http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/news/20050418/unsolved-mysteryUnsolved mysteryBy Jason Morton / Staff Writer
Posted Apr 18, 2005 at 12:01 AM
ROMULUS | Little has changed in the 23 years since three fishermen found a woman’s body partially submerged in a tiny slough of the Black Warrior River.
While fishing in Slaughter Branch near the Old Robinson Bend Landing next to Robertson Cemetery Road on April 18, 1982, a Tuscaloosa man and two others found the woman’s body behind a large log on the weed-covered riverbank.
Although officials believe they found her within 24 hours of her death, homicide investigators have yet to determine who she was, why she was in Tuscaloosa County or who killed her and threw her beaten body into the river.
Tuscaloosa’s “cold case”
Loyd Baker was one year out of Tuscaloosa County High School when the body was found. Now he is a lieutenant with the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office and commander of the Tuscaloosa County Metro Homicide Unit.
In his office last week, Baker was arranging the case file of the dead Jane Doe that had gone untouched for years. He does not like unsolved crimes, especially murders, and he’s hoping that some new publicity will shed light on this cold case.
“Somewhere, somebody is missing a loved one,” Baker said. “They want to know what happened to this person, and we’d like to bring them closure, at least in that respect.”
A composite sketch of the woman’s image, along with her identifying information, was recently added to The Doe Network, found on the Internet at
www.doenetwork.us.
The information has been in the National Crime Information Center, a national database of suspects, missing persons and other law enforcement-related information.
“What we have is two cases,” Baker said. “We have a missing person, whom we’ve found. But we don’t know where she came from or who she is. And second, we have a murder with a yet-unknown suspect.”
All that’s available
The dead woman was white, estimated to be about 35 years old (although her age could range from 34 to 38 years), and stood about 5 feet 4 inches tall.
She weighed 110 pounds, had dark, shoulder-length hair and brown eyes. She also had a partial dental plate of two front teeth.
When she was discovered, she was wearing a long-sleeved blue shirt, blue knit pants with an elastic waistband, a white bra, white panties and gray, size seven, tennis shoes.
According to The Doe Network, there was evidence of a prior pregnancy.
There also was evidence of a brutal attack, physically and sexually, and the autopsy revealed she died from strangulation.
The lead investigator at the time, Capt. Shirley Fields, said it was one of most gruesome attacks he’d seen in his then-17 years of law enforcement.
After the body was discovered, some witnesses came forward telling of an encounter they’d had with a woman investigators believe is the murder victim.
Baker said the witnesses, who were riding three-wheelers, saw the woman on April 16, 1982, near the cemetery on Robertson Cemetery Road. She said she was with a man and their car had gotten stuck in the mud. She requested help.
The witnesses said the man waiting at the car was angry, cussing the woman and blaming her for getting the car stuck. He also made references to being at a bar earlier in the day.
He was described as white, between 35 and 40 years old with a muscular build and a reddish complexion. He was clean-shaven, stood about 6 feet 1 inch tall and weighed between 180 and 200 pounds.
“We need to account for this man,” Baker said.
The car was a green, 1973 or 1974 Ford LTD with a dark vinyl top and possible front-end damage.
Homicide investigators worked on the case, running down all available leads but ended up with nothing.
A small but somber burial
The unidentified woman was buried on Dec. 9, 1982, in Sunset Memorial Park on Watermelon Road. The county paid for the funeral. By then, The Tuscaloosa News had begun referring to the woman as “Ms. X.” Reporter Doris Flora reported on the funeral.
“The card on the spray of pink carnations standing at the end of the casket was simple but explicit: ‘Because we believe that no one’s passing should go unnoticed and unmourned,’” said Flora’s account of the funeral. A handful of mourners, law enforcement officials among them, attended, and the Rev. Joe Bob Mizelli presided.
“One of the women shivered, either from the cold wind whipping under the grey canopy or from inner thoughts, and pulled her coat closer around her,” Flora’s story said. “Several of the men shifted their stance. The scripture was completed; the prayer ended. It took less than five minutes and those around the grave started moving away.
“One of the women said she came ‘because everybody needs somebody.’ ”
The years since
Frank Kelly, 61, still lives in Romulus, just as he did in 1982 when the body was discovered.
On Friday, Kelly said he was roofing the house of the late University of Alabama professor Frank Engle when they noticed the commotion.
He and the professor drove the short distance from Engle’s residence to Robertson Cemetery Road, where a deputy stopped them.
Because he knew the law enforcement officials, Kelly was eventually allowed down to the riverbank.
“They were just picking her up,” he said. “I told Professor Engle that they’ll find who did this within two or three days.”
Kelly said he’s still waiting.
“That always did puzzle the hell out of me,” he said, adding that no one in the area has talked of the woman’s body in years, “because they never did catch them.”
While he hasn’t been to the bank where the woman was in some time, Kelly still remembers clearly just where she was found.
On Friday, he led a reporter and Baker to the site, which is now accessible by land only by foot through a thick, gully-filled forest off the end of Robertson Cemetery Road.
Kelly said a group of campers had camped near the body the night before it was discovered. However, they never saw, heard or smelled anything.
“They were shooting glass bottles off a log with a .22 rifle,” Kelly said. “I told them if they’d bent out and looked over that log there, they’d have found her.”
Still questioning, too, is Helen Burroughs, 79, who was operating the Romulus General Merchandise Store with her husband, 82-year-old Verdo, when the woman was found.
The store sits empty and quiet now at the corner of Burroughs’ yard. But she remembers when deputies came around days after the murder with a composite drawing of the woman, searching for any shred of information that might lead them to some answers.
The officials and the residents never got any.
“I have never heard anything else about it,” Burroughs said. “I’ve often wondered if they ever found out anything about her.”
So far, they haven’t.
Baker asked that anyone who knows anything about this case to come forward. He can be reached at (205) 752-0616.
“The reason we’re doing this is because we weren’t able to identify the victim earlier,” Baker said. “This is a murder victim, and her murderer has never been brought to justice.”
Reach Jason Morton at jason.morton@tuscaloosanews.com or (205) 722-0200.