Author Topic: SPARTANBURG JANE DOE: WF, 40-55 - found behind home in Startex Mill Village - Oct 26 2011  (Read 112 times)

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https://www.goupstate.com/news/20111226/investigators-still-trying-to-identify-bones-found-in-startex

Investigators still trying to identify bones found in Startex

Investigators know her hair color, about how tall she was, what jewelry she wore. They know her race and that she was 40 to 50 years old when she died. But the question remains: Who was she?

Investigators know her hair color, about how tall she was, what jewelry she wore and what dental work she had done while she was alive. They know her race - white - and that she was 40 to 50 years old when she died.

Investigators also have evidence that points to how she died before her body was hidden under a couch and other debris in a wooded area in the Startex mill village five to six years ago.

But the question that motivates Spartanburg County Coroner’s Office investigator Rick Ellis the most is: Who was she?

Right now, to the investigators of the Spartanburg County sheriff’s and coroner’s offices, she’s Jane Doe Startex. But until investigators have a real name, they can’t track down her killer.

“It may not be someone I know,” Ellis said. “But she’s somebody’s family, someone’s loved one. Someone’s been missing this woman.”

On Oct. 26, shortly before 1 p.m., a man looking for scrap metal in the wooded area behind homes on South Main Street made the grisly discovery. Given the time of year, the man told deputies that at first, when he saw the skeletal remains, he thought it was a Halloween decoration.

Officers soon realized it wasn’t a holiday prank and began what they quickly decided was a homicide investigation.

Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger said investigators began the work of first removing the debris, which included a couch, from on top of the skeletal remains, which were about 25 feet into the wooded area and about 75 feet from the back of the nearest home. Each item was photographed as it was removed. Manufacturing codes from the items could help investigators pinpoint when the woman’s body was placed in the woods.

Then came the examination of the body. The same afternoon, Dr. Suzanne Able, a forensic anthropologist from the Charleston County Coroner’s Office, drove up from the coast to assist officers.

While a forensic pathologist’s expertise is soft tissue, such as skin or organs, a forensic anthropologist specializes in hard tissue, mainly bone, and usually assists when remains cannot be identified by visual recognition.

A forensic anthropologist can assist in identifying skeletal remains by identifying characteristics such as weight, whether the person used drugs and or if the person suffered broken bones, for example. These anthropologists typically investigate skeletal remains or a body that has been burned or mummifed.

The remains were left in Startex overnight after the discovery and were brought to the morgue on Oct. 27. There, Able worked with investigators cleaning the bones and examining them for identifying characteristics.

Able and the coroner’s office won’t say much about specific characteristics of Startex’s Jane Doe. But Able said she assisted local investigators in generating a biological profile for the skeletal remains, including sex, ancestry, approximate age and injuries before or around the time of her death.

Able said local investigators from the sheriff’s and coroner’s offices did an excellent job preserving the crime scene before she arrived to assist.

“I know they’re working very hard to find out who this is,” Able said. “They’re doing an incredible job.”

Finding a match

One of the tools that Ellis is using to identify the Starex remains is the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, a clearinghouse for missing persons and unidentified decedent records.

NamUs is a free online system that can be searched by medical examiners, coroners, law enforcement officials and the public to solve missing persons or unidentified remains cases, made available through the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs.

Investigators hope the NamUs database will help them search for people reported missing in other states and potentially lead to a match, a name, for the remains found in Startex.

“The Startex case is unusual from the point there have not been any missing persons cases in that area reported to the sheriff’s office within the last five years or longer,” said Lt. Tony Ivey of the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office.

Ellis has been using the NamUs database to conduct searches based on characteristics such as dental information and distinct body features to see if any profiles match characteristics from the Startex remains.

This helps him exclude certain profiles or take a closer look at others. Often, it requires calling in a forensic dentist to compare the dental records of a person reported missing to the teeth found with the remains.

Ellis has spoken with several law enforcement agencies in the Carolinas and Georgia about missing persons cases. A DNA sample, extracted from the woman’s femur, has been sent to the University of North Texas for specialized testing. The results could be available early next year.

Dozens of profiles have been excluded by using NamUs, Ellis said.

“I may not know who it is, but I know who it’s not, and that gives a sense of accomplishment,” Ellis said. “We’ll come to a positive resolution, there’s no doubt in my mind.”

Next, investigator Randy Bogan hopes to generate a sketch of what Jane Doe Startex might have looked like, based on her skeletal facial features and hair.

For now, Jane Doe Startex’s resting place is the local morgue, as her remains need to be kept as evidence for the criminal case that could be brought if she is identified.

“There’s a high level of solvability if we can put the right missing person with the right skeleton,” Ellis said.

Investigators hope exposure of the case in the media will help give a name to their victim and kickstart the investigation, Ivey said.

“Keeping a case like the Startex case in the news, we hope will eventually lead to a tip or other information that will help identify the body,” Ivey said. “Once the identity of the deceased person has been determined, then investigators can start to look for who may have been involved in their death. These types of cases are the most challenging for investigators, but can also be some of the most rewarding upon successfully solving the case and providing justice for the victim.”

Ellis said a Georgia family called after the story first broke about the remains being found, hoping that they would at least find closure if the Startex body turned out to be their missing loved one.

Investigators were able to rule out that the Startex remains were those of the missing Georgia woman, but Ellis remembers a relative of the Georgia woman asking, “Are you 100 percent sure?”

But beyond any possible prosecution, investigators hope that Jane Doe Startex will one day receive a proper burial, by people who may have loved and cared about her.

Ellis said, “There is a feeling of urgency, a feeling of we need to find an identification and return this person back to her loved ones.”

Anyone with information about the case may call the Spartanburg County Coroner’s Office at 596-2509 or CrimeStoppers at 1-888-CRIMESC.