The Lost and the Found

Continued

Another Woman Thought She Might Have Been Her Missing Sister



In 1987, law enforcement received a call from a Maryland woman who thought the Lady in the Dunes might be her sister who went missing in 1974. According to the woman, she lost touch with her sister after she relocated to Boston the same year the Lady of the Dunes was discovered in Provincetown.

The woman said she hadn't spoken to her sister since 1974, and her missing sibling - like the Lady of the Dunes - had auburn hair. According to the Provincetown police chief who received the tip, he told the woman to send him her sister's dental records for comparison, although it's unclear if she complied with his request.


They Are Still Trying To Recreate Her Face To See If Anyone Knows Her

Using her skull, experts have produced images of what the Lady of the Dunes may have looked like before her death. In 1979 - five years after the authorities think she was murdered - the first facial reconstruction of the Lady of the Dunes was created using clay. Over the next few decades, other people offered their depictions of the unidentified woman, with most of them bearing little resemblance to one another.

In May 2010, officials used a CT scanner to produce an image of her skull, which was in turn used to create yet another reconstruction of the Lady of the Dunes. Sadly, this latest image has failed to reveal the woman's identity.


Police Have Contacted Thousands Of Dentists In An Effort To Identify Her

Because someone cut of the young woman's hands, law enforcement were unable to get fingerprints from the Lady of the Dunes. As a result, the police relied heavily on dental records to help them eliminate possible matches. While someone removed many of the young woman's teeth, they left evidence of the expensive dental work the Lady of the Dunes had before she was murdered.

Experts found several gold crowns in the woman's mouth, which were worth at least $5,000 in the 1970s - a rare luxury for most people at the time. Seizing upon this unique clue to the murder victim's identity, the Provincetown police chief got the case of the Lady of the Dunes featured in dental journals. Law enforcement officials contacted thousands of dentists in an effort to learn the identity of the young woman with multiple gold crowns, and they've ruled out at least 50 possible matches.


She Was Buried In An Unmarked Grave

On October 19, 1974 - three months after the young woman's body was discovered - the Lady of the Dunes was buried in an unmarked grave in St. Peter's Cemetery in Provincetown, MA. She was laid to rest with a simple headstone which reads:

Unidentified Female Body
Found Race Point Dunes
July 26, 1974.

According to law enforcement officials, for several years after the Lady of the Dunes was buried in the Provincetown cemetery, someone - who was never identified - commemorated the day the young woman's body was found by placing flowers on her grave. In 2014, Detective Meredith K. Lobur of the Provincetown Police Department told the press she was raising money to buy a new casket for the Lady of the Dunes, as the unidentified woman's existing metal coffin was disintegrating due to rust.