DC Dc - Remains of Dorothy Butts, Jewel King, and Verdell Jeffers Found In Crawlspace/yard, Apr'18

[madamx]

IDENTIFIED as Jewel King, Verdell Jefferson, and Dorothy Botts:

Remains found in shallow grave at DC apartment building ID'd as women who vanished in 2006

Wow 2006 and they said the remains appeared to have been buried. For a year? I wonder who came up with that statement? That is off by quite a few years. I wonder who owned the building and or ws the super of the building prior to when it was vacant in 2010?

 

[madamx]

This is near me. I just watched a brief presser on local TV.

The street, Wayne Place that meets Mississippi Ave, is being renovated. A few years ago, they knocked down a similar apartment home and built up a new one. The rest are from the '40s to '60s. Lots of apartments on that street.

A plumber found skeletal remains in the basement area while repairing plumbing in the apartment home. This led the local police to bring into cadaver dogs, which in turn, led to two more set of remains. The last two sets were outside near the apartment home, and they were buried together in a shallow grave. All sets were buried around the same time frame. They've been there for at least a year. They're confident DNA can be extracted. They're also working on separating the pair of remains' bones.

SE Washington was really bad in the '80s, '90s, and '00s. It started when the crack epidemic happened. When Prince George County in the neighbouring state of MD, started to build up, many people fled from SE to Prince Geroge's county.

Maybe they were moved from someplace else. Oh this whole thing is so weird.

 

[Ozoner]

They were buried for "at least a year." That probably just means that the remains were fully skeletonized, which would take at least a year. No upper limit was given. I'm guessing they'd been there since '06.

 

[Gardener1850]

Dorothy Butts, left, Jewel King, center, and Verdell Jefferson

Authorities in the nation's capital are investigating whether a serial killer may be responsible for the deaths of three women who disappeared months apart in 2006 -- and whose remains were identified after being found buried near an apartment building Wednesday.

Metropolitan Police Chief Peter Newsham announced the IDs during a news conference, naming the three women as 48-year-old Jewel King, who vanished in April 2006; 41-year-old Verdell Jefferson, who was reported missing in August 2006; and 43-year-old Dorothy Botts, who was last seen on Christmas Day of that year.

The three women were mothers, and authorities are trying to find any other links between them, besides that they lived in "close proximity" to where their remains were eventually found. Police identified the victims by using DNA to determine they were between the ages of 30 and 60, and then checking missing persons reports to collect DNA samples from potential family members.

A relative of Verdell Jefferson who spoke to FOX5 on the condition she not be identified said the family is upset her remains were found so close to her home after a fruitless 12-year search, and said she felt police should have done more. She did not know how Jefferson may have known the other women.

“I think D.C. police failed her,” the relative told FOX5. “They looked into her past of drug usage, prostitution and those things and they just swept it under the rug."

Police are hoping the identification of the remains helps "jog people's memories" and someone will remember something suspicious from the Southeast D.C. neighborhood in 2006. Officials are offering $25,000 for information that leads to an arrest in connection with the killings, and are asking anyone with information to call the Metropolitan Police Department at 202-727-9099.

Serial killer not ruled out as DC police ID remains of 3 women found in shallow grave

 

[Gardener1850]

WASHINGTON - Jewel King was a mother of four who vanished in April 2006 from the same D.C. street where her mother lived. More than 12 years later, her family learned she had been killed and buried in a shallow grave.

"We just thought she went somewhere, got her life together and was going to return one day,” said Erika King, the victim’s niece. “So to be dead – no – we never thought she was dead. Not one time until we heard that it was women bones found on Wayne Place that opened us up to feel that it may be her. If you asked me to answer that question, I never thought my aunt was dead. I believed that she was going to return one day.”

Erika said her grandmother died four years ago without knowing what happened to her daughter, Jewel. For years, Erika’s grandmother would drive up and down Wayne Place looking for her.
Jewel was last seen on April 7, 2006 on Galveston Street in Southwest D.C. The 48-year-old woman was reported missing six days later.

Niece of DC woman found in shallow grave: She didn't deserve such a horrible death

 

[Bit of hope]

IDENTIFIED as Jewel King, Verdell Jefferson, and Dorothy Botts:

Remains found in shallow grave at DC apartment building ID'd as women who vanished in 2006

That was very accurate work done by LE, at least after finding the body's at last. RIP Jewel, Verdell and Dorythy.

 

[Bit of hope]

Dorothy Butts, left, Jewel King, center, and Verdell Jefferson





Serial killer not ruled out as DC police ID remains of 3 women found in shallow grave

I'm confused by this statement....if you kill three women, in my mind, you are a serial killer......

 

[MicheleT]

I'm confused by this statement....if you kill three women, in my mind, you are a serial killer......

I was coming to post this article.

King and Jefferson died of gunshot wounds and were buried close together, officials said. The two were likely killed in "one suspected circumstance," because there was not enough dirt discovered between their bodies to indicate they were interred at separate times.

 

[Gardener1850]

I'm confused by this statement....if you kill three women, in my mind, you are a serial killer......

I agree, I think that is the legal definition of serial killer also. I think maybe they cannot yet find a link to all three to prove they were killed by the same person yet. Although it seems very likely they were all killed at the same time by the same person or same people. Perhaps they are leaving open the possibility that the women were killed by a gang of people or traffickers rather than a lone serial killer. I hope the community will report anything they know.

 

[wary]

That would mean that Jefferson disappeared in April but was not reported missing until August. That's certainly possible--but I wonder when she was last seen.

 

[Richard]

Washington Post
August 16

Police on Wednesday said that three sets of skeletal remains found buried in Southeast Washington in April are of women who disappeared in 2006, a crucial step toward resolving a gruesome and puzzling discovery.

They were identified as Jewel Marquita King, 48; Verdell Jefferson, 41; and Dorothy Jean Butts, 43. Authorities said all three disappeared from locations near where their remains were found. Two had been fatally shot, the other beaten to death....

LINK:

Police connect remains to three women who vanished in Southeast Washington in 2006

 

[Claireishere]

I always assume serial killers are people that kill multiple people based on some weird mental driving force as opposed to say killing 3 people in a rival gang. I know a lot of people don’t agree with me but I’ve just always felt that people that kill with no purpose in mind beyond killing a multitude of people over a long time period is a true serial killer.

 

[Al Ka]

Washington Post
August 16

Police on Wednesday said that three sets of skeletal remains found buried in Southeast Washington in April are of women who disappeared in 2006, a crucial step toward resolving a gruesome and puzzling discovery.

They were identified as Jewel Marquita King, 48; Verdell Jefferson, 41; and Dorothy Jean Butts, 43. Authorities said all three disappeared from locations near where their remains were found. Two had been fatally shot, the other beaten to death....

LINK:

Police connect remains to three women who vanished in Southeast Washington in 2006

Would you mind to share what is further written? Washington post asking me for 1$ again for the privilage to read the rest of the link.

Two being fatally shot sounds like execution, when deal or something went wrong. However, the third one, being beaten to death that is very very personal. Was not she found at different location nearby, in shallow grave under/near the tree? Not far from other two, just behind the building, but still at different place?

I would not exclude yet two different suspects but both definitely in the same circle of people.

 

[Gardener1850]

Would you mind to share what is further written? Washington post asking me for 1$ again for the privilage to read the rest of the link.

Two being fatally shot sounds like execution, when deal or something went wrong. However, the third one, being beaten to death that is very very personal. Was not she found at different location nearby, in shallow grave under/near the tree? Not far from other two, just behind the building, but still at different place?

I would not exclude yet two different suspects but both definitely in the same circle of people.

Here is a little more:

Construction workers enlarging a crawl space in the basement of an apartment building on Wayne Place in Congress Heights found the first set of remains — now identified as Butts — on April 25. Two other sets — of Jefferson and King — were found a short time later sharing a single shallow grave in woods behind the red brick building.

King had been shot; Jefferson was bludgeoned. Newsham said investigators believe those two women may have “died as a result of one suspect or one circumstance” because they were buried together and disappeared near each other. Butts had been shot.

King was last seen alive April 7, 2006, on Galveston Street in Southwest and was reported missing by her mother six days later. Jefferson was last seen alive May 1, 2006, on Wayne Place, where she lived, and was reported missing by her mother on Aug. 1, 2006 — three months later. Butts disappeared from Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE while going to a store Christmas Day 2006 and was reported missing by her sister that same day.

Police connect remains to three women who vanished in Southeast Washington in 2006

The article also says how they identified the women. They narrowed it down to 8 missing women that fit the descriptions. They got DNA from relatives of those 8 women and compared to the three to find a match.

I'm surprised that Verdell Jefferson was one of the ones found in the woods. I assumed she would be the one in the crawlspace because she lived in that building. Also interesting that the two buried away from the building did not have the same cause of death. Verdell was beaten to death and Jewel King was shot. Other articles said there was very little dirt between the two remains, indicating they were buried together. This makes me wonder if Verdell was being beaten by the suspect(s) and Jewel tried to stop it or at least witnessed it and was silenced. Perhaps Dorothy Butts found the crime scene in the house not long after the others were buried and asked questions about it and she was silenced too. Maybe the suspect decided it was too risky to move her to the woods where the others were so they put her in the basement crawlspace. Just a theory of how all the deaths could be related. It is surprising to me that no one opened up that crawlspace for over a decade. Or if they did, they did not notice the remains.

 

[Richard]

quote: They narrowed it down to 8 missing women that fit the descriptions. They got DNA from relatives of those 8 women and compared to the three to find a match. unquote

It begs the question as to who the other missing women are and what the known circumstances were. Perhaps there are more victims of this same perpetrator.

When the article was written, the television news was stating that the area was taped off and that further searching was underway.

 

[Al Ka]

quote: They narrowed it down to 8 missing women that fit the descriptions. They got DNA from relatives of those 8 women and compared to the three to find a match. unquote

It begs the question as to who the other missing women are and what the known circumstances were. Perhaps there are more victims of this same perpetrator.

When the article was written, the television news was stating that the area was taped off and that further searching was underway.

One of the 8 compared was Barbara Jean Dreher missing in that area in 1984. Mentioned on page 3 here.

Much more at link: In 1984 she went missing. Could the skeletal remains found in a D.C. apartment crawl space in April belong to this mother?

 

[hayaletcatcher]

Niece of DC woman found in shallow grave: She didn't deserve such a horrible death

Erika’s grandmother going up and down that area she was found in makes me so sad.

 

[thesensitivechild]

quote: They narrowed it down to 8 missing women that fit the descriptions. They got DNA from relatives of those 8 women and compared to the three to find a match. unquote

It begs the question as to who the other missing women are and what the known circumstances were. Perhaps there are more victims of this same perpetrator.

When the article was written, the television news was stating that the area was taped off and that further searching was underway.

Also who might they all know or have been connected too. Did parts of their lifestyle overlap- addiction etc? Could that be narrowed down to figure out why them and by whom?

 

[Bit of hope]

Erika’s grandmother going up and down that area she was found in makes me so sad.

Nobody deserves a (horrible) dead committed by somebody else. Nobody.....!!! I always get so sad about people who have falling into a risky lifestyle and S. like this happens ..sorry....

 

[Bit of hope]

I always assume serial killers are people that kill multiple people based on some weird mental driving force as opposed to say killing 3 people in a rival gang. I know a lot of people don’t agree with me but I’ve just always felt that people that kill with no purpose in mind beyond killing a multitude of people over a long time period is a true serial killer.

Scum of the earth on both accounts we can do without.