Author Topic: KALAMA JANE DOE: F, 20-29, victim of auto accident in Kalama, WA - 14 May 1991  (Read 479 times)

Akoya

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 8173
    • View Profile
http://tdn.com/news/local/authoriti...cle_440a35c0-a969-11e3-8320-0019bb2963f4.html

Authorities release facial reconstruction drawing of 1991 'Jane Doe'

Barbara LaBoe
Mar 11, 2014
Officials finally have a face for Cowlitz County’s last Jane Doe case. Now they’re hoping to add a name.

A new facial reconstruction of the body burned in a fiery 1991 truck crash near Kalama gives authorities some idea of what the woman likely looked like. They hope sharing the picture might help solve a nearly 23-year-old mystery and allow them to return the woman’s remains to her family.

“I want to make sure she gets back to her family,” said Cowlitz County Coroner Tim Davidson. “So they can have some closure after wondering what’s happened to her for all these years.”

The woman was traveling with trucker Lester Dean Harvel of Illinois when both of them died in the May 14, 1991, crash on Interstate 5 near Kalama. She wasn’t supposed to be in his truck, and authorities believe Harvel picked up a hitchhiker somewhere between Missouri and here. He stopped in Tacoma and was headed to Portland when the crash happened.

The woman’s body was burned in the fire that followed the crash, hampering the identification. All officials knew in 1991 was that she was between 5-foot 1-inch and 5-foot 4-inches tall and had been treated for scoliosis. Her age was estimated as early 20s and officials thought she might be Native American. Unable to identify her, the woman was buried as a Jane Doe in Longview.

The case has nagged at officials for more than two decades.

It is the last remaining unidentified remains case for the county coroner’s office, and it is the oldest such case for Washington State Patrol’s cold case unit.

In January, both agencies worked to exhume the body, hoping advances in technology could finally lead them to an identity. DNA has been sent to a laboratory and will be matched to a missing persons database when complete. And in Seattle, state forensic anthropologist Dr. Kathy Taylor reconstructed the woman’s skull and then gave the information to forensic artist Natalie Murry, who created the drawing.

After so many years of wondering, there’s “now someone staring back at us,” Coroner Tim Davidson said of the drawing. “It helps people relate more.”

“It’s a big step,” added Detective Greg Wilcoxson of the state patrol cold case unit.

Davidson said the drawing makes him suspect all the more that the woman is Native American. All such drawings are approximations, but Davidson said the same artist did a previous drawing for the county, and it was spot-on once they’d ID’d the man. Skeletal characteristics can help forensic anthropologists tentatively identify ethnicity. Witnesses who saw the woman in the truck just before the crash also described long, dark hair and a feather earring, which are depicted in the drawing.

Because of the possibility the woman was Native American, officials asked the Puyallup tribe to give a blessing before January’s exhumation.

The woman also had bad teeth and a slight gap in her front bottom teeth, which may help with the identification.

Anyone who thinks they recognize the woman can call Davidson at 360-577-3079.

Davidson said even with the drawing and the DNA, when it becomes available, establishing an identity may take some time. It’s hard to know when someone might see the image and it might spark a memory. Two bodies found in Cowlitz County in 1987 were finally identified in 2007 after a relative in another country saw a posting on the Internet, he noted.

“We’re going to keep working on it,” Davidson said. “It might not happen today, but we’ll have everything on file and we’re going to just keep our fingers crossed.”

Barbara LaBoe covers courts and law enforcement for The Daily News. Reach her at 360-577-2539 or blaboe@tdn.com.