But I feel pretty certain she is not Connie Smith. Does anyone know why Connie was even considered a "possible" for Ms X? I know her bones were "misplaced," but were there ever any stats (or description of some type) out there that led people to consider Connie? Was the search for X's identity widely publicized at the time? If so, I could understand a family with a missing child who heard about the remains wanting to rule their kid out.
The "
Little Miss X" case was brought to the attention of the Connecticut State Police (CSP)when a letter from Colorado alerted them to a young girl's remains found outside of Flagstaff, AZ. And, since a few years earlier the CSP had discounted the strange confession of
Fredrick Pope in Ohio (See
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jXtWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=G-YDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2601,3425106 for details) to the murder of
Connie Smith; the letter and remains needed further investigation.
[FONT="]POPE's[/FONT][FONT="] confession recounted how he and a buddy picked up
Connie Smith in CT to "take her to her family in WY". A lot of his "confession" information describing
Smith was based on a missing person flyers
POPE read while in police custody, as well as seeing her father
on the Art Linkletter showdescribing
Connie and her being missing .
POPE’s "confession" said his buddy murdered
Connie Smith in AZ, buried her nearby and
POPE then murdered his buddy and threw him in a nearby ravine.
POPE'S confession, even after he recanted it, rang true in some parts to the CSP detectives,.
CSP requested of the Coconino County Sheriff's that Jane Doe remains, nicknamed
Little Miss X’s, (a skull and jawbone and other evidence) be compared to the dental records of
Connie Smith. A CSP dentist had compared paper dental record card of
Little Miss X to information from the sheriff's department and his conclusion was the remains were
Connie Smith. (The years between
Smith going missing and when the remains were found in AZ makes me suspect of that possibility. But understanding law enforcement and science were still not aligned then, I might have made the same decision for the family.[/FONT]
[FONT="]To further investigate the remains, a Coconino County Undersheriff's hand carried
Little Miss X’s remains to
Connie Smith’s dentist for comparison; however, no conclusion was positively reached by her dentist. Even a follow-up forensic investigation in Denver, CO, before returning the remains to Coconino County, issued the same conclusion. The discrepancy, a tooth or location of where a tooth should have been located in the jaw seemed to be the sticking point. Dead-end.[/FONT]
[FONT="]
Little Miss X’s remains are now missing or misplaced. No one knows what happened after their return to Coconino County, there is a recorded death certificate however, but it is not clear if the remains were re- entombed or if they had ever been buried in the first place. (Back then, "evidence" was often "shelved" in case of further developments.) The search for the remains has been extensive these last few years but this too be seems to be at a dead-end. [/FONT]
[FONT="]The area, Citizen Cemetery in Flagstaff, where
Little Miss X, would have been laid to rest is now only a grassy field without makers and no records of plot, location map or listing of who is buried where. Another dead-end...
Evidence found, a couple of years ago, in the cold case file at the sheriff's office, was not successfully DNA matched because of the age and type of material and until further scientific methods are discovered, we are at a dead-end, unless someone can locate the exhumation records.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Considering the fact that someone may have put
Little Miss X’s remains aside, maybe resting on a shelf, in drawer or file box someplace waiting for future developments, we’re at a dead-end.[/FONT]
[FONT="]
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[FONT="]Any help or ideas would be appricated.
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