Article from the local newspaper in 2014
Images released of 2007 Sarasota murder victim
By BILLY COX
Posted Feb 5, 2014 at 12:49 PM Updated Feb 5, 2014 at 10:00 PM
The woman’s body was found near Ashton Court in 2007. She is believed to have been 30 to 40 years old.
Maxine Miller was the first crime scene technician to arrive at the shallow unmarked wooded grave of a woman no one bothered to report as missing.
Seven long years later, the identity of a homicide victim known to the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office as Case No. 07-10645, or simply Jane Doe, remains a mystery. But she is hardly forgotten. Miller keeps an artist’s rendering of her face on the bulletin board at her office.
“She’s always on my mind,” says Miller, whose relationship with Jane Doe began on Feb. 6, 2007, some 50 yards south of 5438 Ashton Court in Sarasota. “Who are you? That question often goes through my head as I walk in the door. Who are you?”
On the eve of that grim anniversary, the Sheriff’s Office released another composite portrait of Jane Doe. And with an assist from technology, an even sharper profile of the county’s only anonymous homicide victim may soon assume a sharper focus.
Buried in a 3-foot grave, her skull exhibiting signs of fracturing before death, Jane Doe went undiscovered for as long as a year before a passer-by found one of her bones. She is believed to have been anywhere from her 30s to her 40s, and of European ethnicity. She had long brown ponytailed hair with blonde streaks. Jane Doe’s DNA matches nothing in the FBI database, and her body was too decomposed to detect fingerprints.
Thanks to facial reconstruction software created by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, new images unveiled in Sarasota Wednesday morning will replace the original FBI sketches.
“Both are based on the same cranio-facial structure, but there are certain areas, like the cartilage at the tip of the nose, which are more subjective,” Miller said. “There are a few little changes to the brow ridge and the fullness of the upper lips. We’ve gone seven years with the first sketch without any luck.”
But the real revelations are likely forthcoming from the frontier of Stable Isotope Analysis. Unavailable to forensic science in 2007, isotope analysis can give researchers an idea of where someone grew up and most recently lived, based on diet and water-consumption data stored in tooth enamel, as well as bone and hair samples. Jane Doe’s remains are being studied by University of South Florida researchers.
“We had some early indications in our isotopic studies that she was here for a recent amount of time and maybe came from another area,” said Miller, “but we’re going to let the University of South Florida finish making the analysis before we make any definite statements.”
“Not knowing the identity of the victim makes it difficult for us to go back and look at that history, which is normally where we develop a suspect,” added Sgt. Kevin Pingle. “So here, we’re actually taking a different approach and reaching out to the public.”
Pingle said the new images are being posted on missing-person websites in an effort to jog memory and recognition:
“I want to find out who she is, so we can give an answer to her family, that here she is, you can take her home.”
At roughly 5-foot-7 and between 145 and 165 pounds, Jane Doe was found wearing a light-colored, medium-sized Spice Wear mini-skirt, with a rear zipper and drawstring suede belt. She also wore turquoise socks and a multi-colored cotton pullover shirt with a “Made in Italy” tag. She had breast implant surgery that investigators believe could have been completed between 1998 and 2007. Authorities are not releasing the exact details of her death.
More at link....
Here is a clip of the area south of Ashton Court in Sarasota. That is a retention pond and wetland area (low area) for drainage and flooding.
View attachment 235112
