Boulder Jane Doe (ID'd as DOROTHY GAY HOWARD) case, Apr. 1954, CO - Page 2

Storyteller · 08-21-2009, 07:40 PM

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%20D...-09Pettem.html

Nut44x4 · 10-18-2009, 07:42 PM

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-c...s/ci_13590397#

packy · 10-18-2009, 08:10 PM

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

TigressPen · 10-19-2009, 08:41 AM

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 · 10-19-2009, 04:02 PM

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

Grande · 10-28-2009, 03:41 PM

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

Dorothy Gay Howard, age 17, circa 1953

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/newsroo...=1880&zoneid=2

Nut44x4 · 10-28-2009, 03:49 PM

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

packy · 10-28-2009, 04:05 PM

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 · 10-28-2009, 07:01 PM

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 · 10-28-2009, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nut44x4

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.

08-21-2009, 07:40 PM	#11
Storyteller New Member Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 2	Boulder Jane Doe... Katharine Dyer found alive 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%20D...-09Pettem.html

10-18-2009, 07:42 PM	#12
Nut44x4 Super Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Maine - USA Posts: 7,740	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-c...s/ci_13590397# __________________ ...and Justice for All...

10-18-2009, 08:10 PM	#13
packy Super Moderator Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: IL Posts: 11,249	Reconstruction from Nut's link above. More views at link. http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/433ufco.html __________________ TEAM www.helpfindthemissing.org My statements are my opinion only.

10-28-2009, 03:41 PM	#16
Grande Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 8,907	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 Dorothy Gay Howard, age 17, circa 1953 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/newsroo...=1880&zoneid=2 __________________ TEAM www.helpfindthemissing.org My comments are a reflection of my opinion.

10-28-2009, 03:49 PM	#17
Nut44x4 Super Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Maine - USA Posts: 7,740	OMG WoW!! What a true beauty! May she now RIP Thanks Grande!!! __________________ ...and Justice for All...

10-19-2009, 08:41 AM	#14
TigressPen Super Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 10,439 View My Homepage	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.

10-19-2009, 04:02 PM	#15
Claycat Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: central Texas Posts: 1,750	What an interesting case. I do hope they find out who she belongs to at last!

10-28-2009, 04:05 PM	#18
packy Super Moderator Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: IL Posts: 11,249	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. __________________ TEAM www.helpfindthemissing.org My statements are my opinion only.

10-28-2009, 07:01 PM	#19
texanne Super Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Texas Gulf Coast Posts: 4,722	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.

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