http://www.officialcoldcaseinvestigations.com/showthread.php?14661-Jane-Doe-Bensalem-1995Jane Doe, Bensalem, 1995Artists reintroduce "Jane Doe' to public
An unidentified woman whose remains were unearthed behind a popular diner nearly a decade ago showed her face again in Bensalem yesterday.
Bensalem police and Bucks County District Attorney Diane Gibbons presented a reconstructed version of the woman's countenance at the Bensalem Municipal Building on Byberry Road in hopes of raising public awareness and bolstering police efforts to solve the still-open homicide case.
Described as a 35- to 45-year-old Caucasian with olive skin, "Jane Doe" has a hard-set jaw, jutting chin and wide, chocolate-brown eyes. Although her specific hairstyle is unknown, Jane's recreation sports straight dark-brown hair that is parted down the middle of her forehead and falls in wisps and clumps to the small of her back. Before her death, which Gibbons said occurred in late 1993 or early 1994, she stood between 4 feet 8 inches and 5 feet 3 inches tall.
Children first discovered her body in September 1995 at the rear of the 24-hour Clubhouse Diner on Street Road in Bensalem while searching for wood and sticks to build a tree fort. Wrapped in a plastic tarp, stripped of her clothing and hidden beneath dirt, leaves and trash, the woman was likely the victim of strangulation, although no official cause of death is known, according to Bensalem Detective Chris McMullin.
The homicide was once believed to have been linked to the early 1990s murders of Amy Moore and go-go dancer Toshiko Ciaccio. Ciaccio, specifically, was found wrapped in plastic similar to Jane Doe.
While the timing fits, Gibbons said, no explicit evidence ever linked those deaths and this victim and, for many years, the body and investigation were laid to rest and all but forgotten.
"This case was cold [unsolved]," McMullin said. "Part of it was that back in 1995, when this happened, the Internet and Web sites weren't as common as they are now."
McMullin finally turned to the Web for help in February 2002, placing the details of his ongoing investigation on a site run by The Doe Network, an international agency devoted to identifying missing persons and solving cold homicide cases.
Soon after, organization director Nancy Monahan contacted McMullin about the possibility of using information garnered from the remains to create an accurate picture of what she looked like while she was alive - via a detailed pencil sketch and three-dimensional sculpture.
Authorities exhumed Jane Doe's body in early May from a vault in Telford's Trinity Cemetery.
Forensic sculptors and artists Dan Solitti and Seth Wolfson then went to work, poring over hair samples, dental records and the coroner's autopsy report to recreate Jane's facial features, down to her slight overbite, stress wrinkles beneath her eyes and the triangular cleft in the center of her chin.
"It's never meant to be an exact portrait of the person," said Solitti, who is also a police officer in Jersey City, N.J. "But the relationship of features to one another can be close enough that someone who is familiar with the person could identify her."
A possible identification from a friend or family member can then be confirmed using nuclear DNA acquired from the limbs or other body cavities, said Assistant District Attorney Robin Campbell.
At the time the body was discovered, police also found a chain and crucifix depicting the Stations of the Cross, along with several articles of clothing, including a quilted sleeveless vest, light blue corduroy pants and a white T-shirt emblazoned with the words "Property of Alcatraz Penitentiary Swim Team."
Anyone with information related to Jane is urged to contact Bensalem police at 215-633-3719. To learn more about The Doe Network, visit doenetwork.org.
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