IA IA - Clinton Co., Pregnant BlkFem UP2622, 12-23, in Mississippi River, Apr'75

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/839ufio.html

[FONT=HELVETICA,ARIAL]Can You Help Identify these Remains [/FONT]
[FONT=HELVETICA,ARIAL]from Clinton County, Iowa?[/FONT]

No Image Available
Date Located April 11, 1975
Location Found Clinton County, Iowa
Date of Death Death occurred sometime in early 1975.
Cause of Death Gunshot Wound
Race: Black
Gender: Female
Age 12 - 23 years old
Height 5'2"-5'4"
Weight 100 - 120 lbs.
Eye Color N/A
Hair Color Black hair.
Fingerprints unknown
Dental unknown
DNA unknown
Clothing Not Stated.
Distinguishing Characteristics: Medium build; the victim was approximately 10 weeks pregnant (since about January 31, 1975). Case Details:The victim was located in the river in Clinton County, Iowa on April 11, 1975.

Sigh...12 to 23 years is too wide a age range...

Not a lot of potential matches and without DNA finding a match may be difficult.

I did find this one:
Alice Jefferson
https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/19934/82/

She had been pregnant before, close in height, age fits.

Very old article about these remains
Death discovered in Clinton County still haunts investigators

SABULA, Iowa — The woman was 10 weeks pregnant when her nude body was found by a commercial fisherman in the Mississippi River, floating near a mud bar just inside the northern Clinton County line.

The date was April 11, 1975.

Her death still haunts investigators more than 26 years later as the state's oldest unidentified body — one of just six listed with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

Officials say they have never had enough clues to help pinpoint who she was or why she was killed. The case remains open, but inactive.

[...]
Police followed several leads during the initial stages of the investigation, checking out at least three possibilities: missing women from Rock Island County, East Dubuque, Ill., and North Carolina. Nothing turned up.

Click to expand...

Date Body Found: April 11, 1975
Location Found: Clinton County, Iowa
Estimated Age:Adult - Pre 30; 12-23
Estimated Height: 5' 2"-5’4”
Estimated Weight: 100-120 lbs
Hair Color: Black

Circumstances of Recovery: The body of an African American female between the age of 12 and 23 was found in a river in Clinton County, Iowa on April 11, 1975. No clothing or jewelry were found on the body. The decedent is estimated to be between 5 feet, 2 inches and 5 feet, 4 inches in height, weight between 100 to 120 pounds, having a medium build and black hair. The decedent was noted on autopsy examination to be approximately 10 weeks pregnant. Death is estimated to have occurred sometime in early 1975.

0 missing person exclusions.

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
NE - NE - Marialice Clark, 14, Omaha, August 1972


It'd be really nice if there was a composite for this Jane Doe so we could compare her facial features to Marialice Clark. She was 14 when she disappeared from Nebraska in 1972 riding away in a car with Illinois tags. Her weight is listed as 130 when she disappeared whereas Jane Doe was 100-120 lbs in 1975 and 10 weeks pregnant. I guess it's possible she could have lost weight in the 3-year interval. JD doesn't have any information regarding scars or marks while Marialice has a scar behind her head and a birthmark on her hip. There aren't any rule outs for either profile.

ETA- link to her WS thread. After reading a bit about her disappearance, I doubt this is her. Based on the info in her NamUs I thought perhaps she'd ran away with a bf or relative. I suppose that's still an unlikely possibility.

Unidentified Pregnant Black Woman Found Murdered In Iowa [1975]

Unidentified: Pregnant Black Female 1975

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

Wish there was more info. Very little about this case considering she could have been ss young as 12.

Looking at my old post above when I was still new at this, my dates are off.
With my better attention to detail now, I did find this missing girl.

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
Shirley Magee
5’ tall and 80 pounds.
last seen July 26, 1973 in Chicago, age 12. Age works and if she was on the streets for a bit who knows what could have happened height and weight wise. Clinton appears to be a straight shot out of Chicago, just over a 2 hour drive.

last seen walking to school. This one has her listed as 5’3” 108 pounds
Have you seen this child? Shirley Magee

Bumping this one. Any new leads?

The range 12-22 is outrageous. Those teenage and young adult years are actually among the ones you can date best. Which teeth are erupted? How do the skull sutures look like? How is the overall physical development? Are the epiphysises fused or not yet or partially?

This is something I find a lot with older AA UID... that would never happen with a white Doe. It is the old anthropological bias that AA individuals mature quicker than Caucasians and are harder to date when in their teens, but in reality that biological "advantage" is really slim and very individual. Would not substantially affect age determination.
Also back then, LE seemed not to put too much effort in identifying non white Does... that has luckily changed for the better the last two decades or so, but in the 1970s it was still a very ignorant attitude...

839UFIA

Dentals: Not available.
Fingerprints: Not available.
DNA: Not available.

She should at least have some sort of facial reconstruction.

Unidentified: Pregnant Black Female​

Homicide​

VICTIM’S AGE: Approx. 12 – 23 YOA
RACE: Black/African American
SEX: Female
WEIGHT: 100 to 120, Estimated
HEIGHT: 5’2″ – 5’4″, Estimated
LOCATION: Found in Mississippi River
Clinton County, IA
NAMUS UP NUMBER: 2622
BODY DISCOVERED: April 11, 1975
PROBABLE YEAR OF DEATH: 1975

On Friday, April 11, 1975, a commercial fisherman from Sabula discovered a woman’s nude body in the Mississippi River near a mud bar north of Clinton, Iowa, about a half mile south of the Clinton County and Jackson County line. Officials believed the young woman — an African American — to be in her early 20s though stated she may have been as young as 12.

She had been killed by a gunshot wound to the head, just behind her right ear. The badly decomposed body made it difficult to determine exact time of death, though officials estimated it as sometime in early 1975.

An autopsy indicated the victim was approximately 10 weeks pregnant at the time of death.

Forty-year-old Raymond Woodhurst and his 16-year-old son, Lloyd, found the woman’s body after a neighbor told them earlier that week that he’d seen an animal or body in the river.

Woodhurst and his son went out in their boat the following Friday, and once they discovered the woman’s body went immediately back to shore to telephone police.

The woman was described as being between 5’2″ and 5’4″, weighing 100 to 120 pounds and being of average build with black hair.

Police followed up on several leads, checking reports of missing women from East Dubuque, Ill, all the way to North Carolina, but all led to dead ends.

Fingerprints and dental charts were made, but those, too, proved unsuccessful in determining the woman’s identity or identifying any suspects that may have been involved in her murder.

The woman had no tattoos on her body, and DNA was not yet advanced to the point where strands of hair could have been taken and submitted for testing. Facts about the woman’s case were entered into the National Crime Information Computer System with hopes of obtaining a possible match with a missing-person report, but that, too, has thus far failed to provide any answers.

More than 26 years after the body’s discovery, Clinton County Sheriff Rick Lincoln told the Quad-City Times that her death still haunts investigators, but that they just never had enough clues to help pinpoint who she was or why she was killed.

“Some of the older deputies who were around then said maybe somebody out of Chicago or Milwaukee had a pregnant girlfriend and got rid of her. We might never know,” Lincoln said in the August 6, 2001 Times article.

The decedent was buried in an unmarked grave in a Clinton cemetery. She remains Iowa’s oldest unidentified body.

Is her DNA not available because her remains were cremated/lost or are they unavailable because they haven't exhumed her to obtain a sample?