The Lost and the Found

http://thetandd.com/news/quest-to-d...cle_81046f77-c8a7-57a5-b9cb-abf6363316d3.html

Quest to determine identity of 'Jane Doe' continues

By RICHARD WALKER, T&D Staff Writer
Oct 14, 2008
ST. MATTHEWS – For now, she remains a number – the case number she was assigned by authorities.

But investigators still hold out hope that the identity of human female skeletal remains found last month in Calhoun County can be identified, giving some closure to a family awaiting word on a missing loved one.

“I’m waiting on a call from another state today,” Calhoun County Coroner Donnie Porth said. “We’ve already disproved several (missing persons). You could imagine the number of times these families have gotten calls just like the one I’m making.”


Porth said investigators will keep on making those calls until the young woman is given her name again.

She was found Sept. 27, when a concerned resident located what appeared to be human remains in a wooded area about 100 yards from a roadway in northwestern Calhoun County.

Sheriff Thomas Summers said the exact location is being withheld since the investigation is being treated as an ongoing homicide investigation.

Along with the skeletal remains, a few remnants of clothing material and some strands of what police say is blonde hair were all that remained. A forensic autopsy showed the remains were that of a woman.

That same autopsy conducted on Calhoun County’s Jane Doe revealed her to be a Caucasian female between the ages of 30 and 50. She stood between 5 feet 3 inches tall to 5 feet 7 inches tall.

According to the National Crime Information Center, there are 105,229 active missing person entries as of Dec. 31, 2007, nationwide. Of those, 48 percent are of adult age.

Porth said investigators know they may be looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Detectives started their search with St. Matthews area missing persons cases and have now moved beyond the county’s boundaries.


“We’re just going through them systematically,” the coroner said.

At least five missing women from the South Carolina Lowcountry to North Carolina have been eliminated, Porth said. Some of those cases examined have been on file for years.


After the forensic autopsy last month, Summers said it appeared the remains had been in the wooded area for a year or more. The sheriff said the remains were “covered with a couple of layers of pine straw.”

DNA and dental records are being compared with records of missing women around the Southeast. But Porth said investigators could request a facial reconstruction be performed on the woman.

“It is definitely a possibility. We can only imagine the families that are going through this; they want closure over this,” Porth said.

“We’re going the DNA and dental route right now. But that is definitely a possibility down the road.”

Detectives say the search for the woman’s identity is ongoing for not only the woman’s sake but for her family’s as well.

But for now, the missing woman is known simply as case number 1897.

T&D Staff Writer Richard Walker can be reached by e-mail at rwalker@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5516.