OH OH - Smith Twp, Sebring, WhtFem 30-40, UP8546, 6' 2" (74 inches), in drainage ditch, Oct'76

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Some information from NamUs profile provided below, but please always refer to complete up-to-date profile at link. I did not find a Doe Network profile for this UID nor an entry in the Ohio Attorney General unidentified remains listings.

This UID has little information available on the NamUs entry. Not clear whether that's because there really isn't any, or because it was never fully entered.

NamUs UP # 8546
https://identifyus.org/cases/8546

Unidentified white female

Date found: October 4, 1976
Location found: Sebring, Mahoning County, Ohio
Estimated postmortem interval: Died in 1976
Body conditions: Not recognizable - Near complete or complete skeleton

Physical description

Estimated age: Cannot determine
Race: White
Sex: Female
Height: 74 inches (6' 2"), estimated
Weight: 180 lb, estimated
Hair color: Not stated
Eye color: Unknown or missing

Distinguishing features: None provided

Dentals: Dental information / charting is currently not available
Fingerprints: Fingerprint information is currently not available
DNA: Sample is currently not available

Contacts

Local Medical Examiner/Coroner Contact
Name: David Kennedy
Agency: Mahoning County Coroner's Office
Phone: (330) 740-2175

Case Manager
Name: Courtney Bouchie
Phone: (330) 740-2175

I found an e-mail address for Mahoning County coroner David Kennedy here:
http://www.mahoningcountyoh.gov/Dep...er/ContactInformation/tabid/1011/Default.aspx
 
Annita Maria Musto Price looks plausible, at least within the bounds of the very little data available for the UID. The height overlap is eyecatching. Her car was found outside Moundsville, WV on the northbound route toward Wheeling, WV. Sebring, OH, where the UID was located, is about 90 miles or 2 hours' drive north of Moundsville, WV. No rule-outs are listed for the UID.

West Virginia State Police: Cold Case Files
http://www.wvsp.gov/Pages/ColdCaseFiles.aspx
West Virginia State Police said:
Annita Price was last seen on May 30, 1974, at approximately 2045 hours when she left for her place of employment, the Flamingo Club, in Benwood, West Virginia. The car Ms. Price was driving was found along WV Route 2 at 12th Street in McMechan, WV, just north of Moundsville, WV. Ms. Price never arrived at work and was never seen again. Ms. Price has distinctive scars on her left arm and torso from severe burns when she was a child. It is believed that Annita Price's disappearance is connected to foul play in some manner. Anyone who may have information about the disappearance of Annita Price is asked to contact Sergeant Danny Swiger at 304-329-1101 or your local State Police Detachment.
Click to expand...

The Doe Network Case File 1788DFWV: Annita Maria Price
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/1788dfwv.html

NamUs MP # 51
https://www.findthemissing.org/cases/51
DNA: Sample submitted - Tests complete

The Charley Project: Annita Maria Price
http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/p/price_annita.html

attachment.php
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Missing Since: May 30, 1974 from Moundsville, West Virginia
Classification: Endangered Missing
Date Of Birth: March 20, 1947
Age: 27 years old
Height and Weight: 6'0, 155 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Brown hair, blue eyes. Price's middle name may be given as "Marie." She sustained severe burns in a childhood accident and has extensive scars across her entire torso from her neck to her upper thighs, as well as on her left arm. The injuries may also be apparent in her bone structure. Price's maiden name is Musto.
Clothing/Jewelry Description: Yellow shorts and a blue shirt.

[snip]

Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
West Virginia State Police
Moundsville Station
(304) 329-1101

WV WV - Annita Price, 27, Moundsville, 30 May 1974 - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community
 

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Any thoughts on this? I'm puzzled in part because this seems like a too-obvious rule-out. Furthermore, the NamUs UP entry is so bare-bones I'm not wholly convinced it's good data. However, it's a very old case and a cross-jurisdiction possible match, which leaves a lot of opening for it to have been missed.

I am aware that there are basically no confirmatory identifying data listed in the NamUs UP entry. My hope is that the coroner's office either has some that haven't ever been entered into NamUs, or that if they felt it reasonable, they could seek DNA extraction from any remains they still have on hand. Annita Price has mtDNA available, according to her Doe Network entry.

I'm likely to suggest this via e-mail to the Mahoning County coroner address provided in the link above within the next day or two, if no one knows of any objections.

Edited to add: I didn't realize that CUE Center for Missing Persons has Annita Price's daughter as their Virginia state director. That makes it even less likely that this possible match would have been missed. Still... The article below includes an e-mail address for her.

Chesterfield Observer: Still searching: When missing persons cases go cold, the real work begins
http://www.chesterfieldobserver.com/news/2013-10-23/Family/Still_searching.html
 
I am sort of hesitant to ask this, but 74" is very tall for a woman and the DNA sample is listed as being currently unavailable. Is LE sure that the UID is a woman?
 
Ambercat said:
I am sort of hesitant to ask this, but 74" is very tall for a woman and the DNA sample is listed as being currently unavailable. Is LE sure that the UID is a woman?
Click to expand...

I'm curious about this too. My first thought was possibly a man with Klinefelter's syndrome (above average height + feminine skeletal characteristics).
 
Yeah, I wondered about that, but 1. there is a six-foot-tall missing XX (assuming Annita Price's children are biological) female within a 100-mile radius, and 2. from our end the speculations aren't really relevant for a first inquiry or submission — we'd need to contact them for confirmation regardless.

I do plan to ask about the sex identification, so will post the response. I don't think it's any terrible harm to look for male-identified MPs in the meantime, but for practical purposes, until we hear otherwise, it's probably wisest to assume the UID is female.

I worry about this occasionally. Apart from the simple issue of miscoding "male" vs. "female" when entering data, MPs/UIDs with intersex conditions or with varying gender identity/presentation unquestionably exist. But I've never seen anything about forensic standards designed to handle those cases, or databases accounting for chromosomal sex, phenotypic sex, and gender presentation. Granted that the usual methods are adequate 9 times out of 10, but it seems inevitable that some very vulnerable people are lost to possible matches that 10th time.
 
I dug around to see if I could turn up any early local press. The identification as female appears pretty firm, but what I've found so far makes me doubtful that this UID is Annita Maria Price. Worse still, it sounds like the UID's remains were cremated and no longer exist.

The discrepant degree of decomposition between upper and lower torso is interesting. I don't know enough about that kind of thing to know whether it's noteworthy in this specific case.

I won't transcribe the articles, which I attached below, but here are the essentials:

Unidentified white female
Located: October 4, 1976 in a wooded ditch near 12th Street and South Range Road, north of Sebring, in Smith Township, Mahoning County, Ohio
Estimated age: 30 to 40 years, but perhaps as young as 15
Height: About 6 feet (72 inches)
Weight: "Heavyset"
Hair color: Not stated
Eye color: Decomposed
Estimated postmortem interval: 6 to 8 months
Body conditions: Not recognizable; upper trunk nearly fleshless, lower half mostly intact; body had been decapitated
Distinguishing characteristics: Edentulous (having no teeth). Dentures located near remains.
Clothing/accessories: Dressed in socks and green slacks. Hair pick (as used for Afro hair) found in left sock. Blue patent leather belt located near remains.

Youngstown Vindicator: October 5, 1976
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=pqgf-8x9CmQC&dat=19761005&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
attachment.php


Youngstown Vindicator: October 6, 1976
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=pqgf-8x9CmQC&dat=19761006&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
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From NAMUS, MP white females between 71-74 inches in height that went missing 1976 or earlier:

Annita Price, missing since 1974 mentioned in above discussion.

Helen Stark https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/21890/31/ missing from WI since 1946, Height listed as 69-72 inches. "Helen was stocky in build...."

Carmen Hallock from FL, missing since 1969 https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/13067/30/ Height is listed as between 60-72 inches.

Barbara Tolbert missing from CA since June 1973 https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/12668/3/ height 69-71 inches. "short hair, just past her ears, small close set eyes"

Janice Baze, missing from El Paso TX since July 1974 https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/1630/1/ height 69-71 inches

There is one African-American woman, Marion Hawkins, missing from CA since Oct. 1975 https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/12010/0/. Marion's height is listed as 71 inches.
I am listing Marion because in the news article posted above, it is mentioned that a hair pick, of the type used in Afro hairstyles of the 1970's, was found in the UID's left sock.


Janice Baze fits the age range. Also, Janice's weight is listed as being between 280-320 lbs at the time she disappeared. The other missing women were all in their 20's.
 
Literally nothing new -- the Namus page hasn't been updated since it was created.

If somebody feels like calling to see if there's more information, I think this is the person to contact: Courtney Bouchie, D-ABMDI, Unidentified Remains Specialist at Mahoning County Coroner's Office cbouchie@mahoningcountyoh.gov
 
Saying as there was a hair pick in her sock and no hair was found on the body, I feel like there's a decently high chance she was black or biracial.

Also, since there's no DNA, is it possible she was transgender? That would explain her height. I know of at least one case (Julie Doe in Florida) where a UID was thought to be biologically female until DNA was processed, then it was discovered she was trans.
Also also, NamUs says she's 180 lbs, which doesn't seem that 'heavyset' given how tall she was. My dad is around that weight and is also 6'2" and I'd say he's tall and lanky. Maybe she just had a larger bone structure but wasn't actually that heavy (at least for her height)?
 
Youngstown police and the Mahoning County Coroner’s Office are trying to identify two bodies found in the city, one stretching back 41 years, but they do not have a lot to go on.

The coroner’s office is also looking for help identifying a body found in 1976, but again, there is almost no evidence in that case.

Gaetano also does not have much to work with in identifying a woman who was found Oct. 4, 1976, on South Range Road by an Ohio Edison work crew.

It was estimated at the time that the woman had been dead for six to eight months before she was discovered. Investigators were able to recover a belt and a comb, according to newspaper reports at the time.

Gaetano said a cause of death was not established for the woman, who was also cremated just two days after her remains were found.

She is described as being 6’0 and about 180 pounds.

Anyone with information on any of the cases can contact Gaetano at 330-740-2175, ext. 7310 or for the cases in Youngstown, Sweeney can be contacted at 330-742-8911.
Youngstown police, coroner’s office seeking help identifying bodies found decades ago | WKBN.com
 
It doesn’t look hopeful unfortunately. I’m a little surprised they cremated her remains only 2 days after discovering her!
 
May 1, 2023

Detective Tyrone Hyshaw of the Sheriff’s Office said there was some evidence in the case that was preserved that can be sent out for testing to the state Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) — Detectives with the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office are looking for information to see if they can identify a woman found in 1976 in a ditch. The woman was found Oct. 4, 1976, in a drainage ditch on South Range Road in Smith Township near Sebring by a construction crew.

www.wkbn.com

Mahoning Sheriff’s Office seeking information on body found in 1976

Detectives with the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office are looking for information to see if they can identify a woman found in 1976 in a ditch.
www.wkbn.com www.wkbn.com
 
Annita Maria Price was mentioned as a possibility for this UID several years ago in this thread. It doesn’t appear she was ever submitted. There are no rule outs listed.

Annita:
6' 0" (72 Inches)
Weight 155 lbs

Annita Price was last seen around 8:45 PM when she left to go to work at The Flamingo Club in Benwood, West Virginia on May 30, 1974. She never arrived at work and was never seen again. Her car was found along West Virginia Route 2 at 12th Street in McMechan, just north of Moundsville.

Moundsville WV to Youngstown OH is only 80 miles.

PMI is stated at 6-8 months, whereas Annita went missing 5/30/74. That’s a bit longer than estimated but it’s not impossible PMI estimation could be off.

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

By bringing people, information, forensic science and technology together, NamUs helps resolve cases.
www.namus.gov
 
Of course they cremated her. Smh.
TWO DAYS after they found the body?!
So no DNA. No fingerprints since she was badly decomposed. Good luck figuring this one out.

Although her height is VERY distinctive to me. So tall! I have a dear friend who is 6’4” (female) and she cannot even walk outside without getting constantly stared at. I’m sure someone recognizes a really super tall woman. Anything over 6’5” for a guy and 6’0” for a woman is distinct enough to be more recognizable and jog someone’s memory.
 
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