The Lost and the Found

https://identifyus.org/en/cases/1231

Case Information
Status Unidentified
Case number MLA86-114
Date found March 12, 1986 00:00
Date created April 08, 2008 00:00
Date last modified March 30, 2016 12:40
Investigating agency
date QA reviewed

Local Contact (ME/C or Other)
Agency Dist 1 Medical Examiners Ofc
Phone 850-416-7200
Case Manager
Name Emily Speed
Phone 850-416-7210

Exclusions
The following people have been ruled out as being this decedent:
First Name Last Name Year of Birth State LKA
Rose Gayhart 1962 Florida
Wendy Huggy 1965 Florida
Patricia Schmidt 1964 Virginia
Patricia Schmidt 1964 Virginia

http://www.officialcoldcaseinvestig...bodies-found-locally-remain-a-mystery-Florida

Mystery in Santa Rosa County

The Happy Face victim is one of only two women who remain unidentified long after their bodies were found locally. The second woman was found floating facedown in Cold-water Creek in Santa Rosa County on March 13, 1986.

Initially, even her gender was in question be-cause of the condition of her body. She had been in the water so long that some of her limbs were missing. But forensics experts have concluded that the victim was a woman in her 20s or 30s who possibly had given birth at least twice.

Unlike the Happy Face killer’s victim, the woman had poor dental hygiene and numerous untreated cavities. Some of her front teeth had never erupted, which meant she might have worn a partial plate.

Letters were sent to more than 400 dentists, asking if they remembered a patient with that unusual pattern. None did.

But some investigators who worked the case doubted that she would have sought dental care. She had lived a hard life, with her skull showing evidence of being fractured at least 18 months before she was killed.

Her nasal cavity indicated that she had frequently snorted drugs and her teeth were stained by nicotine, according to the autopsy report.

“Addicts generally do not take care of them-selves and every nickel that they can pilfer goes directly to the purchase of their pleasure,” one ex-pert wrote, casting doubt on the theory that she might have had a partial plate to hide the gap in her front teeth.

Using her skull, an artist reconstructed how she might have looked. She was believed to have been white, with a possible Spanish or Indian back-ground.

Her DNA has been entered into a database, but there are no leads in her file.


Her remains are buried in a pauper’s grave in Escambia County.