Author Topic: GALLOWAY JANE DOE: WF, 12-18, found in woods near Jim Leeds Road, NJ - 6 December 1971  (Read 501 times)

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Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Atlantic County Jane Doe

On December 6, 1971, the skeleton of a white female was found in the woods by hunters in Galloway, Atlantic County, New Jersey. The victim was between twelve and eighteen and may have been strangled. Although she has a wide age range, she was most likely under fourteen. She had straight, auburn hair that was about shoulder length and she wore a unique bracelet with eyelets that had a watch fastened onto it, which had not originally come with the bracelet. The victim did not have any signs of dental work, but her teeth were very healthy, although one of her molars was damaged. Another distinguishing feature was that she had an extra vertebrae in her back. Her hair may have actually been a wig, which had evidence of artificial coloration and had various shades of color. With the body, a blue shirt, white, blue and orange striped pants, brown sandals along with white underclothing were found. She also had a motel key that was found in her pocket, which belonged to an establishment nearby. She was between five feet one to five feet four inches tall at a weight between 105 and 130 pounds.

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Investigators are using modern forensics to solve 1971 Galloway Township murder mystery

Jul 30, 2009

GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP - After nearly 38 years, retired police investigator Edward Hepburn is still haunted by the sight of teenage girl's decomposed body and the lingering questions about who she was and how she died.

"I (contacted) every single newspaper I could find," Hepburn said Wednesday. "We got hundreds of tips and eliminated a lot of them, but never came up with a suspect or identified her. ... I never would have thought there were that many young girls missing in the country in 1971, not in my wildest dreams."

Hepburn handled the investigation into remains found Dec. 6, 1971, by a trio of hunters in a wooded area off the Garden State Parkway and Jimmie Leeds Road in Galloway Township. Hepburn was a detective lieutenant when he left the Galloway Police Department for the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office seven years later.

The 76-year-old retiree and three current Galloway officers met Wednesday with reporters in an effort to revive the case upon getting new, more accurate estimations of what the girl might have looked like.

"Because of the length of time the case has been dormant and (the fact that) the unidentified victim could be from anywhere, we decided the best thing to do would be to hold a press conference," Chief Patrick Moran said.

Detective Donna Buccafurni has spent the past four months on the case, one of several unsolved investigations she intends to re-examine. Long interested in cold cases, she said she started with this one because it involved a child.

"Our goal ... is to get this digital reconstruction as much exposure as possible in hopes that someone can identify her," Buccafurni said.

Buccafurni contacted forensic anthropologists and artists from the Smithsonian Institution and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for help redeveloping a digital composite of the girl that is more accurate than the clay busts and sketches used previously.

Sgt. Christopher Doyle said Wednesday he took a look at the case in 2002 and mainly pursued leads linked to potential suspects. He also could not find the remains needed for DNA samples that could be checked against databases established since the girl's death. During those decades, forensic imaging also had advanced, but the skeleton was needed to take advantage of that, too.

Buccafurni discovered the remains had been stored in a climate-controlled repository vault at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

Hepburn, who now lives in the Cologne section of the township, had sent the bones there after recalling a magazine article about the FBI using anthropologists to help reconstruct victims' likenesses from their remains.

The skeleton is complete, except for the hyoid bone. That led some investigators to believe the girl had been choked to death because strangulation often breaks that bone, Hepburn said.

But the cause of death has never been conclusively determined.

"I've worked homicides, but this one, we had nothing," Hepburn said. We don't even have her identified. It might be the only case in Galloway that has no ID on a body."

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The Press of Atlantic City
The Press Archives


RSS Can forensic advances ID victim after 38 years in Galloway Twp. cold case?

By EMILY PREVITI Staff Writer, 609-272-7221
Posted: Wednesday, July 29, 2009


Galloway Township Police are asking for help on a cold case after advances in DNA technology helped them develop composite images of a girl whose badly decomposed body was found in a wooded area off the Garden State Parkway in 1971.

GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP - New technology and a police detective's passion have revived the search for answers in a 38-year-old unsolved homicide.

Three hunters discovered a decomposing body in the woods east of the Garden State Parkway in Galloway Township on Dec. 6, 1971. Through the following years, police canvassed local motels and chased tips in and out of the state.

Forensic work determined she was a petite teenage girl with light brown hair and perfect teeth. But how she died and who may have caused her death remained unknown.

Detective Donna Buccafurni has been chipping away at the case during rare moments of downtime during the past four months, taking advantage of modern forensics tools.

"The detectives at the time did a lot of work," she said Tuesday as she flipped through the hundreds of plastic sleeves in a red binder.

Investigation reports written on a manual typewriter give way to hundreds of letters, many with photos, locks of hair and dental records attached, from families wondering whether the body belonged to their missing daughter.

Investigators reached out to media all over the country. It is likely the girl did not live nearby, because her description did not match that of any of the local missing persons, Buccafurni said.

Her body might have been dumped by someone driving along the Garden State Parkway, who was long gone by the time the body was found, an estimated six or more months after she was believed to have died, according to Lt. Shawn Mildren of the Galloway police.

Black and white photos of the scene 37 years ago show remains barely discernible from the leaves. The skull sits eight feet away from the rest. Animals likely moved it, Buccafurni said.

After an autopsy, which determined the girl might have been strangled, police took the remains to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where an anthropologist studied them to help a composite artist come up with a sketch.

Despite their efforts and national media attention, the case was still unsolved in 2002 when another detective re-examined the case, hoping advances in DNA and forensic imaging could revive the investigation.

Nothing came of that attempt because the officer could not locate the girl's remains, figuring they were destroyed by a fire at the police station during the 1980s.

When Buccafurni picked up the file four months ago, she called the Smithsonian. The remains were still there.

Buccafurni enlisted the aid of a forensic anthropologist from the Smithsonian and a forensic artist from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They returned a more comprehensive description of the victim.

Buccafurni plans to have the remains sent to the New Jersey State Police Crime Lab, where technicians will check a DNA sample against a database in hopes that her parents submitted samples of their DNA.

"If not, at least she's in there, if anything else ever comes up," Buccafurni said.

Buccafurni's work has already closed another cold case.

One woman wrote repeatedly over the years, so Buccafurni contacted police in Dayton, Ohio, to tell them the body might be the woman's 16-year-old daughter, who had run away. They found out the pair had reunited more than a decade ago and moved to Virginia, so Dayton police could close that case, Buccafurni said.

Buccafurni, whose father, John Higbee, served 27 years on the Galloway force, has long held a particular curiosity about unsolved cases. In addition to this case, she wants to probe unsolved homicides dating back as far as the 1950s.

"I have four others, but I focused on this one mainly because I am a mother," said Buccafurni, who has a 2-year-old daughter and 7-month-old son. "As a police officer, of course I'll continue to investigate, but there's some poor family out there. Just to bring them closure would be nice."

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/to...html?

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OFFICIALS NEED HELP IN CRACKING COLD CASE

Phaedra Laird ( plaird@nbc40.net ) - 7/29/09 10:08 pm
Last Updated - 7/30/09 05:28 pm

GALLOWAY TWP.--Police in Galloway Township need your help in cracking a nearly 40 year-old cold case. Officials say the first step in figuring out how the teenage girl died, is figuring out who she is.

"This image is a digital reconstruction of what she may've looked like in life." She was a petite teen with perfect teeth, according to investigators, but just about everything else about Jane Doe remains a mystery, even almost 40 years after her death. "Detective invested many man hours attempting to identify this young girl and what may have happened to her," said Detective Donna Buccafurni, with the Galloway Township Police Department.

But, 37 years after her decomposing body was stumbled upon by hunters in a wooded area just off the Parkway, investigators are still stumped. "It was never determined exactly, the cause of death due to her advanced state of decomposition. However, every single bone in her body was located, other than the hyoid bone, which in the neck," explained Buccafurni, "so there was a theory that she was possibly strangled."

It was a case that left Buccafurni wanting to know more. She opened the case back up, hoping modern technology might heat up this cold case. "Ever since I've been a police officer, I've always been interested in unsolved cases," she said during a news conference this afternoon, "when I came across this case, it just...it really touched me."

When the case first began nearly 40 years ago, investigators reached out across the country in the hopes of identifying the body. After receiving hundreds of letters from families across the nation who were looking for their missing teen, police were still unable to make a positive i.d.. "Ah, it was frustrating," said Edward Hepburn, a retired Lieutenant with the department, who started the case in 1971, "I'm so happy that someone opened it again, because someone needs some closure with their daughter. I mean, I did everything I could."

And authorities say they'll continue to work in an effort to finally put the case, and the teen to rest.

Anyone who may have any information or believe they may know the identity of the teen, who was believed to be between the ages of 14-18 years old at the time of her death, is asked to contact the Galloway Township Police Department at
(609)652-3705, extension 323.
http://www.nbc40.net/view_story.php?id=10070

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https://identifyus.org/en/cases/full_report/5221

DNA
Complete and entered below
Type mtDNA nucDNA Y-STR
Location Other
Describe location NJSP Office of Forensic Sciences
Reference # A09-00012
Lab ORI

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Exit #41, Galloway, just south of the location where she was found. Her remains were located in the woods on the east side of the Parkway which are northbound lanes.

www.pressofatlanticcity.com

The Garden State Parkway is close to completing the rebuilding of the Exit 41 interchange at Jimmie Leeds Road in Galloway .






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On current maps, there are two large facilities east of and next to the location where three hunters found the remains. These are Absegami High School and Galloway Twp. Middle School. These schools weren't completed in December of 1971 when Jane Doe was found. Absegami High School was completed and opened in 1972. Forensic reports indicate that Jane Doe probably died during 1971. This would mean that Absegami High School was under construction and the construction site could have provided access to the location where the remains were left in the woods. It would be possible that she wasn't dumped by a northbound driver from the Garden State Parkway. She could have been carried through the woods from the high school construction site. It's a very short distance.



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She also had a motel key that was found in her pocket, which belonged to an establishment nearby.

Rt. 30/White Horse Pike has many hotels, motels, restaurants, and fast food places in Galloway, because the location is close to the beach. Some of the hotels and motels are independent and some are chains. Many of them have been there since the 1970s. It would be difficult to determine which hotel key was in her pocket.





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A person local to the Galloway area would have known about the construction site and how to negotiate through the woods next to the Parkway.

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http://www.operationdoe.org/database/1024/

Unidentified Female Galloway Township, New Jersey 1971 – F1024NJ71



On December 6, 1971, the skeleton of a white female was found by hunters in a wooded area off Jimmie Leeds Road near milepost #42 of the Garden State Parkway in Galloway Township, New Jersey. Although she is estimated to be between 12 to 18 years old, she is most likely on the younger side. Found with the body were a blue shirt, white-blue-and-orange striped pants, brown sandals, and white underwear. She also wore a unique bracelet with eyelets that had a watch fastened upon it. The watch did not appear to have been originally attached to the leather band but secured separately. Inside the female’s pants was a key to a local motel along the Garden State Parkway.

Case Information (F1024NJ71):
Date Found: December 6, 1971
Location of Recovery: In a wooded area off Jimmie Leeds Road near milepost #42 of the Garden State Parkway in Galloway Township, New Jersey
Estimated Date of Death: Months before found
Cause of Death: Possible strangulation
Demographics:
Estimated Age: 12 – 18 years
Race/Ethnicity: White/ Caucasian
Gender: Female
Physical Characteristics:
Height: 63 inches (estimated)
Weight: 118 pounds (estimated)
Head Hair: Shades of blonde, brown and red brown with presence of a coloring additive
Eyes: Undetermined
Dental:
No restorations
Good occlusion
Her teeth were described as “almost perfect”
She had only one carious lesion starting in her lower right molar
Medical:
Extra sacral vertebrae (lower back)
Petite Build
Scars/Markings: N/A
Tattoos: N/A
Piercings: N/A
Other: N/A
Clothing and Accessories:
Clothing on body:
Ribbed blue cotton or synthetic shirt
White, blue, and orange striped canvas or cotton trouser of the hip-hugger variety
Underwear
White bra
Footwear:
Brown leather sandals
Jewelry:
Brown, wide leather band with small brass rings containing a ladies Westclock watch
Other Items:
A key to a local motel along the Garden State Parkway was found in her pants
Agency or Department handling investigation:
New Jersey State Police at 609-584-5051 ext 5656 reference case # H1102014-34
NJ Southern Regional Medical Examiner Office at 609-861-3355 reference case # 71-A-388
Case Numbers:
OPDOE: F1024NJ71
NCMEC: 1122754
NCIC: U130022970
NamUs UP: 5221
DoeNetwork: 668UFNJ
Agency Case #: H1102014-34
ME Case #: 71-A-388
Additional References and Resources:
NAMUS – https://identifyus.org/cases/5221
Doe Network – http://doenetwork.org/cases/668ufnj.html
Missing Kids – http://www.missingkids.com/poster/NCMU/1122754/1/screen

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A trucker wouldn't have been able to drive his truck on the Garden State Parkway. Trucks aren't allowed. A trucker could have arrived in the area on the Atlantic City Expressway, though. This girl just doesn't sound like she was sexually assaulted.

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