Author Topic: RICHMOND JANE DOE: F, found in Wayne County, IN sewer - 1 Ocotber 1975  (Read 204 times)

Akoya

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8173
    • View Profile
continued


EVERTON — News this week of the Indiana State Police planning to exhume the remains of a body found in Richmond, in order to see if they are the remains of a missing Laurel woman, might not have been possible without the involvement of a Fayette County resident.

It's something that Everton resident Tomijo Bolton Schmid, a local advocate for missing persons, unidentified bodies and cold cases, has been working on having happen since 2006, when she learned of the disappearance of Lula (Gillespie) Miller, a Laurel resident who disappeared in November 1974 and has never been found, she told the News-Examiner Tuesday.

Sgt. Scott Jarvis of the ISP's Pendleton Post said the agency this week will be exhuming the remains of an unidentified woman found in a Richmond sewer in October 1975 and compare the DNA from the remains to that of Miller's.

For Bolton Schmid, it's progress toward finding out what happened to Miller. She learned of Miller's story from her mother, Emma Gillespie, at a rally in 2006 remembering Bolton Schmid's brother, Jason, who was run over and killed by a vehicle in August 1986 and who Bolton Schmid believes, to this day, was murdered.

"In 2006, when I had the vigil for Jason, Lula's mother (Emma Gillespie) came to the vigil and she shared Lula's story with me," Bolton Schmid said. "That's when I started working to get something done … when I talked to her in 2006, she said 'I'd leave my porchlight on every night.' She was waiting for (Lula) to come home. She never gave up her coming home."

Bolton Schmid, formerly of Laurel herself, began looking into the disappearance of Miller a little further after speaking with Miller's mother, and posted a story and photo of Miller — provided by one of Miller's daughters, Tammy Miller — on her website, justiceforjasonbolton.com.

"I got digging on some of the websites and I found the description of the lady they found (in Richmond). Every just matches (with Lula)," she said. "I just posted her story and her picture. I started sharing and I made contact (with the Doe Network)."

Something else that Miller's mother — who passed away last month at the age of 91 — told her also gave Bolton Schmid the thought that the unidentified Richmond remains could, possibly, be Miller.

"Lula's mother told me the last she heard from her was that she got a letter from Richmond saying (Lula) was getting on a Greyhound bus to go to Florida," Bolton Schmid said. "She never heard from her since."

Further contact between Bolton Schmid and Tammy Miller led to the Miller family being put in touch with the Doe Network and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs.

"She got me connected with NamUs and while I was talking with the volunteer from NamUs, Tomijo stumbled upon that Jane Doe burial plot at Earlham College in Richmond, and it sounded just like (Lula). So we contacted the state police and that's when they took over the investigation," Tammy said.

Doing that helped to get the DNA from Miller's children entered into the national DNA database maintained by NamUs — the very DNA which will be used to compare the unidentified remains to that of Miller's DNA.


"This has been well over a year in the making," Bolton Schmid said. "(The family) submitted their DNA last year."

"It's been a long time in process," Tammy added. "We've had doors slamming in our faces, but it's a 50-50 chance. We still don't know it it's her, but it could be if it isn't her, someone else is looking for who is there and they can get closure. Either way, it's win-win. The person who's there, their family will have closure. It's pretty exciting."

The Doe Network also reached out to Sgt. Jarvis about the Miller disappearance, helping more to spur the investigation.

"It took me forever to get her information to the right people," Bolton Schmid continued. "Nobody was even looking for (Lula), until we got that DNA entered."

J. Todd Matthews, who serves as director of case management and communications for NamUs — which is based at the University of North Texas, where the mitochondrial DNA samples will be sent to for analysis — and media spokesman for the Doe Network, said Bolton Schmid did play a role in bringing the Miller case to their attention.

"Tomijo helped coordinate the family to the volunteers at Doe Network," Matthews told the News-Examiner in an email Tuesday. "They have always been helpful with coordinating with NamUs for DNA collection. So pretty much she served in the role of an advocate pointing out people and resources."

Bolton Schmid said she is hopeful that the remains prove to be a match to Miller, so that closure can be brought to the Miller family and law enforcement can then begin looking at the circumstances surrounding her disappearance so long ago.

"If this is her, it's going to open up some doors," Bolton Schmid said. "And if it's not her, someone else's loved one will get to come home."

According to the Charley Project, another non-profit organization whose website, www.charleyproject.org, profiles more than 9,000 "cold cases" nationwide, Miller, 27 at that time, left her residence Nov. 1, 1974 to walk to the store in Laurel and never returned. No other details were available.

According to daughter Tammy, however, rumored details are that Lula Miller was ****, beaten and thrown off the Laurel Bridge the day before her disappearance, and that she survived the incident, made it home and filed a police report with the Laurel Town Marshal at that time.

"She disappeared the day after and no one's seen her since," Tammy said. "Nobody ever filled out a missing persons report or anything. So I contacted the Franklin County Sheriff's Department, filled out a missing persons report, and that's what got the ball rolling (in the case)."

Reportedly, according to Tammy, the same group of people involved with her mother's rumored **** and ensuing disappearance are the same ones who were involved in the death of Jason Bolton as well.

If the remains are identified as Lula Miller, her daughter wants to see law enforcement pursue the case even further.

"I would," she said. "I don't know if that will ever happen, but if it doesn't, at least we'll know where Lula is, where she's been for 40 years. It's definitely a homicide, either way, and I'm pretty sure (law enforcement) will pursue that route. I don't think it's just going to stop there."

Tammy also praised Bolton Schmid for her assistance in getting her mother's disappearance the attention it deserved, as well.

"She's awesome. She is awesome," Tammy said. "I know she is having her struggles too, and we talk from time to time and try to be there for each other. She finds out information and she's been a godsend. She really has. I know there's a lot people out there, especially locally where she lives, that just want her to be quiet about Jason, but if she was to be quiet about Jason, the same thing would happen with him that happened to Lula. It's been 40 years and things are just now starting to roll."



THE REMAINS WERE NOT LULA MILLER.