CANADA Canada - Saskatoon, WhtFem 498UFSK, early 1900s murder victim, Jun'06

[MelmothTheLost]

I find it pathetic that investigators would rule Dorothy Arnold out

Perhaps, but I struggle to see how this unfortunate woman might have been Dorothy. When Dorothy disappeared she had only some $30 in her purse. I assume she would have had a bank account but also assume that if she had drawn upon it following her disappearance that information would be available.

If Dorothy did not have access to funds, it's difficult to see how she could have survived for 10 years or more by her own efforts. Clearly her writing was not what publishers were looking for so how could she have earned her living? What skills did she have that she could have turned to making a living? Any why would she have been in the Saskatoon area (the back of beyond by New York standards) 10 years later?

 

[MizKim]

Perhaps, but I struggle to see how this unfortunate woman might have been Dorothy. When Dorothy disappeared she had only some $30 in her purse. I assume she would have had a bank account but also assume that if she had drawn upon it following her disappearance that information would be available.

While I don't believe this UID is Dorothy, I would not have discounted her because her parents thought she had only had about $25-$30 in her purse. She could have cash socked away for any number of reasons, or she could have gotten money from someone. I would venture to say that my parents would not have had any idea how much money I had in purse since about the age of 12 especially if I were up to something.

She managed to go away and see her boyfriend for a week without her parents knowing. That makes me think they didn't know everything going on with her.

If Dorothy did not have access to funds, it's difficult to see how she could have survived for 10 years or more by her own efforts. Clearly her writing was not what publishers were looking for so how could she have earned her living? What skills did she have that she could have turned to making a living? Any why would she have been in the Saskatoon area (the back of beyond by New York standards) 10 years later?

Her family does have a connection to Canada so its plausible that something or someone could have lured her back.

I would say writing is not the only way she could have made money. Maybe she ran off to live an adventure to make her writing more interesting and lived by her wits. Perhaps she ran off with a different boyfriend and they lived together to a ripe old age.

All this to say that I wished some LE didn't have tunnel vision about what's possible for an UID or missing person to have done.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

All this to say that I wished some LE didn't have tunnel vision about what's possible for an UID or missing person to have done.

I'm not sure about tunnel vision. To me it's a question of plausibility. It appears that very extensive enquiries were made one way or another after Dorothy's disappearance and the police seem to have concluded that an abortion gone wrong is the most likely explanation. That does seem plausible considering she was not married and she had a week in a hotel with a man her parents did not approve of. That said, I suspect her parents knew more about what was going on than they were willing to disclose.

If she did run away successfully, I can't help thinking that perhaps she either became a journalist or trained as a teacher and spent the rest of her life in towns or cities where she would not be recognised. If the body in the well is Dorothy, that might explain how she came to be in so remote a spot.

Unless Dorothy has living relatives from whom suitable DNA samples can be obtained, a definitive comparison to theSaskatoon body isn't going to be possible. I see there are no fingerprints, dental records or DNA available for Dorothy. There's also no mention of isotope testing having been carried out on this body which is unfortunate. That might have either ruled Dorothy out completely or established her as a realistic candidate.

 

[newfiedee]

theory she left ran away with the boyfriend went to saskatoon he probably got rid of her along the way keeping her in a barrell tell there then made his way to italy , remember the family didnt report her missing for month or so after....... the hair was for recreation purpose.....and like everything the years are a estimate and we all know they can be wrong.... the dress for the time was more 1900 t0 1910... take a look here...https://www.agelesspatterns.com/suits__4.htm.

 

[newfiedee]

notuce the 1906 style suit....

 

[allmybecsloveme]

I find it pathetic that investigators would rule Dorothy Arnold out based on:



Nobody said she would have come to Saskatoon to buy a gown. She obviously wasn't truthful with her parents, so who knows why she left.

Dorothy's mother was from Montreal, so there is a Canadian connection.

The deceased woman in the well had an 18K chain that appeared to be missing a pendant of some sort. Also, they said it is possible the chain was made in Montreal (where Dorothy's mother was from). Dorothy was known to have pawned some of her jewelry and she may have pawned the pendant if it was valuable. (I have a massive gold locket with a family crest on it and it would be worth a lot more than the chain).

I was thinking the same thing. She could have been kidnapped for any reason (to give a different perspective, since other possibilities have been thrown out). Farfetched, but kind of crazy to rule it out based on her "going there to buy a gown".

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[Mrs. Badcrumble]

Bumping The Girl in Saskatoon with an old article that hasn't been posted here yet.

Local media cover the story and the phone call comes in from people looking for missing relatives -- a missing mother, a missing grandmother, or a missing great aunt. The calls are from across Canada and as far away as France. The callers are families looking for closure and wanting to put an end to quiet family rumours about where their missing relative had gone.

(Sgt. Russ) Friesen gathers mitochondrial DNA samples from women, hoping to make a match with the remains in the well. One hopeful and genealogy buff, Peggy Franko, is hoping the woman is her long-lost grandmother. She says if her DNA matches that of the woman, she vows to give her grandmother a proper burial, next to her mother.

I suppose nothing ever came of this particular DNA lead, but how wonderful would it be if the DNA Doe Project or any other genealogy organization would take on this case?

 

[b741ma]

I seriously doubt that they will ever identify her. The closest they will come is maybe a familial line identification via mtdna. They will be able to put a last name to her, probably never a first name. Too much time has passed.

I understand your concern but I think identification is definitely possible. All the investigators may need is a general idea of her family. After that it becomes a simple process of elimination ruling out the ones it couldn't be until only one name is left. And that's who she is.

 

[b741ma]

She's 30 and they said she was probably too young to have had children? I find that highly unlikely, even by today's standards where women get married and have children much later than the early 20th century. If she was 16 maybe, but 30?

Yes I see what you're saying and I thought that was weird too. But back then upper-class women usually had more choice in marriage and family then working class women, did.

 

[Mrs. Badcrumble]

Cross-posting from Conradina Olsen's thread, where The Girl in Saskatoon has been suggested a few times.

WI - WI - Conradina Olsen, 38, Brookfield, 1910

 

[Blurgle]

Yes I see what you're saying and I thought that was weird too. But back then upper-class women usually had more choice in marriage and family then working class women, did.

It was actually far, far more likely for a wealthy woman to marry young than a poor one. This has been the case throughout the English-speaking world for centuries.

One of the most persistent false beliefs about the past is that girls always married young back in the "good old days". It's not true at all: the average age at first marriage hasn't changed much in eight hundred years of British and, later, North American records. Only the very rich - the ones in the history books, making up about 0.1% of the population - could afford to marry young. Everyone else whether male or female had to work for years before they could afford to set up a household.

Was it legal to marry young? Yes. Was it common? Not at all. Only if you were well-off could you afford to start a family without working until 25.

 

[Bit of hope]

I noticed this in the Doe Network file, last added in 2015....how could we have missed it?

The victim's clothing, personal effects, and dental work put her time of death between 1900 and 1920, as well as point to her having been middle or upper class. Forensic investigations by the police and archeologist, Dr. Ernie Walker, narrowed the time frame between 1920 to 1924. Her clothing was typical of the 1908 to 1916 period. The well the woman was found in must have been abandoned at the time of her death, which suggests it happened after 1914, when Sutherland started getting water piped in from Saskatoon. In 1912, the Shore Hotel was built on the site where the remains would later be found. The building stood empty from 1919 to at least 1927.

Maybe she was a widow, fallen into poverty. She had black clothes and the clothes were older (1908 - 1916), also her teeth went bad, which could indicate she couldn't effort a dentist anymore. Just thinking out loud.

 

[Bit of hope]

An interesting read about this Jane Doe and the history of the "Old shore hotel" in Sutherland.

Railway & Main: Small-Town Saskatchewan Hotels: The Woman in the Well: Murder at Sutherland's Shore Hotel

 

[Vern]

Yes I see what you're saying and I thought that was weird too. But back then upper-class women usually had more choice in marriage and family then working class women, did.

Maybe it was different here in Canada back in those days. My great-grandmother married at 14. First child at 2 months short of 16. 11 more children would follow. A dirt poor farming family even before all those children came along. My grandmother herself married a farmer as well at aged 16. She would have 9 children. All the farming families of the time had a lot of children and my grandmother once told me that was because they needed their hands to help till the soil and gather in the crops.

I've also got some family photos where they are wearing "their Sunday Best" - and recall my grandmother telling me how the girls would switch among their 2 skirts and blouses with each other to try to make it seem like they ad more outfits than they did. Some of the photographs are date-stamped and the Sunday Best clothing is behind the times of the actual dates taken.

I think that even for "upper middle class" at that time period, just by being located in the middle of nowhere farming communities (as Saskatoon and environs were/are) which were few and far between that clothing styles would hit the street later than they would to any 'metropolis'. Saskatoon, at that time, may have been a train layway, but it was mostly grain-haulers. People travelling east-west between metropolis' (Montreal to Vancouver for example) wouldn't have been going through Saskatoon and northern Saskatchewan.

I think Saskatoon girl will end up being localized. perhaps moving there with her doctor/lawyer/store-owner spouse and seeing her dental health fall into disrepair exactly because of the ruralness of Saskatoon at the time - even though it was a 'hub' in the remote north.

 

[Bit of hope]

Maybe it was different here in Canada back in those days. My great-grandmother married at 14. First child at 2 months short of 16. 11 more children would follow. A dirt poor farming family even before all those children came along. My grandmother herself married a farmer as well at aged 16. She would have 9 children. All the farming families of the time had a lot of children and my grandmother once told me that was because they needed their hands to help till the soil and gather in the crops.

I've also got some family photos where they are wearing "their Sunday Best" - and recall my grandmother telling me how the girls would switch among their 2 skirts and blouses with each other to try to make it seem like they ad more outfits than they did. Some of the photographs are date-stamped and the Sunday Best clothing is behind the times of the actual dates taken.

I think that even for "upper middle class" at that time period, just by being located in the middle of nowhere farming communities (as Saskatoon and environs were/are) which were few and far between that clothing styles would hit the street later than they would to any 'metropolis'. Saskatoon, at that time, may have been a train layway, but it was mostly grain-haulers. People travelling east-west between metropolis' (Montreal to Vancouver for example) wouldn't have been going through Saskatoon and northern Saskatchewan.

I think Saskatoon girl will end up being localized. perhaps moving there with her doctor/lawyer/store-owner spouse and seeing her dental health fall into disrepair exactly because of the ruralness of Saskatoon at the time - even though it was a 'hub' in the remote north.

What a very interesting and helpful post. Thanks for sharing @Vern

 

[Mrs. Badcrumble]

Cross-posting from Coral Shay's thread.

Hopefully, Coral got away and got to live to ripe old age, but is it possible that Coral travelled west and was killed there later? Age and timeline works, but I couldn't find other stats on Coral.

Coral Shay's WS thread:
CANADA - Canada - Coral Shay, 29, Toronto, January 1920

 

[UncoolNegated]

I seriously doubt that they will ever identify her. The closest they will come is maybe a familial line identification via mtdna. They will be able to put a last name to her, probably never a first name. Too much time has passed.

How about a first name of Agnes?

I searched the classified ads in Saskatoon's Star Phoenix and found that a woman from Cleveland placed an advertisement in Saskatoon in 1938. In that ad, she requested information on the whereabouts of Agnes Goodall Pearson, someone who went missing in 1922. Pearson was 52 years old in 1922 and that's WELL outside of this Jane Doe's age estimate. However, I don't know how accurate that kind of estimate would be when it's based on decade's old remains.

Importantly, the ad only appeared in Saskatoon, according to my research efforts (I looked in other places). Why would someone from Cleveland that's looking for a missing person only advertise in Saskatoon of all places? I mean, I was born there but it's just not that much of a happening place. I felt like the person that placed the ad, Mrs. A.G. Mcintosh of 4644 Bader Avenue in 1938 Cleveland must have thought that Agnes went missing in Saskatoon in 1922. That really could be our Jane Doe here.

More details.

I've submitted my thoughts to the police in Saskatoon and emailed news outlets that might be interested.

 

[UncoolNegated]

Other than the arm being uniquely identifying, it could also be the case that the killer originally planned to dismember the body, got as far as that arm, and then realise it would take too long and decided to hide the body in the well instead...

Absolutely. Agree. Wanted to dismember, didn't realize it wasn't that easy, so took her to the well instead. Clothes thrown in the well because of blood and because they helped cover her up.

 

[UncoolNegated]

If you are following the research I did and the tip I submitted to the police regarding Agnes Goodall Pearson maybe being the Jane Doe, I received a response from Service Canada.

"Good morning,


Thank you for contacting the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains.


Please be advised that the information you have provided us will be forwarded to the investigating police agency.


Should they have any questions or require additional information, they will contact you directly.


Kind regards,"

 

[Bit of hope]

If you are following the research I did and the tip I submitted to the police regarding Agnes Goodall Pearson maybe being the Jane Doe, I received a response from Service Canada.

"Good morning,


Thank you for contacting the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains.


Please be advised that the information you have provided us will be forwarded to the investigating police agency.


Should they have any questions or require additional information, they will contact you directly.


Kind regards,"

I think it's a very good find! Thanks for keeping us posted.