Identified! CA - L.A. Griffith Park, WhtFem 725UFCA, 20-28, @Picnic Table, Jun'68 Cheryl McMillan

[Fairy1]

GREAT NEWS!!!!!

GRIFFITH PARK JANE DOE may finally have a name:

Cheryl McMillan of Campbell, California. It hasn't yet been confirmed, but I am certain that this is a good match.

Special thanks to my friend and former co-worker Rita Winsick Hood, who was following my facebook page and took it upon herself to research this case.:

Rita researched the ring with the initals CB to EJ 9-4-1920. Only one couple with those initials were married on that date: Charles Bush married Edna Jay on September 4, 1920 in Detroit.

Charles and Edna were Cheryl's grandparents.

Rita located Cheryl's brother and he verified that Cheryl has not been seen since 1968.

Cheryl's mother was Geraldine Charlotte Bush, and her father was Joseph Bradford. However, when Geraldine remarried to Douglas McMillan, Cheryl assumed the surname McMillan.

Apparently, the name Miller came from a man whom Cheryl had been dating at the time.

This is so amazing!!!! Cherly definitely looks like a match.

Carl - do you have any idea how there can be a positive ID?

Incredible work, Rita! I would LOVE to know how it was possible to narrow down the initials on the ring to this specific couple.

Wow!

 

[CarlK90245]

Carl - do you have any idea how there can be a positive ID?

I don't know. The UP has no DNA, but does have dentals and fingerprints.

Cheryl's brother is unaware of the existence of any dental records, or any personal items of hers that might have had fingerprints.

 

[CarlK90245]

No, she is not. Rita spoke with Cheryl's brother, and she says he doesn't believe that a MP report was ever filed.

Correction. I spoke with Rita this evening, and she says that the brother believes a MP report was filed. But the mother got a job in Wyoming a couple years after the disappearance, and might not have notified the authorities of her new address.

Rita was interviewed this morning by two LAPD detectives, and asked them if a missing person report was on file for her. They said that if there was, it was probably purged. They explained it is very common that when a missing person is found by the family, the family doesn't always notify the authorities that the person was found.

So consequently, it was normal procedure back then to routinely review the status of their open missing person reports, and if the family members couldn't be reached, the missing person case would be closed.

 

[CarlK90245]

Rita spoke with Cheryl's brother this morning. He told her about a very interesting thing that happened after he learned for the first time in his adult life where his sister is. His girlfriend suggested that they go to church. He didn't want to at first, but he eventually agreed to go. He told Rita that he got very emotional when the pastor's sermon was about the Parable of the Lost Coin in Luke 15:8-10

“Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she’ll call her friends and neighbors: ‘Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!’ Count on it—that’s the kind of party God’s angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God.”

 

[Janeway]

Has her brother looked at the post mortem pic? Does he think it's her?

Great work!

 

[Alleykins]

Has her brother looked at the post mortem pic? Does he think it's her? Great work!

I was wondering the same thing.

 

[CarlK90245]

Has her brother looked at the post mortem pic? Does he think it's her?

Great work!

Yes, he has seen the PM photo, and he is certain that she is his sister.

He also knew that his sister wore their grandmother's wedding ring, and that she had a boyfriend named Miller. (Which explains why she checked into the Hollywoodland Motel using the name "Cheryl Miller"). He also knew that the family suspected that Mr Miller was a drug dealer.

 

[Irish_Eyes]

I don't know. The UP has no DNA, but does have dentals and fingerprints.

Cheryl's brother is unaware of the existence of any dental records, or any personal items of hers that might have had fingerprints.

Wonder if they still have the ring and could get DNA off of that?

About the reports being purged if they cannot contact family - that is exactly what happened in Michele (Lily) Knight's case. I think Cleveland's protocol was revised after her case and now they will not close a case unless they know it has been resolved.

 

[CarlK90245]

Wonder if they still have the ring and could get DNA off of that?

No, they don't. Emily Jordan's cousin, who is a facebook friend of mine, requested a comparison of Emily to GPJD last year. At that time, the coroner told her that the ring had been auctioned off by the county a couple of years after GPJD's death.

 

[Alleykins]

With such a preponderance of evidence, like the ring with a pertinent date and initials that can be traced to the family, the same first name and a valid explanation for her assumed last name, and a likeness to the pm photo, I think they should just call it a match, like they'd do in the olden days. IMHO

 

[EmmaliLucia]

OMG! This is the most exciting news! GOOD WORK RITA! :loveyou:

It's so sad how few people were reported missing back then, their families thought that since they were adults there was nothing for them to do but wait to hear back from them.

EDIT, as Carl said that is not the case with this family. It is still the case with many and unfortunately, the amount of missing person cases that became purged when they shouldn't have is also very sad

 

[Mindela]

Has the two piece and the coat she was wearing been saved? If so, could they get DNA off of that?

 

[CarlK90245]

Has the two piece and the coat she was wearing been saved? If so, could they get DNA off of that?

No, nothing has been retained.

 

[DogRescuer]

This is some amazing old-fashioned sleuthing. I can't even begin to imagine how Rita went about finding that one wedding from 1920, but my goodness, what a fabulous job! I'll keep everything crossed and hope that Jane/Cheryl can finally go home. <3

 

[cvaldez1975]

close to me too! im in san jose but I used to live right next to Campbell on Saratoga ave.

She was from near me. How fabulous that she may very we'll have her name back, and how perplexing that she's just been kind of forgotten about since 1968.

 

[CarlK90245]

This is some amazing old-fashioned sleuthing. I can't even begin to imagine how Rita went about finding that one wedding from 1920, but my goodness, what a fabulous job! I'll keep everything crossed and hope that Jane/Cheryl can finally go home. <3

I tried a couple of years ago to use wildcards in Ancestry to find the initials and wedding date indicated on the ring, and all I could ever get was a message that the query resulted in too many records to show. I've tried replicating what she did, and I couldn't come up with anything. She says that she had to use wildcards in some fields, and go through all of the female names common in the late 19th and early 20th century that she could think of that started with E (e.g., Elizabeth, Ellen, Edna, etc.). Even trying that, I still couldn't get anything to come up.

 

[taramarie]

I tried a couple of years ago to use wildcards in Ancestry to find the initials and wedding date indicated on the ring, and all I could ever get was a message that the query resulted in too many records to show. I've tried replicating what she did, and I couldn't come up with anything. She says that she had to use wildcards in some fields, and go through all of the female names common in the late 19th and early 20th century that she could think of that started with E (e.g., Elizabeth, Ellen, Edna, etc.). Even trying that, I still couldn't get anything to come up.

Wow! That makes this match (I think we can call it that unofficially) even more impressive!!!! Rita is one smart cookie!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[carbuff]

I tried a couple of years ago to use wildcards in Ancestry to find the initials and wedding date indicated on the ring, and all I could ever get was a message that the query resulted in too many records to show. I've tried replicating what she did, and I couldn't come up with anything. She says that she had to use wildcards in some fields, and go through all of the female names common in the late 19th and early 20th century that she could think of that started with E (e.g., Elizabeth, Ellen, Edna, etc.). Even trying that, I still couldn't get anything to come up.

Yeah, I tried similar efforts and got nowhere. It makes me think that I need to go back to some of our other cases where there are names or initials and keep trying until something comes up.

 

[CarlK90245]

Another thing I learned last night from talking to Cheryl's brother. He said that Cheryl was supposed to be a bridesmaid at her cousin's wedding, which took place on June 22, 1968. She didn't show up, and hasn't been seen since.

Her last known contact was an appointment with a bridal shop a couple of weeks prior to the wedding to be fitted for a bridesmaid dress. I wasn't clear from the conversation if he said that she had the appointment and didn't show up, or whether she did show up for the fitting, and that was the last time she was seen. But nevertheless, her last contact was around the beginning of June 1968, and fits perfectly to the timeline for the Jane Doe's death.

She lived in Los Angeles, and worked at Disneyland as a greeter on the tram that shuttles visitors from the parking lot to the front gate. I remember riding that tram many times as a kid. He says that she also had a job at some point in the office of an insurance company.

Her mother and cousins had met her boyfriend on a few occasions, and didn't like him. They knew that he was involved in drug trafficking. Over the years, they had guessed that maybe she went down to Mexico to smuggle drugs and was kidnapped by drug traffickers in Mexico. They hired several PI's to try to locate her, and were never able to find any clues to her whereabouts. Cheryl's mother worked for the Social Security Admin, and was able to verify that there was no activity on her Social Security number.

 

[Alleykins]

What strikes me as tragic is that she had contact with so many people local to where she was found, and yet no one recognized her or realized she hadn't shown up where she was supposed to, like work or her cousin's wedding. Was her story and picture never in the paper when it happened?