Boulder Jane Doe (ID'd as DOROTHY GAY HOWARD) case, Apr. 1954, CO

[packy]

http://www.9news.com/news/top-article.aspx?storyid=90261

BOULDER COUNTY - New forensic evidence has moved investigators in Boulder closer to solving the identity of the woman buried under a tombstone marked, "Jane Doe, April 1954, age about 20 years."


Detectives have released a photograph of a woman from Denver who could be Jane Doe. Katherine Dyer was 27 years old when she disappeared around Capitol Hill, less than two weeks before Jane Doe's body was found along Boulder Creek. (more at link with phote)

[Nut44x4]

'Lonely Hearts Killer' Confessed To 3 Murders
Investigators Believe Killer Is Linked To 1954 Jane Doe Murder

POSTED: 1:36 pm MDT May 11, 2008
BOULDER, Colo. -- Gangly, bespectacled and unassuming, Harvey Glatman baited traps for women with his camera and promises that his photos would be featured in popular detective magazines.

Then he bound, gagged, photographed and killed them.

California's media called Glatman the "Lonely Hearts Killer" because he met one of his victims at a "lonely hearts" club, according to the Crime Library, an online catalog of crimes.

Glatman ultimately confessed to three murders and, in September 1959, died at the California State Prison at San Quentin in the gas chamber.

Boulder County investigators now believe Glatman likely killed his first victim -- years before the three killings that sent him to the gas chamber -- in Boulder Canyon, stripped her of clothes and jewelry and dumped her broken body near the banks of Boulder Creek.

The April 1954 discovery of the young woman's body marked the beginning of a case that has remained a mystery for decades.

The woman was buried that year as Jane Doe 1954, and a reopened investigation has tentatively identified her as Katharine E. Farrand Dyer, a young woman who lived in a Denver boarding house, not far from the childhood home of a budding serial killer.

The possible connection between the two was made on an Internet message board in April 2005 as part of an ongoing public discussion about the Jane Doe mystery. Boulder historian and writer Silvia Pettem took the tip to Boulder County Sheriff's Office investigators, who pieced together more information about Glatman and Jane Doe, ultimately concluding the young woman was likely Glatman's first victim.

"My confidence is pretty high that Harvey Glatman is the killer," Boulder County sheriff's Detective Steve Ainsworth said.

Glatman's resume of incarceration runs from coast to coast and includes some of the country's most infamous prisons, including San Quentin in California and Sing Sing in New York. His record notably begins in Colorado, where Glatman is believed to have cultivated an increasingly violent obsession with bondage and ropes, which he used to immobilize and assault women in Denver. That landed him in the Colorado State Penitentiary.

He continued to use the method in California, where he admitted to killing three women: Judy Dull, who was kidnapped and murdered Aug. 2, 1957; Shirley Bridgeford, who was reported missing March 3, 1958; and Ruth Mercado, also known as Angela Rojas, who was reported missing July 29, 1958, according to records at the Boulder County Sheriff's Office.

On Oct. 27, 1958, Glatman attacked Lorraine Vigil in his car. After Glatman parked on the side of the road, the scuffle continued on the roadside, where Vigil ended up with Glatman's gun. She held him at gunpoint until a California State Patrol trooper happened on the scene, according to a Crime Library account of Glatman's arrest.

Glatman detailed the three California murders in a lengthy confession, noting how he met one of the women in a lonely hearts club and was able to tie up the other two because he told them he took bondage photos for popular detective magazines.

The possibility that Jane Doe 1954 died in Boulder at the hands of Glatman did not come up until the 2005 Internet-based conversation.

Eerily, it fit.

"Harvey Glatman was a very well-known serial killer -- a very strange man," Pettem said of the killer, whose path could have easily crossed Katharine Dyer's in downtown Denver, where the two lived near one another at the time of the long-unsolved murder.

Glatman did well in school but, according to Crime Library, he indulged in his rope fetish in private and eventually took to the streets of Denver to bind and grope women after following them home. Police caught the 17-year-old Glatman breaking into a home in 1945, and he admitted to several burglaries, according to Crime Library.

He was awaiting trial on burglary charges in July 1945 when he was arrested for kidnapping a young Boulder woman and forcing her to walk 2 miles into Sunshine Canyon, where he forced her to stay overnight, according to media accounts now kept in the Boulder Jane Doe evidence files at the Boulder County Sheriff's Office.

Glatman released the woman uninjured the next day and sent her home in a taxi, according to the media accounts. She identified him, and he was arrested. That case, though, was dropped in 1950.

Glatman served eight months in the Colorado State Penitentiary for his Denver cases, then he moved to New York. There, he was convicted of assaulting a woman on the street and sent to a reformatory in 1946, and was moved to prison when he turned 21. He was paroled in May 1951, according to Pettem.

He returned to Denver, where he got a job as a television repairman and moved back in with his parents. He lived with them until 1956.

According to investigators, Glatman lived at his parents' home at 1133 Kearney St. in Denver, near the boarding house at 1118 Washington St. where Dyer was staying at the time. Her landlady reported the young woman missing 13 days before Jane Doe's body was found in Boulder Canyon on April 8, 1954.

At the time, the coroner determined she was badly beaten. A new examination of her remains after Jane Doe's body was exhumed in June 2004 showed she was likely hit by a car.

Ainsworth tracked down a car that was the same make and model as the one Glatman drove in Denver: a 1951 Dodge Coronet. He had the car's measurements compared to the injuries on the body.

"They match extremely closely," Ainsworth said. "I thought, 'It's got to be him."'

California investigators grilled Glatman about his time in Colorado after he was arrested for the murders. He denied hurting any of his Denver models, but an off-color comment chills both Pettem and Ainsworth.

"Now, let me ask you something pretty point blank, Harvey," the California detective asks, according to the transcript of Glatman's murder confession. "Are these girls alive or dead?"

Glatman replied, "Unless they've been run over."

Ainsworth said Glatman was hiring and photographing Denver models in bondage as well. The new examination of autopsy photos from Jane Doe in 1954 revealed a little more that hints at a killer with rope. She had ligature marks, indicating she had been bound before her death.

"That was yet another thing that directs me to think Harvey Glatman is the guy," the detective said.

Still, Ainsworth said he is frustrated because he knows about evidence that is missing from Los Angeles that could show whether Dyer was among his models or victims.

After police arrested Glatman for the California murders, they found a toolbox filled with his trophy photos and some detective magazines, Ainsworth said. The box contained photos of the three victims and pictures of other women who could not be identified. A Los Angeles cold-case detective assigned to help Ainsworth with the case cannot find the balance of the photos. Ainsworth said he would be sure of Glatman's guilt, and that Dyer was Jane Doe, if her face was among Glatman's lost photo collection.

When police first investigated Glatman, they made four complete sets of the photos. Ainsworth hopes one of the other three sets will turn up in its entirety.

"There's got to be (a set) that exists in some detective's garage there," he said.

For Ainsworth, the case is tantalizingly close to being solved. Glatman's photos and DNA from one of Dyer's maternal relatives are vital missing pieces.
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/16232330/detail.html

[Nut44x4]

Boulder County Sheriff
A picture of Katharine E. Farrand Dyer (left) and a facial reconstruction of Jane Doe (right). Investigators believe Dyer who went missing is the woman found along the banks of Boulder Creek.

[Nut44x4]

'Jane Doe' reburied in her former grave
Friday, September 26, 2008

Boulder's historic Columbia Cemetery is nearly full, so it's rare to have a burial and rarer still for a body or human remains to be interred a second time. But history was repeated on Sept. 9, when Jane Doe was returned to her former grave. The female murder victim was remembered by an "extended family" of people who continue to care for her. Again she rests in peace.

Jane Doe was the name given to a slender young woman whose naked and beaten body was found by two hikers in Boulder Canyon on April 8, 1954. Her face had been ravaged (by animals) beyond recognition, and intense publicity failed to bring forward anyone who knew her. Local citizens called her their "mystery girl," and they raised the funds for a plot, gravestone, and Christian funeral.

"We don't know who she was or what religion she followed," stated Coroner George Howe at the time. "We can only do what we think is right."

Fifty years later, in June 2004, the Boulder County Sheriff's Office exhumed Jane Doe's remains in the hopes that she could finally be identified with modern forensics. Her casket had disintegrated underground, and each bone was removed piece by piece -- a two-day process that resembled an archeological dig.

The victim's DNA was extracted from one of her teeth, and the subsequent profile was funded by another generation of generous donors. The process ruled out two missing women -- Marion Joan McDowell and Twylia May Embrey. A forensic anthropologist reassembled Jane Doe's skull, and a forensic artist sculpted a facial reconstruction, shown to a national audience on the television show "America's Most Wanted."

A group of six researchers, connected by the Internet but spread out all over the country, then began to whittle down a list of missing young women, finally settling on Katharine E. Farrand Dyer. The Denver elevator operator's physical description matched that of the victim, and she had been reported missing 13 days before Jane Doe's body was found. After that, her trail stopped cold.

Five months ago, a forensic anthropologist at Michigan State University compared Dyer's photograph to a cast of Jane Doe's reassembled skull. The two images matched so closely that Dyer could not be ruled out as Jane Doe.

Investigators today have much more information on Jane Doe than did their predecessors in 1954, but no family members of Dyer's have been found, so no DNA comparison has been made.

The Sheriff's Office was in charge of the re-interment, in coordination with Boulder City Parks officials who maintain Columbia Cemetery. Crist Mortuary generously provided a casket and vault and arranged for the opening and closing of the grave. A brief graveside service was officiated by Rev. Andy Wineman, a chaplain from the Boulder County Sheriff's Office.

Red gladioli from Sturtz & Copeland Florists were placed on her grave and replicated the same flowers sent "to someone's daughter" in 1954.

Although Dyer's name cannot be engraved on her stone until a positive DNA identification is made, the case remains open and a search for the victim's family continues.

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/sep/26/jane-doe-reburied-in-her-former-grave/

[Nut44x4]

Listed at: (more reconstruction models at link)
The Doe Network:
Case File 433UFCO
Unidentified White Female

The victim was discovered on April 8, 1954 in Boulder Creek, Colorado
Estimated Date of Death: 1 week
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vital Statistics

Estimated age: 17- 20 years old (Dob 1934 - 1937)
Approximate Height and Weight: 5'2"-5'4"; 100-110 lbs
Distinguishing Characteristics: Light brown hair, almost blonde with a tinge of red. Her hair did not appear to have been dyed or tinted.
Distinguishing Marks: Appendectomy scar
Clothing: None. Three bobby pins were located.
Dentals: Available. She had a perfect set of teeth with no fillings or cavities.
DNA: Available
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Case History
The victim was located on April 8, 1954, near Boulder Falls, a popular tourist spot about nine miles up Boulder Canyon.
She was dumped 300 yards downstream from the parking area of Boulder Falls, popular with both residents and tourists. Her body was thrown from the road down a very steep 29' embankment and landed on rocks on the edge of the creek. Her body was not visible from the road because the embankment was so steep. She was found when 2 college students were jumping from rock to rock in the creek.
Neither her clothing nor other evidence were found, despite an extensive search of the area. Missing person reports circulating at the time, were checked out by the sheriff, without success. Few clues have surfaced to aid in identifying the woman.

April 2008 The results of the photo-superimposition of Katharine E. Farrand Dyer's photo with the cast of Jane Doe's skull do not exclude Katharine as Jane Doe. This is not a positive identification, but it allows Katharine to continue to be considered as the victim. No family members for Katharine have been found to get a DNA comparison.

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/433ufco.html

[Nut44x4]

BRIEF TIMELINE FOR BOULDER JANE DOE

Body found by students, April 8, 1954. Condition: exposed to the elements for a week or more. No clothing or identification. Face had been ravaged (beyond recognition) by animals. Description: slender, 110 pounds, 62-63 inches. Age: Estimated at 20, based on a half-erupted wisdom tooth. (Recently, a forensic dentist determined that her wisdom teeth were impacted, stating that she was AT THE MINIMUM 20 years old, possibly older.) Burial at Columbia Cemetery, April 22, 1954. Case reopened February 4, 2004: then 

- Exhumation. - Skull reassembled. - DNA profiled.

- Facial reconstruction sculpted. - Case shown on Americas Most Wanted. - DNA ruled out Twylia May Embrey and Marion Joan McDowell. - Probable murderer (Harvey Glatman) identified.

- Researchers ruled out several missing women. - Researchers narrowed search to Katharine E. Farrand Dyer. - Katharines photo superimposed on a cast of Jane Does skull.

- Katharine not excluded as Jane Doe.

- Remains reburied, September 9, 2008.
http://www.boulderjanedoe.com/index.cfm

[grammybears]

I have to wonder if Katherine has any family available that DNA could be taken from. It has been over 50 years. I pray there will be answers one day. Even though it is too late for justice to be done for whoever this woman was at least there would be a record of who was involved.

[Nut44x4]

A couple of links re: Harvey Murray Glatman

http://www.courttv.com/archive/hannibal/glatman3.html

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/predators/glatman/1b.html

[Nut44x4]

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Publish Date: 8/20/2009

Daily Times-Call Boulder Jane Doe Archive
Boulder Jane Doe Archive

Woman not "Boulder Jane Doe"

The Boulder County Sheriff's Office on Thursday announced that a woman believed to have been the victim of a 1954 homicide has been found alive in Queensland, Australia. :shock:

Historian Siliva Pettem and Boulder County Sheriff's Detective Steve Ainsworth believed "Boulder Jane Doe" was likely a woman reported missing from Denver shortly before a woman's body was found in Boulder Canyon in 1954.

Katharine Farrand Dyer, 84, was located via an Internet contact. :faintTHUD: Eliminating Dyer as a possible identity for the young woman undoes much of the recent work on the cold case.

“While it’s a relief to know that Katharine is alive, it’s also discouraging in that we are back to square one with essentially no viable candidates for who ‘Jane Doe’ might be”, Operations Division Chief Phil West said in a prepared statement.

A woman who is a caretaker for Dyer in Australia found an address book among Dyer's belongings and searched the owner's name on the Internent, coming upon Pettem's "Boulder Jane Doe" Web site. The woman determined that the woman she knew as "Barbara" had lived under several aliases, including "Katharine Farrand." In order to protect the 84-year-old woman's privacy, the sheriff's office is not releasing her birth name or other aliases.

She has been living in Australia for the past 46 years!!! :groan:
http://www.timescall.com/news_story.asp?ID=17652

[packy]

To think she's been alive and well all these years. Wow!

[Storyteller]

Information on this 1954 Cold case can be found at Silvia Pettem's website listed below.


August 20, 2009, Press Release Issued by Silvia Pettem

The Boulder Jane Doe case has taken a major new twist. During the past few years, the press has appealed to the public to locate a family member of Katharine Farrand Dyer, thought to have been a possible candidate for the unknown victim in a 1954 homicide. Documents and photographs have recently surfaced that prove that Katharine was not Jane Doe.

(See the August 20, 2009 media release from the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office.)

The revelation occurred when a Queensland, Australia, resident moved an 84-year-old woman known to her as “Barbara Jones” into a nursing home. Prior to the move, the resident reread “Barbara’s” old faded address book and a divorce decree—belonging to “Katharine Farrand Dyer.”

Unfamiliar with the name, the resident and her sister started an internet search which led them to www.silviapettem.com, with archived articles from 1954, as well as many recently published articles that speculated that Katharine Farrand Dyer may have been the Jane Doe murder victim.

The Queensland residents then emailed Pettem, explaining that they had the address book as well as separation and divorce documents that proved Katharine’s post-1954 existence.

“Eliminating a lead in a cold case is progress,” said Pettem. “This new information is intriguing, and we would like to know more, but my fellow researchers and I are refocused on our initial purpose—to identify Jane Doe.”

Pettem and her internet-connected team of researchers had documented Katharine’s life from 1948 through 1954. Then, in March 1954, the young woman’s paper trail stopped abruptly, and the Denver Police Department filed her as a missing person—just 10 days before two college students found Jane Doe’s body.

With the newfound information from Katharine’s address book, Pettem is now in contact with Katharine’s brother and sister in Virginia. The sister described Katharine as “adventuresome, with a love of horses and a yearning to live in the West.” She stated that “Katharine” was not her birth name, but that she had adopted it because friends compared her looks to that of actress Katharine Hepburn.

The family had lost contact with Katharine throughout the years and had never heard of Boulder Jane Doe, but once they got over the shock of learning their family member had been a missing person, as well as a suspected victim in a homicide, they were able to fill in some of the gaps.

The sister (now age 79) revealed that Katharine had personal reasons to leave Denver when she did, and she then spent the next several months in Virginia. The sisters have not seen each other since 1955—a separation of 54 years— and they are in the process of re-establishing contact.

After leaving Virginia, Katharine moved to California, then Hawaii, and finally, in 1963, to Australia where she married again and became an Australian citizen. She had a one child, a daughter, who is now deceased.

“Katharine’s story, as unusual as it may be, has similarities to that of Twylia May Embrey, another woman once thought to have been Jane Doe,” said Pettem. “Finally located three weeks after she died, Twylia, too, had changed her names and started a new life far from home. The Jane Doe case brought closure to her family, and I hope it will do so for Katharine’s family, as well.”

http://www.silviapettem.com/JANE%20DOE%20articles/8-20-09Pettem.html

[Nut44x4]

New DNA tests underway in Boulder's 55-year-old Jane Doe case
Family came forward after last lead found living in Australia

Posted: 10/18/2009 05:03:41 PM MDT
Boulder County investigators are testing DNA that could solve the mystery of the identity of Boulder's Jane Doe, a young woman whose beaten and partially decomposed body was found in Boulder Canyon in April 1954.

Silvia Pettem -- a Boulder historian, author and Camera columnist who pushed for the cold case to be reopened -- on Sunday said she was contacted a few weeks ago by a woman who thought Jane Doe might be her long-lost sister.

Pettem said the woman didn't come forward earlier because it appeared Jane Doe was Katharine Farrand Dyer, who was reported missing to Denver police in late March 1954.

But Dyer recently was found alive and well in Queensland, Australia, where she has been living since 1963 under the name Barbara Jones.

Pettem said the Boulder County Sheriff's Office is comparing DNA from the exhumed body of Jane Doe with that of the woman's missing sister, and results are expected soon.

"I'm as anxious as everyone else to learn the results," Pettem said.

Pettem, who convinced police to reopen the case in 2004, raised private money to have Jane Doe's body exhumed and to have DNA testing and a facial reconstruction done. She also combed newspaper and police archives searching for young women who had gone missing in the months before the body was found by two college students.

Enough DNA was recovered from Jane Doe to put a complete profile into several missing-persons databases, and anyone who is related to a missing person from that time period can have his or her own DNA profile compared to Doe's.

http://www.dailycamera.com/boulder-county-news/ci_13590397#

[packy]

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/images/433UFCO3.jpg

Reconstruction from Nut's link above. More views at link. http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/433ufco.html

[TigressPen]

I hope the Jane Doe is the sister to the new person who has come forward if her sister is indeed deceased. As awesome as it would be to have her sister also found alive, the odds are against that happening a 3rd time.

Jane Doe has brought two families closure already, her spirit lives on. She has done in death what LE was unable to do.

[Claycat]

What an interesting case. I do hope they find out who she belongs to at last!

[Grande]

Positive Identification of Victim in 1954 "Jane Doe" Homicide case
MEDIA RELEASE
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

TO: Boulder County Area Media
FROM: Cmdr. Rick Brough, #303-441-3631
RE: Positive Identification of 1954 “Jane Doe” Homicide Victim
Case #04-2822

Sheriff Joe Pelle announced today that a positive identification has been made of the victim in a decades old homicide investigation.

The battered and naked body of “Jane Doe”, an unidentified female homicide victim, was found along the banks of Boulder Creek near Boulder Falls, eight miles west of Boulder, on April 8th, 1954. Despite an intensive investigation at the time, she was never identified. Her body was buried in Boulder’s Columbia Cemetery in a simple grave beneath a donated headstone that read
“Jane Doe – April 1954 - Age About 20 Years”.

In 2004, the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, prompted by local Boulder historian Silvia Pettem, resurrected the investigation. With funds contributed by the community, the donated expertise of several forensic authorities, and Pettem’s able assistance as a researcher, Sheriff’s detectives made significant progress in furthering the investigation, utilizing modern investigative methods. Notably, an exhumation in 2004 and an artist’s recreation of “Jane Doe’s” face from her re-constructed skull provided a DNA profile and an image that caught the public’s attention, respectively. The case received extensive regional publicity and was featured in an episode of “America’s Most Wanted” television program. Still, “Jane Doe’s” identity eluded Sheriff’s investigators and a cadre of private volunteer researchers coordinated by Ms. Pettem.

However, late last week that all changed. The Sheriff’s Office was notified by Dr. Terry Melton, president and CEO of Mitotyping Technologies, LLC, of State College, Pennsylvania, that her lab had made a match between “Jane Doe’s” DNA profile and that of a woman who thought the unidentified murder victim might be her long-lost sister.

“Jane Doe” was positively identified as Dorothy Gay Howard, who was reported as missing from Phoenix, Arizona, in March 1954. She was 18 years old at the time of her disappearance. A photograph accompanies this media release.

Ms. Howard’s great-niece, whose identity is not being released at this time at her request, had been following “Jane Doe’s” saga on-line via Ms. Pettem’s “Jane Doe” web-site, www.boulderjanedoe.com, but did not pursue her suspicions that “Jane Doe” might be her great-aunt “Dot” as investigators had focused on another likely candidate, Katharine Farrand Dyer. However, when Ms. Dyer was discovered alive and well and living in an assisted living center in Australia last month, Dot’s great-niece came forward and proposed her great aunt as a possible candidate for a match for “Jane Doe”. She provided information about another aunt, a younger sibling of Ms. Howard’s, who in turn provided a DNA sample that was then compared against “Jane Doe’s” profile, establishing a matrilineal family match.

Ms. Pettem, who recently authored the book, “Someone’s Daughter: In Search of Justice for Jane Doe” which chronicles her quest to identify the young woman, commented, “In recent years, the search for Jane Doe’s identity has spread around the world, touching the lives of thousands of people, including me. I feel sadness for her tragic death, but relief that her family now has closure. I look forward to Dorothy’s real name on a new gravestone, and I’m proud to have played in solving this mystery”.

Sheriff Joe Pelle commended Ms. Pettem’s skills as a researcher and her persistence in pushing the investigation forward, while complimenting Sheriff’s Detective Steve Ainsworth, who has diligently pursued and documented every lead in the case. Together, they built a compelling circumstantial case for naming serial-killer Harvey Glatman (executed in California in 1959 for the murder of three other women) as Ms. Howard’s murderer. Detective Ainsworth said, “With her identification, a major piece of the puzzle has been added. I’m confident now that we will be able to find the missing links that will tie this all together”.

Ms. Howard’s surviving family members have expressed their preference that she remain interred in Boulder’s Columbia Cemetery. Ms. Pettem, with Sheriff Pelle’s cooperation, has announced a fund drive to purchase a new headstone for Ms. Howard. Donations may be made to the “Jane Doe Fund”, c/o the Boulder History Museum, 1206 Euclid Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302

This media release may be found on the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office web-site at: www.bouldersheriff.org

http://www.bouldercounty.org/newsroom/articlefiles/1880-DotHoward.GIF
Dorothy Gay Howard, age 17, circa 1953

http://www.bouldercounty.org/newsroom/articlefiles/1880-Jane%20Doe%20Press%20Conference%
Forensic artist Frank Bender's recreation of Jane Doe's facial features, 2005

Detective Commander Rick Brough
Boulder County Sheriff's Office
303-441-3631

http://www.bouldercounty.org/newsroom/templates/bocosheriff.aspx?articleid=1880&zoneid=2

[Nut44x4]

OMG WoW!! What a true beauty! May she now RIP
Thanks Grande!!!

[packy]

Wow is right. After all these years and with the help of Silvia Pettem and all who worked to find out who she was she now has her rightful name. May she rest in peace.

[texanne]

She must be smiling from Heaven that her family now has closure, and her remains can be placed where her family will know she is there.

[Amusedtdth]

OMG WoW!! What a true beauty! May she now RIP
Thanks Grande!!!

When I saw the pic I thought the same thing...Wow...and only what? 17? I have a pic of my mom @ 19 in like 1949 - 50 or so and the women back then....what a diff from today.
I'm happy this family fianlly knows what happened to their loved one.

[Nut44x4]

‘Jane Doe’ was local man’s missing cousin

November 03, 2009
When A.C. Ralston’s older cousin went missing from Phoenix, Ariz. in 1954, the family hoped and prayed the 18-year-old beauty hit the road to pursue her Hollywood dream. Ralston was only 5 at the time of the disappearance and he remembers his cousin’s aspirations to be a model or movie star.

“She was beautiful,” Ralston said.

When Dorothy Gay Howard, her family called her Dot, disappeared, her family assumed as she came into young adulthood that she simply changed her name for the movies and would one day return home or at least contact them, said Ralston, who now lives in San Mateo.

But she never did.

At about the same time Howard went missing, a woman’s nude and battered body was found along a Boulder, Colo. creek April 8, 1954. Law officials were unable to identify the body that was eventually buried under a gravestone that reads “Jane Doe — April 1954 — Age About 20 Years.”

The case was closed on Jane Doe until 2004, when an aspiring writer and historian, Silvia Pettem, led an effort to identify the body. The skeletal remains of Jane Doe were exhumed to profile her DNA and create a facial reconstruction.

Jane Doe was reburied Sept. 9, 2008 with law enforcement officials still unsure of her identity.

But on Wednesday, Oct. 28, Boulder Sheriff Joe Pelle announced a positive identification of Jane Doe. Forensics determined the body to be that of Dorothy Gay Howard, Ralston’s long-lost cousin. Her DNA was matched to another member of the family.

Boulder police are speculating Howard’s killer may have been serial killer Harvey Glatman, executed in 1959 at San Quentin. Glatman, who confessed to killing three women, had served time in a Colorado state prison for violent assaults on women before Jane Doe was discovered, according to the Boulder Sheriff’s Office.

Howard’s parents and older sister are now dead, but she is survived by her younger sister Marlene, who is overwhelmed with sadness by the news, Ralston, 60, said.

“Her little sister was always looking for her. She mistakenly thought other women might be her sister,” Ralston said. “We were expecting to run into her at some point.”

The family, however, felt abandoned by the young woman, Ralston said.

“As we were growing up, we were wondering if she would ever come back,” he said.

Now that the truth about his cousin’s past has become clear, Ralston almost wishes he didn’t know what happened.

“It makes you sick. It’s so sad. It could have turned out a lot different than this. This is the worst,” he said. “It doesn’t help to know the truth. It’s best her parents didn’t find out, or her older sister. I’m so sad for her younger sister.”

Now that Ralston knows what happened to Howard, it has become important to him to find out who her killer is.

“If it was Glatman, he shouldn’t have ever been let out of jail to commit another crime like this. Too many times these things happen,” he said.

Glatman was known as the “The Lonely Hearts Killer” by the media.

Although Ralston is not necessarily relieved to know the truth, he does commend author Silvia Pettem for helping to solve the case.

“I commend her for her effort. But it also highlights that someone dropped the ball on this. It didn’t have to go this long without knowing who Jane Doe was,” Ralston said.

Pettem is the author of “Someone’s Daughter: In Search of Justice for Jane Doe,” published just a few days before police revealed Dorothy Gay Howard was the woman whose body lay beneath the gravestone whose identity remained a secret for 55 years.

Ralston has lived in San Mateo for 40 years and owns the Peninsula German Car Service on 17th Avenue. He was also the commanding officer of the San Mateo American Legion Post 82 for 13 years.

His memory is blurry from the days he was just 5 years old when he lived down the street from his aspiring movie-star cousin.

He remained close to her parents though, the two families left Phoenix after Howard’s disappearance and moved together to Scottsdale, Ariz. Howard’s father even drove out with Ralston’s family when they relocated to San Mateo 40 years ago.

It has been a while since he’s seen Dorothy’s little sister Marlene. He doesn’t keep in touch with that part of the family too much. He does hope Marlene is OK after hearing the tragic news, though. News he wishes he never had to hear.

http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=119139

[LiveLaughLuv]

Rest In Peace Dot :1222423:

This reminds me of the show "the missing". This womans determination to have a name for this unidentified Jane Doe is refreshing. I'm very happy through technology, DNA brought this woman home, with a name and a purpose..:1222423:

[Silvia Pettem]

For more information on this case, see www.silviapettem.com

Yes, she was a beautiful woman. I feel sadness but also relief that we now have the identity of Boulder Jane Doe.

[LiveLaughLuv]

Welcome to HFTM, Silvia Pettem :howdy:

If you are Silvia, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your stife and determination in putting a name to the face of this woman missing so many years..:give_rose:

If we were so happy knowing she has been identified, I can imagine her family and friends.

It's an honor to have you on our site and know we will learn much from you...

Thanks again

[Silvia Pettem]

Yes, I'm Silvia, and I thank you and everyone who has followed this case. I consider all of you Dorothy Gay Howard's extended family.

[LiveLaughLuv]

JANE DOE POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED AS DOROTHY GAY HOWARD – READ SHERIFF'S OFFICE PRESS RELEASE

A young woman, known only as "Jane Doe" was beaten and left to die, in April 1954, west of Boulder, Colorado. The local community raised the funds to bury her; then 50 years later they rallied again to exhume her skeletal remains, profile her DNA, and complete a facial reconstruction – initially in the hopes of providing an identification and returning her remains to her family.

After the case took several twists and turns, the victim was reburied on September 9, 2008, in her former grave in Columbia Cemetery. Through the joint efforts of many people, her life has been acknowledged and a careful investigation has attempted to restore the dignity that was taken from her during the last hours of her life.

Her killer is believed to have been Harvey Glatman.

Although written many years ago, the words of Alexander Pope's "Elegy to an Unfortunate Lady" are equally appropriate today –

By foreign hands your dying eyes were closed.
By foreign hands your comely limbs composed.
By foreign hands your humble grave adorned.
By strangers honored and by strangers mourned.
http://www.silviapettem.com/Jane%20Doe.html


I'm on my way out to vote but did briefly look at your website. I found the press release and hope you don't mind that I've posted it. I'll have more time when I return to look into the POI in Dorothy's demise..thank you again.

[LiveLaughLuv]

Yes, I'm Silvia, and I thank you and everyone who has followed this case. I consider all of you Dorothy Gay Howard's extended family.

:11_2_104:

Thank you Silvia as you are her Guardian Angel.

God Bless you and the work you do. :yes2:

[Silvia Pettem]

Here's the Sheriff's press release (what you posted above is from my website, www.silviapettem.com):

Positive Identification of Victim in 1954 "Jane Doe" Homicide case

MEDIA RELEASE Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

TO: Boulder County Area Media

FROM: Cmdr. Rick Brough, #303-441-3631

RE: Positive Identification of 1954 “Jane Doe” Homicide Victim

Case #04-2822

Sheriff Joe Pelle announced today that a positive identification has been made of the victim in a decades old homicide investigation.


The battered and naked body of “Jane Doe”, an unidentified female homicide victim, was found along the banks of Boulder Creek near Boulder Falls, eight miles west of Boulder, on April 8th, 1954. Despite an intensive investigation at the time, she was never identified. Her body was buried in Boulder’s Columbia Cemetery in a simple grave beneath a donated headstone that read
“Jane Doe – April 1954 - Age About 20 Years”.

In 2004, the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, prompted by local Boulder historian Silvia Pettem, resurrected the investigation. With funds contributed by the community, the donated expertise of several forensic authorities, and Pettem’s able assistance as a researcher, Sheriff’s detectives made significant progress in furthering the investigation, utilizing modern investigative methods. Notably, an exhumation in 2004 and an artist’s recreation of “Jane Doe’s” face from her re-constructed skull provided a DNA profile and an image that caught the public’s attention, respectively. The case received extensive regional publicity and was featured in an episode of “America’s Most Wanted” television program. Still, “Jane Doe’s” identity eluded Sheriff’s investigators and a cadre of private volunteer researchers coordinated by Ms. Pettem.

However, late last week that all changed. The Sheriff’s Office was notified by Dr. Terry Melton, president and CEO of Mitotyping Technologies, LLC, of State College, Pennsylvania, that her lab had made a match between “Jane Doe’s” DNA profile and that of a woman who thought the unidentified murder victim might be her long-lost sister.

“Jane Doe” was positively identified as Dorothy Gay Howard, who was reported as missing from Phoenix, Arizona, in March 1954. She was 18 years old at the time of her disappearance. A photograph accompanies this media release.

Ms. Howard’s great-niece, whose identity is not being released at this time at her request, had been following “Jane Doe’s” saga on-line via Ms. Pettem’s “Jane Doe” web-site, www.boulderjanedoe.com, but did not pursue her suspicions that “Jane Doe” might be her great-aunt “Dot” as investigators had focused on another likely candidate, Katharine Farrand Dyer. However, when Ms. Dyer was discovered alive and well and living in an assisted living center in Australia last month, Dot’s great-niece came forward and proposed her great aunt as a possible candidate for a match for “Jane Doe”. She provided information about another aunt, a younger sibling of Ms. Howard’s, who in turn provided a DNA sample that was then compared against “Jane Doe’s” profile, establishing a matrilineal family match.

Ms. Pettem, who recently authored the book, “Someone’s Daughter: In Search of Justice for Jane Doe” which chronicles her quest to identify the young woman, commented, “In recent years, the search for Jane Doe’s identity has spread around the world, touching the lives of thousands of people, including me. I feel sadness for her tragic death, but relief that her family now has closure. I look forward to Dorothy’s real name on a new gravestone, and I’m proud to have played a part in solving this mystery”.

Sheriff Joe Pelle commended Ms. Pettem’s skills as a researcher and her persistence in pushing the investigation forward, while complimenting Sheriff’s Detective Steve Ainsworth, who has diligently pursued and documented every lead in the case. Together, they built a compelling circumstantial case for naming serial-killer Harvey Glatman (executed in California in 1959 for the murder of three other women) as Ms. Howard’s murderer. Detective Ainsworth said, “With her identification, a major piece of the puzzle has been added. I’m confident now that we will be able to find the missing links that will tie this all together”.

Ms. Howard’s surviving family members have expressed their preference that she remain interred in Boulder’s Columbia Cemetery. Ms. Pettem, with Sheriff Pelle’s cooperation, has announced a fund drive to purchase a new headstone for Ms. Howard. Donations may be made to the “Jane Doe Fund”, c/o the Boulder History Museum, 1206 Euclid Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302

This media release may be found on the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office web-site at: www.bouldersheriff.org

[Nut44x4]

Missing Ariz. teen's family finally knows her fate
By AMANDA LEE MYERS (AP) – 42 minutes ago

PHOENIX — Dorothy Gay Howard's family spent 55 years not knowing.

Not knowing if she had been killed, and if so, how or who did it. Not knowing whether the rebellious young woman was alive somewhere or if she wanted to see them. Not knowing whether they ever would know for sure what happened to her.

Howard, of Phoenix, disappeared in 1954 when she was 18. Only one surviving person in her immediate family, her younger sister Marlene Howard Ashman, was alive when the not knowing finally ended last month.

It took a determined family member, a historian and a detective to realize that Howard could be "Jane Doe," a young woman whose nude and battered body was found along a Boulder, Colo., creek in 1954. It took a DNA test to confirm their suspicions.

Howard's family is relieved to finally know her fate but is grappling with the fact that she was murdered and aching to know who killed her.

"It was just complete and utter shock," said Ashman, who lives in Mena, Ark., but spoke to The Associated Press from Newport, N.C., where she was visiting her daughter.

"All these 55 years, I guess I learned as a child to put it in an abstract form so I could deal with it; it's easier to accept," Ashman said. "But now that I know, it isn't so much that she died, but the horrible death."

Boulder County Sheriff's Detective Steve Ainsworth, the lead investigator in the case, said Howard died of blunt-force trauma. She couldn't be identified because her body was found a week after she was killed, and animals had gotten to her face and fingers.

At the time, the mystery made headlines across Colorado, and Boulder residents raised enough money to buy her a gravestone, which read "Jane Doe — April 1954 — Age About 20 Years."

Boulder County sheriff's officials have credited historian Silvia Pettem with encouraging them to renew efforts to identify Jane Doe. Pettem became interested in the woman and her story after visiting the cemetery in the 1990s and writing the book "Someone's Daughter, In Search of Justice for Jane Doe."

Meanwhile, Howard's grandniece Michelle Marie Fowler decided to contact Ainsworth after reading an article about Jane Doe and suspecting for years that Howard had been killed.

Ainsworth asked Ashman to provide a DNA sample, and the family learned Oct. 23 that Ashman and Jane Doe were related.

Ainsworth said it was gratifying to tell Howard's family what had happened to her, but he now has a new focus.

"We know who she is, but there's still another mystery and that may be the biggest mystery of all, and that's who did it," Ainsworth said.

He said his gut tells him it was serial killer Harvey Glatman, who was executed in 1959 in California. Glatman, who confessed to killing three women, had served time in a Colorado state prison for violent assaults on women, including one about a quarter of a mile from where Howard's body was found.

Because of marks on her body, evidence at the scene and a passing reference Glatman made to a California police detective, Ainsworth's theory is that Glatman hit Howard with his car as she tried to get away. Now, Ainsworth just has to prove it.

Ashman said all she wants is justice for her sister.

She said Howard was extremely strong-willed and lived quite a life in her 18 years, including marrying twice. "Once she decided on a course, it would take heaven and earth to stop her," Ashman said.

Petite and attractive with dirty blond hair, Howard was the oldest of three sisters born in the Texas Panhandle. The girls' parents moved the family to Phoenix in 1942 for "greener pastures."

Howard married her first husband at age 15 with her parents' permission, but she got divorced and remarried unbeknownst to her family, Ashman said. The family found out about the second marriage years after Howard disappeared.

Howard was working as a live-in nanny in Phoenix the last her family heard from her; they reported her missing when she didn't show up to take one of her sisters to the movies.

Because Howard was so willful and had run away from home once before, Ashman said the family thought she just didn't want to see them again. "We always waited to hear from her," she said.

Ashman still has a letter that her sister wrote to her parents soon before she disappeared.

"She just said, 'Here's some money to help out,'" Ashman said. "She signed it, 'Love always, Dot.'"

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gW-P6LFUmyCvy6b5YixVGayDj8dwD9BOD5K80

[foxfarmboxers]

Silvia, I too commend you for your 'heart' and true determination to discover Dorothy's identity. Having personal experience of a missing loved one who has yet to be found, I can only imagine the relief that her family must feel, after all these years. We need more individuals like you in this world. Thank you.

[Silvia Pettem]

Tune in tonight (1/23/10) to Fox's "America's Most Wanted" for an update on the Boulder Jane Doe/ Dorothy Gay Howard story, as well as on the probable murderer, Harvey Glatman. The case will be one segment in the hour-long show. To view it afterwards, see http://www.fox.com/fod/play.php?sh=amw# Thanks, Silvia

[Roamer]

Thanks for the update, Silvia.

[Jute]

:11_2_104:

Thank you Silvia as you are her Guardian Angel.

God Bless you and the work you do. :yes2:

Tune in tonight (1/23/10) to Fox's "America's Most Wanted" for an update on the Boulder Jane Doe/ Dorothy Gay Howard story, as well as on the probable murderer, Harvey Glatman. The case will be one segment in the hour-long show. To view it afterwards, see http://www.fox.com/fod/play.php?sh=amw# Thanks, Silvia

As Luv said, Silvia, God Bless you for your efforts. My admiration and appreciation for you are too great to go into here. Yes, you are Dorothy's Guardian Angel. Your work has given Dorothy's family answers and, I believe, will now allow Dorothy to truly Rest in Peace. Thank you. :give_rose:

[LiveLaughLuv]

Tune in tonight (1/23/10) to Fox's "America's Most Wanted" for an update on the Boulder Jane Doe/ Dorothy Gay Howard story, as well as on the probable murderer, Harvey Glatman. The case will be one segment in the hour-long show. To view it afterwards, see http://www.fox.com/fod/play.php?sh=amw# Thanks, Silvia

I watched this...her great neice, whom she never met, was determined to find out what happened to her great aunt Dot..and this woman did. She got in contact with Detective Ainsworth, who had a gut feeling this woman may be onto something, so they took DNA sent it to the lab and after two weeks, they had their name for their Bolder Jane Doe...Bless this woman and her determination...or Dot would never have been named after 50+ years..:1222423:

Rest in Peace Dot :1222423:
You have been searched for, for years. Your great neice found you...God Rest your soul..

They are now on a new mission to find out who killed her. There was the first serial killer who has been named as a possible suspect but he was put to death in the late '50's..



Silvia, 'was that you on this segment???? going through books and finding Dot may be connected to that serial killer who already had been put to death??? Great work, again...God Bless you for not giving up..:1222423:






Unknown Dorothy "Dot" Gay Howard Killer Report a Tip

Decades-old Murder Victim Finally Identified


View Larger

A facial reconstruction of Boulder Jane Doe.

The story of Boulder Jane Doe began in April 1954 when two college students found the body of a young woman who had been stripped, beaten and left to die on the banks of Boulder Creek. Police say she was discovered a week after her death. Furthermore, authorities believe that she was still alive after she had been dumped down the embankment.

The 17- to 20-year-old had perfect teeth and couldn't be identified by dental records. Police say the only distinguishable things about the 5-foot-3-inch, 100-pound victim was an appendectomy scar and three bobby pins in her reddish blond hair. Boulder residents gave the unidentified girl a burial and a headstone reading "Jane Doe. April 1954. Age About 20 Years."

Police say that Boulder Jane Doe was never identified, and her killer was never caught. However, the case was re-opened recently, and the Boulder County Sheriff's Department has been working with forensic teams to uncover more clues in the mystery.

In 2004, the body was exhumed to provide material for DNA analysis as well as a facial reconstruction by renowned forensic sculptor Frank Bender. Bender was able to recreate a mold of how Boulder Jane Doe may have looked. Also, forensic experts say that bone fragments may indicate that she was hit with a car before being dumped in the ravine.

While authorities had generated leads from this new forensic evidence, it would be a local author and historian who would bring police information that could possibly identify the man who killed Boulder Jane Doe.
http://www.amw.com/fugitives/case.cfm?id=39636

[Silvia Pettem]

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, that was me on AMW. For more info, please go to www.boulderjanedoe.com and particularly read the EPILOGUE that I posted there. The Epilogue is to my book "Someone's Daughter: In Search of Justice for Jane Doe." May she rest in peace.

[Amusedtdth]

God Bless you Silvia for you dedication and perserverience. Give yourself one BIG ATTA GIRL pat on the back!