified and the person who killed her captured.

"As you get older, and I've been practicing law for 22 years, you just start to understand that crimes like that don't always get solved," he said.

Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran, however, said recently that he believes the killer or killers still can be found if investigators one day are able to identify the woman.

"In a case like that, the person purposely abused the body to prevent identification," the sheriff said. "Once the body is identified, the prime suspect would stand out. The biggest key in that case is the identification of the body."

Technological advances, such as DNA testing, which were not available in 1976, could be used to help solve the case, Cochran said.

And there is always a possibility that someone could come forward and confess to the crime or be identified by an acquaintance as the killer, he said.

The woman's handless body was found about 4:30 p.m. May 18, 1976, floating in Sessions Creek at the Potter Tract Road bridge, about a mile south of Grand Bay.

She was discovered by a boy who had gone to the creek to shoot at fish. The body was floating in the slow-moving creek almost beneath the bridge in about 3 feet of murky water.

According to news accounts at the time, the woman had been shot once in the head with what appeared to be a small-caliber gun. The bullet went into the back of her head and exited in front.

It was determined that the woman was white and in her mid-50s. She was about 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighed about 140 pounds. She had dark brown hair cut to about 4 inches long.

She was found on a Tuesday, and authorities determined that she most likely had been killed two days earlier.

Sheriff's Office investigators said at the time that the victim was fully clothed, but that her feet were bare. Investigators said she wore a yellow pullover blouse and green slacks and the strap of her brassiere was cut in the back.

There was a small pool of blood on the bridge, and a tiny piece of plastic bag, possibly from the bag over the upper part of her body, was found near the blood, according to news reports.

Several people, most of them from the Jackson County, Miss., area, tried unsuccessfully to identify the woman, but she continues to be listed only as Jane Doe, investigators said.

After studying old reports of the slaying, Cochran, who retired as Mobile's police chief prior to being elected sheriff, said he believes the killer did not live in Mobile County at the time because so many people from Mississippi came forward to try to identify the woman.

Regardless of where the killer lived, Cochran said, the killer or killers were familiar with the county and knew of a remote area to dump the body.

Crow said that he would like to see the crime solved.

"Maybe somebody saw something, saw something on the bridge that day. They will remember something they didn't remember at the time," he said. "Anything can happen, I guess."

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https://unsolvedandunknown.com/2019/02/17/grand-bay-jane-doe/

Grand Bay Jane Doe

On May 18, 1976, a woman estimated to be between 50 and 60 years old was found floating face down in Session Creek at the Potter Tract Road bridge about a mile south of the town of Grand Bay, Alabama.



She was found by a teenager who had gone to the creek to shoot at fish around 4:30 p.m. Investigators found several measures had been taken by the killer or killers to try and conceal the woman’s identity. Her teeth had either been pulled or fallen out over time before her death, but her dentures had been removed. Both her hands had also been cut off, thus eliminating both dental records and fingerprints as possible means of identification.

Cause of death was determined to be a gunshot wound which entered through the back of her head and exited the front. The gun was a small caliber handgun. Her nose was bloody and one of her eyes was blackened. Her upper body had been covered by a plastic bag, believed to be an effort to prevent blood from getting in the car used to transport her body to the location where her body was dumped. For this reason it is believed she was transported to the location in a sedan, because it is likely that had she been transported in the bed of a truck, blood could simply be washed out of the truck bed, making the plastic bag unnecessary.

A pool of blood and a small piece of what could have been the plastic bag covering the upper body of the victim was found on the Potter Tract Road bridge above the creek, making it likely that the killer(s) dragged her body to the edge of the bridge and threw her over into the creek. Time of death was determined to be two days earlier on May 16, 1976.

Her physical description reveals she was a white female, approximately 5’3″ (63″), weighed 140 pounds, had short dark brown hair, and green eyes. She had a mole above her upper lip on the left side. She had a hysterectomy scar on her abdomen. She was found barefoot, wearing a yellow pullover blouse and green slacks. A strap on her brassiere was also cut in the back.

18 years after her murder, there was a possible break in the case. Another woman was found near the Alabama-Mississippi line. Like Grand Bay Jane Doe, her hands and dentures were removed in effort to conceal her identity. She was identified, however, and her name was Irma Williams. Her son, Henderson James Williams was convicted of her murder in 1996. The similarities in the way the suspect attempted to conceal the victims’ identities led investigators to suspect Williams in Grand Bay Jane Doe’s murder, but Williams died in prison in 2008 and was never charged for her murder.

Almost 43 years later, Grand Bay Jane Doe continues to be unclaimed and unidentified. With our current technology, it is obviously more likely this Jane Doe could have been identified. Several attempts to identify her were made, mostly by people in Mississippi, but none were successful. A cast was found fairly recently which was made of the inside of Jane Doe’s mouth to aid in identifying her back in 1976. Investigators working her case now hoped to use the cast to retrieve some of the victim’s DNA. No reports yet on whether they were successful.

If you recognize Grand Bay Jane Doe or have any information on her case, please contact Mobile County Sheriff’s Office

510 South Royal Street
Mobile, AL 36603
Phone:  (251) 581-1181
UID Case # 76MB131799
Contact: Dt Johnny Thornton

Scorpio

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https://www.wkrg.com/local-news/cold-case-woman-found-floating-in-creek-near-grand-bay-in-1976-never-identified/

[size=16]Cold Case: Woman found floating in creek near Grand Bay in 1976 never identified[/size]

by: Peter Albrecht
Posted: Feb 15, 2019 / 09:29 PM CST / Updated: Feb 15, 2019 / 09:45 PM CST
cold case Grand Bay_1550262294008.JPG.jpg

GRAND BAY, Ala (WKRG) — A woman found shot, floating in a creek, with her hands cut off. 43 years later her identity still isn’t known and no one has ever been arrested for the crime.

On May 18, 1976, two boys were fishing in a creek that runs under Potter Tract Road south of Grand Bay and made a gruesome discovery.

“They’re out there at the fishin’ hole and found a lady floating face down in the water,” said  Detective J.T Thornton of the  Mobile County Sheriff’s Office

Thornton says the woman found in the creek had been shot, her dentures removed, and her hands cut off. Plastic bags were wrapped around her arms and head.

“We believe that was done to keep blood from spilling into the trunk of an automobile,” Thornton said. “If it had been a pick-up truck he’d be less likely to care because he could easily wash it out. We believe that it was a four door sedan.”

Thornton says blood patterns on the road indicated that one person likely dragged the body from a vehicle and tossed it off the bridge on Potter Tract Road and into the creek.

The woman had been shot, once, at close range, in the back of the head. But who was she? Detectives determined her age between 50 and 65. But no missing person report ever matched the body and the woman still hasn’t been identified. It’s highly unusual.

“It’s very unusual that nobody came forward and identified her,” Thornton said. “Toward that point in someone’s life, they’re someone’s mother, they’re someone’s grandmother. It’s less likely that you’ll see someone in that age range being murdered.”

18 years later after the murder came a possible break in the case. A woman’s body found in a pond near the Alabama-Mississippi line. Her dentures had been removed and her hands cut off. Irma Williams had been killed in nearby Moss Point, Mississippi, by her son, a shipyard worker, named Henderson James Williams.

Williams was convicted in 1996 and died in prison 12 years later. He was never charged with the 1976 killing.

Thornton is re-examining the case and came across a cast investigators in 1976 made of the victim’s mouth, to try to match the missing dentures. He hopes that might contain DNA that could finally identify the woman. And despite the fact no one ever claimed her, and the only suspect died a decade ago, Thornton says he’ll continue to pursue the case.

“There’s got to be some sort of closure for this lady,” Thornton said. “I mean to just leave her floating face down in the water is unacceptable. We’re not a savage society. This is the United States of America!”