Author Topic: RICHMOND JANE DOE: F, found in Wayne County, IN sewer - 1 Ocotber 1975  (Read 203 times)

Akoya

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http://www.inquisitr.com/2927657/in...iving-under-alias-in-texas-why-did-she-leave/

For over forty years, Laurel, Indiana, has been at the center of an unsolved mystery over the disappearance of a young woman named Lula Ann Gillespie-Miller. Back in 1974, she left Laurel and vanished, and no one in her family knew her whereabouts. At least not until Thursday, when Indiana State Police found her in Texas living under an alias.

The facts behind the mystery of what happened to Lula may have been solved, but even as the story goes viral with accusations of Lula being “selfish” or a “deadbeat parent,” all of the outsiders reading about this case don’t know the whole story — not by a long shot.

Back in 1974, the widowed Gillespie-Miller was 28 years old and had just given birth to her fourth child. While news outlets report she signed over her children to her parents before she left, the backstory behind why she left has been left out, although locals can tell you why.

Just a few days before her disappearance, Gillespie-Miller was allegedly **** by four men in Laurel. Then she was beaten and thrown over the Laurel bridge to die. But Lula managed to drag herself to her mother’s house and survived, filing a police report on the incident that has since disappeared. A few days later, Lula was gone as well, so she was rumored to have been killed by her attackers to keep her silent.

Forty years later, Indiana State Police Detective Sgt. Scott Jarvis took over the cold case at the request of the Doe Network, a website that helps people seeking missing family members. According to her family, the last contact with Lula was a letter postmarked from nearby Richmond, Indiana, in 1975.

After reviewing the case, Jarvis noted the similarity in her appearance to a Jane Doe found in Richmond in 1975, who was buried in an unmarked grave there. In December 2014, Jarvis obtained a search warrant to exhume the body for DNA analysis, using a sample from Gillespie-Miller’s daughter, Tammy Miller.

In a phone call with Jarvis on March 17 to get an update on the status of the DNA testing, he reported that results of the DNA were still pending on the exhumed body, but he gave no indication that the case had taken a different turn and that evidence had been found indicating Lula may still be alive.

According to the Indiana State Police press release, Jarvis noticed similarities between Gillespie-Miller and a woman who lived in Tennessee in the 80s and later moved to Texas, where she might still be living under an alias. Thursday, Jarvis contacted Texas Rangers to make a visit to the home of the woman he suspected might actually be Lula Gillespie-Miller. The Rangers reported that she admitted her true identity as the woman — now 69 years old — who disappeared from Laurel, Indiana, back in 1974.

The press release also reported that Lula gave permission for Jarvis to pass on her contact information to her daughter, Tammy, who was too young to remember her mother when she left.

As the story spread across social media, many were posting about what a horrible mother she was to abandon her children, without knowing the context of why she left. Some may still wonder why Lula Gillespie-Miller felt she had to leave instead of fighting for justice against her attackers.

If you ask locals, they know the answer, but they probably won’t tell you.

When the story of the Laurel Five murders broke over four years ago, the crime was painted as having occurred in a quaint small town that never sees violence or murder. Laurel, with a population as of 2010 of 512 people, lies just south of the Fayette county line in Franklin County. While the Franklin and Fayette County areas certainly don’t see the crime rates of large cities, the rural farming communities have seen a fair number of unsolved disappearances and murders over the years.