CA CA - Nevada Co, Independence Trail, WhtFem 18-30, UP85674, opal ring, hanky on ankle, Jul'84

[carbuff]

If you still have the Sacramento bands/dates, could you post those please? Assuming I'm mapping it correctly - from Nevada City - Sacramento is same or even less distance than either Reno or Lake Tahoe.

Hm. Good point. I should have known that too...

 

[heartanium]

I keep going back to this lady.

Everything she was wearing had the same colors - blue, red, tan man's plaid shirt; tan OP (Ocean Pacific) vest; blue/white Nikes (size 5 - if men's shoe, that's equivalent to about a 7 in women's sizes); Calvin Klein blue jeans; white tube socks with red stripes, red bandana around her ankle, and even the burgundy/maroon shirt was in the same color palette. She cared about how she presented and was modestly dressed.

I do note there were no undergarments mentioned - perhaps she didn't wear them. All clothing and jewelry is indicated as being on the body.

Avg lows-highs for the area in May-June 1984 were lower 50s (with some in the 40s) and highs in 70s/lower 80s.

The described location of her body is a popular area for hikers and river activities, as per this website: 49ER Crossing. I don't know the history of the park, but there is camping there now. South Yuba Recreation Area

Given her clothing with avg temps, the location/discovery of her body, LE's assertion that she was "transient, from out of the area", I'm wondering if she didn't go there to enjoy the park with someone who then took her life.

Concerts in Nevada County (at the fairgrounds) were ongoing. Grateful Dead played there in 83, and Crosby, Stills & Nash headlined Sierra Sun Music Festival in Sept 84. LE also mentioned she may have been in the area for a concert. I'm looking for historical archives for the time period she was discovered, please post if you find any

If she was attending a concert in Sac I think the major venues that were around at the time were Cal Expo (the fairgrounds) Sacramento Memorial Auditorium, the hall at UC Davis (forgot the name). Smaller venues were the Crest Theatre and Club Minimal. There were also a couple of venues closer to Yuba city (one in Oroville, one I think in Wheatland).

I found this website that lists concerts in Sac from 1984 but I'm not sure about the accuracy of these. Either way here are the concerts for June/July of 1984:

05/07/84 - Van Halen at Lawlor Events Center, Reno
05/12/84 - Rush at Lawlor Events Center, Reno
05/12/84 - Judas Priest, Great White at Cal Expo Amphitheatre, Sacramento
06/09/84 - Grateful Dead at Cal Expo Amphitheatre, Sacramento (1st of 2 consecutive dates)
06/20/84 - Night Ranger at Sac Memorial Auditorium
06/23/84 - Mountain Aire Festival at Angels Camp, Calavares: Ratt, The Cars, Huey Lewis and The News, Berlin, REM
06/24/84 - Mountain Aire Festival at Angels Camp, Calavares: Ratt, The Cars, Huey Lewis and The News, Berlin, REM
06/28/84 - David Gilmour at Cal Expo Amphitheatre, Sacramento

 

[heartanium]

Considering the PMI I think this lady being in town for either Grateful Dead in Sacramento on June 9th/10th or the Mountain Aire Festival in Angels Camp on June 23/24th is a good possibility. I lean more towards the Mountain Aire Festival, that would have probably brought a lot of people from out of town.

 

[sorcoy14]

15 exclusions (Gail Cookson is listed twice)

 

[heartanium]

10 July 1984, The Sacramento Bee, pg 14



"Found with black electrical cord around neck"

"The body was found about three tenths of a mile south of the Highway 49 Bridge"

"The body was discovered about 50 feet below the roadway and it appeared that the victim had been killed elsewhere and dumped at the site."

 

[Beekarina]

The clothing and jewelry remind me more of a middle class young person, perhaps a college student rather than a transient. The clothing looks in good condition in the photos. The bandana on the ankle may have been a trendy thing, I also remember twisting them as head and wristbands, or also as a bandage for a minor injury.

 

[Beekarina]

Also, I think tigers were an Ocean Pacific trend for awhile too, so even though the embroidered top looks homemade, it may have also been OP. OP is fairly cheap now, but it used to be a bit more expensive. Another reason I do not think she was transient.

 

[SophieRose]

Considering the PMI I think this lady being in town for either Grateful Dead in Sacramento on June 9th/10th or the Mountain Aire Festival in Angels Camp on June 23/24th is a good possibility. I lean more towards the Mountain Aire Festival, that would have probably brought a lot of people from out of town.

Doesn't it say the body was dumped. Those places seem fairly far away to go when there would closer places to dispose a body. Though one might go farther if you know the person.

I found this, a bluegrass festival held ever year on Father's Day at the Nevada County fairgrounds, this year will be the 48th anniversary. I've never been into bluegrass, audience looks older in current picture, but there are probably younger people also into it.

IMO

Thanks for another great Festival! – California Bluegrass Association

The 47th annual Bluegrass festival will be held June 16 through 19, 2022, at our usual location – the beautiful Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley, California.

californiabluegrass.org

 

[Beekarina]

One thing about the clothing does stand out to me: if her PMI is approx 35 days, she died in late May/early June. When I look at the historical weather averages for Nevada City for June, she is dressed too warmly. I think she was from somewhere else dumped, personally. While I do not think the clothing suggests "transient", she may have been a very recent runaway, or young person who hitched a ride with the wrong person right off the bat.

 

[iamshadow21]

I came here from another thread where a certain missing person was suggested as a possibility for that Doe. When this thread jumped to the recent list and I clicked in it, my heart leapt in my chest. I don't even know if it's likely, I'm typing this from bed on my phone, so I can't compare properly, but does anyone think that Margaret Kay Holst could be a possibility? Height is good. Age too. Wavy red spectrum hair - auburn vs strawberry. The opal ring. And god, the sketch looks just like her. I'm probably overlooking some glaringly obvious rule out, but forgive me, I'm very overtired and overexcited right now. If only we knew what this Doe's teeth were like. Margaret's were crooked.

2589DFNE - Margaret Kay Holst

 

[iamshadow21]

Looking at Margaret's disappearance, looks like she was probably killed by someone she had started dating. Seems less likely. But the ring and the sketch sure got my heart going. Not sure I'll sleep, now.

 

[Beekarina]

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)

By bringing people, information, forensic science and technology together, NamUs helps resolve cases.

www.namus.gov

Martha Jean Mcniel 26 yo, went missing in March of 1984, last seen at her mother's house in Missouri. She had a history of substance abuse. It is difficult to know with sketches, but seems possible if she left the area. Martha had strawberry blonde hair, and she was petite--abt 5ft tall, 105 pounds.

 

[Beekarina]

Looking at Margaret's disappearance, looks like she was probably killed by someone she had started dating. Seems less likely. But the ring and the sketch sure got my heart going. Not sure I'll sleep, now.

Margaret is one I have long wondered about. She seemed such a vibrant, talented young woman. I can see a resemblance, but my sticking point would be explaining the missing years? i.e the clothing seems so "preppy", for lack of a better word, to be worn by someone who had been taken and trafficked or something along those lines. (It really seems like a middle class 80s teenager who went out one night doing something wholesome if I had to stereotype the outfit.) And Margaret doesn't strike me as someone who would have gone voluntarily missing and not contacted friends or family, but anything is possible.

 

[iamshadow21]

Margaret is one I have long wondered about. She seemed such a vibrant, talented young woman. I can see a resemblance, but my sticking point would be explaining the missing years? i.e the clothing seems so "preppy", for lack of a better word, to be worn by someone who had been taken and trafficked or something along those lines. (It really seems like a middle class 80s teenager who went out one night doing something wholesome if I had to stereotype the outfit.) And Margaret doesn't strike me as someone who would have gone voluntarily missing and not contacted friends or family, but anything is possible.

That second photo of Margaret, the black and white? The angle of the mike makes me thing she was singing, possibly with a guitar, rather than something else like public speaking. Do we know if she was musical?

I know we think of the eighties as the era of commericalised pop, but it's also a great central decade in the multi-decade era of girl-and-guitar folk and alternative rock. Melissa Etheridge's first album came out in '88. This Doe's clothing reminds me of Melissa's look... plaid shirt, jeans. Practical and gender neutral shading into slightly masc, like a lot of the alt rock and early grunge girl musicians. I doesn't look preppy to me, personally, but more like what folks who liked alt rock and grunge in the late eighties and early nineties wore as a kickback against the image of highly commericalised and sexualised pop. Mini skirts, big hair and shoulder pads vs plaid and jeans and comfortable shoes. It was a female rebellion every bit as transgressive as punk to 'dress like a boy' and write songs that kickstarted music movements like grunge. Mia Zapata, may she rest in peace, formed The Gits in '86. And grunge was born on the west coast.

Possibly completely irrelevant, but since the thread's been discussing music as a factor, I thought I'd throw it out there.

 

[heartanium]

I came here from another thread where a certain missing person was suggested as a possibility for that Doe. When this thread jumped to the recent list and I clicked in it, my heart leapt in my chest. I don't even know if it's likely, I'm typing this from bed on my phone, so I can't compare properly, but does anyone think that Margaret Kay Holst could be a possibility? Height is good. Age too. Wavy red spectrum hair - auburn vs strawberry. The opal ring. And god, the sketch looks just like her. I'm probably overlooking some glaringly obvious rule out, but forgive me, I'm very overtired and overexcited right now. If only we knew what this Doe's teeth were like. Margaret's were crooked.

2589DFNE - Margaret Kay Holst

I also thought of Margaret when I saw this Doe! The Opal ring bit really got me, I was going to suggest her here too but you beat me to it. I've been trying to get more info on this Doe because I think Margret would also be a strong possibility but not having much luck finding more info on her. Any teeth description would be telling.

 

[heartanium]

One thing about the clothing does stand out to me: if her PMI is approx 35 days, she died in late May/early June. When I look at the historical weather averages for Nevada City for June, she is dressed too warmly. I think she was from somewhere else dumped, personally. While I do not think the clothing suggests "transient", she may have been a very recent runaway, or young person who hitched a ride with the wrong person right off the bat.

Considering her clothing - I'm not sure where she would originally be from, but maybe she was picked up in Reno, or somewhere in the Sierra's? That's the closest area I can think of with a lower temperature. I have to find it again, but I remember there was a case in Reno where a beauty queen was strangled by an electrical cord in bed by a man who broke in. It may be a coincidence but I believe her murderer was active in Reno/the Sierra's around the early 1980's and may have murdered more people.

I think closer "colder" nearby states like Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, etc could be considered. My gut feeling is she was out of town but not super far from home.

 

[heartanium]

Ok found it again - in January of 1982, Douglas County Beauty Queen Sheila Jo Harris was beaten with a wooden board, raped, and strangled to death with an electrical cord by by David Winfield Mitchell. He was living at Carson City at the time.

He was paroled in 1981 and arrested again in 1986, so he would have been active when this Doe was found. He had a long history of attacking multiple woman in the same manner. He would hold them at knifepoint at their home then strangle them with an electrical cord.

May be a coincidence for our Doe, but wanted to put that out there.

 

[iamshadow21]

Ok found it again - in January of 1982, Douglas County Beauty Queen Sheila Jo Harris was beaten with a wooden board, raped, and strangled to death with an electrical cord by by David Winfield Mitchell. He was living at Carson City at the time.

He was paroled in 1981 and arrested again in 1986, so he would have been active when this Doe was found. He had a long history of attacking multiple woman in the same manner. He would hold them at knifepoint at their home then strangle them with an electrical cord.

May be a coincidence for our Doe, but wanted to put that out there.

I'm not familiar with the case. Did this perpetrator tend to leave women in the home where he killed them, or abduct them or move the bodies to another location? Because if he left them in their homes, it's not an absolute ruleout, but it's a different behaviour to leaving the victim somewhere else. This Doe is also suspected to have been a transient, though I don't know if they're guessing at that simply because she had layers of clothing. Maybe she was just cold. Though she was found in July, with a PMI of a few weeks. The desert can get cold at night, right?

 

[SophieRose]

IMFM, in my fading memories, that bandana on the ankle thing -- was a thing. It was the '80's, remember, we wore ankle socks with high heels, too.

jmho ymmv lrr

I found this about ankle bandanas in the 1980s.

One Small Square of Fabric

I did a double-take this afternoon. Walking the dogs past the hair salon on the corner, I watched one of the stylists step outside for a smoke. This particular girl has curly purple hair and enough…

www.sherylkirby.com

Flash back to 1985 or so, when the scarf around the ankle was all the rage. I had a vast collection of scarves and bandanas in every colour. I have no idea why it started, but it was one of those things that seemed to have come from the New Romantic movement. I’ve always associated it with Duran Duran, but can find no photographic evidence to support that thesis. Rockers picked it up soon after, and every hair metal band seems to have at least one member sporting an ankle bandana.

 

[heartanium]

I'm not familiar with the case. Did this perpetrator tend to leave women in the home where he killed them, or abduct them or move the bodies to another location? Because if he left them in their homes, it's not an absolute ruleout, but it's a different behaviour to leaving the victim somewhere else. This Doe is also suspected to have been a transient, though I don't know if they're guessing at that simply because she had layers of clothing. Maybe she was just cold. Though she was found in July, with a PMI of a few weeks. The desert can get cold at night, right?

From my knowledge he usually kept the woman at their homes, but I think he did kidnap two woman from the Bay Area (?) but I'll have to reconfirm that.