Identified! AR- West Memphis -"Laundry Lady" WhtFem 643UFAR, 45-60, Sep'87 No Name Available

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The victim was discovered on September 9, 1987 in West Memphis, Crittenden County, Arkansas
She was hit by a car while walking. She had a bag with Shampoo, laundry soap, fabric softener etc. age 45-60 http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/643ufar.html
Why was she not easy to ID? She had a bag with all brand name products. So, she was not transient. Someone in the area had to know her.
 
So sad, she was going about her chores and was hit. The people in the car thought they hit a barrel in the road?! How does one mistake a person for a barrel and how does one not slow down or try to stop when said "barrel" is in the road. Is there any word on if the person driving was drunk or somehow incoherient?
 
She seems like a transient to me. Her bag had toothpaste and toothbrush, and the means to wash her clothes, and other items to wash up with. Maybe she wasn't from the area. I wish there was a reconstruction.
 
If she was indeed a transient she was a well maintained transient or one who was just recently homeless. She had TIDE and Downey which are name brands, not sure about back then but I know a small bottle of TIDE could run about $5.00-$6.00 in todays market, if I were on a limited budget I would opt out for the lesser expensive brand that I could get a bottle for $2.50.
But then again maybe I am just cheap :)
 
this is so sad :(

True, Tide is very expensive! I remember from my Ramen noodle poor student days that I'd stretch out a bottle as much as possible because you'd get only this tiny bottle for like $10! generic brand is always cheaper, but not by much.
 
I took the small bottles/boxes to be the type you can get out of vending machines. Maybe if she wasn't homeless, she was at least traveling.
 
What is that little white rectangular thing next to the toothpaste in the photo?

That's odd. In the photo of her possessions there's a tube of toothpaste but no brush, and she has shampoo but no washcloth, towel or bar of soap. Could these personal care items might have been given out at a women's shelter?

It seems unlikely that a transient would spend money on fabric softener. The other items are all essentials, with the possible exception of the skin lotion.

Is anyone familiar with the area where she was found? Is it near any laundromats or motels that might have had laundry facilities? It seems odd that she didn't have any other clothes other than the ones she was wearing. I wonder if a motel manager found the clothes still in a washing machine or dryer but didn't know the woman's body was found nearby.
 
I took the small bottles/boxes to be the type you can get out of vending machines. Maybe if she wasn't homeless, she was at least traveling.

if you look at the pictures they are full size bottles. But weirdly enough the toothpaste tube is mostly used. It wasn't a shopping trip. she might be a well groomed, tide loving transient after all.
 
this is so sad :(

True, Tide is very expensive! I remember from my Ramen noodle poor student days that I'd stretch out a bottle as much as possible because you'd get only this tiny bottle for like $10! generic brand is always cheaper, but not by much.

Agreed. So is Colgate. You can buy knock off stuff much, much cheaper. But even a quarter counts. When you are broke, every penny makes a difference. Name brands are not consistent with a transient person.

What is that little white rectangular thing next to the toothpaste in the photo?

That's odd. In the photo of her possessions there's a tube of toothpaste but no brush, and she has shampoo but no washcloth, towel or bar of soap. Could these personal care items might have been given out at a women's shelter?

It seems unlikely that a transient would spend money on fabric softener. The other items are all essentials, with the possible exception of the skin lotion.

I agree.

The white thing appears to be a bar of soap. This is a guess as I cannot see it well.

There is a brush in a wrapper at the very bottom. It looks as if it's new.

if you look at the pictures they are full size bottles. But weirdly enough the toothpaste tube is mostly used. It wasn't a shopping trip. she might be a well groomed, tide loving transient after all.

I thought perhaps something happened to the paste upon impact. Or that it was somehow effected in this manner. It looked like it may have exploded out the end but again hard to tell.


This all then led me to think of another scenario. What if she had escaped a bad relationship/a person/left their life and was setting up shop somewhere and needed the basics. Or she had just moved into the area for whatever reason? How often do you need ALL of the essentials while shopping unless moving? I never run out of all essentials and a few luxury but useful household items at the same time. What plausible scenarios would this happen? Moving was all that came to mind.
 
Maybe she received a monthly check and went shopping to stock up for the month. That could possibly explain all the essentials at once.
 
So sad, she was going about her chores and was hit. The people in the car thought they hit a barrel in the road?! How does one mistake a person for a barrel and how does one not slow down or try to stop when said "barrel" is in the road. Is there any word on if the person driving was drunk or somehow incoherient?


maybe she was bent over? and it was truck and they really didnt' see?
 
I thought perhaps something happened to the paste upon impact. Or that it was somehow effected in this manner. It looked like it may have exploded out the end but again hard to tell.


This all then led me to think of another scenario. What if she had escaped a bad relationship/a person/left their life and was setting up shop somewhere and needed the basics. Or she had just moved into the area for whatever reason? How often do you need ALL of the essentials while shopping unless moving? I never run out of all essentials and a few luxury but useful household items at the same time. What plausible scenarios would this happen? Moving was all that came to mind.


Points well taken - the toothbrush does look like its in the box and brand new. And moving - I always toss out half empty bottles of stuff, so that might make sense. maybe she just moved to this area - i.e. she wouldn't be local?
 
She may have been relocating there. She was walking, which may indicate she did not have a car. Which could mean a number of things. But a point to consider.

Maybe she received a monthly check and went shopping to stock up for the month. That could possibly explain all the essentials at once.

But buying a new toothpaste and tube of paste? And a new bottle of lotion? And shampoo? And detergent? And softener? It seems like one would rarely buy those all of things every month or even every few months. I can see the monthly/big stock up, but those are curious items for that. All body care and home related. All useful things. All things that last to varying degrees. It seems odd for a normal, regular shopping trip.
 
Points well taken - the toothbrush does look like its in the box and brand new. And moving - I always toss out half empty bottles of stuff, so that might make sense. maybe she just moved to this area - i.e. she wouldn't be local?

Moving or she had to leave? I generally do the same--leave almost empty bottle behind. However, there is another scenario--that she had no choice. She left with little or nothing, and she needed to start over. She may have been staying with someone, in a shelter.

Just thinking of possibilities.
 
Just thowing this out there, and I mean no disrespect, but maybe she stole them. Lots of times convenience stores/gas station stores only offer brand names (and at high prices). Maybe she stole them (or bought them) from a store that didn't offer knock-off brands.

I think the white thing at the top is a bar of soap, and the blue rectangle at the bottom is a new toothbrush (or maybe she didn't have anything else to carry her toothbrush in and didn't want it rolling around in the bag, so she kept putting it back in its original container).

I wonder if she was on her own, but not used to being on her own. Someone said something about a women's shelter -- that makes sense. Or she packed what she could and left. Or she left with nothing and had to buy it all.

Or maybe she was just shopping. What a frustrating case!
 
I wondered about the shelter thing myself. if she was trying to escape an abusive relationship, and was living at a battered women's shelter, then she probably wouldn't be reported missing, for her own safety. It just makes me wonder how many women out there are living "off the grid" to escape an abusive relationship.
 
I'm trying to think back. Were generic brands readily available in 1987? I don't think generic products were quite so available then, at least not in the south where I live. There were not as many choices as there are now and you just about had to buy name brand. And 'quick shops' even now seldom have anything but name brand.
 
I wondered about the shelter thing myself. if she was trying to escape an abusive relationship, and was living at a battered women's shelter, then she probably wouldn't be reported missing, for her own safety. It just makes me wonder how many women out there are living "off the grid" to escape an abusive relationship.

I would think they had more of a reason to report her missing since she could be in danger?

This has surely be proven to be accident and not intentional (or so I assume, which might be a mistake I admit!), but there is another angle that came to mind. She had escaped from someone and they caught up with her.

My first thought is someone with little family or a family who has been told she left and ran away on her volition left to start a new life someone, and it was tragically ended and they don't even know what happened.
 

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