Identified! MA - Provincetown, Race Point, 'Lady in the Dunes' WhtFem 27-49, UP11840, Jul'74 - Ruth Marie Terry

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Hey! I'm new to websleuths, but happy to be here! I'm writing an episode of a podcast about the Lady of the Dunes and I'm really interested in the Jaws theory. From the look of the photo of the extra, she's wearing a blue bandana, but it's not the traditional kind with the white design on it--it looks completely solid blue. I'm wondering if there's anyway to confirm the type of bandana found with LoTD?
 
jonbenetglamzee said:
Hey! I'm new to websleuths, but happy to be here! I'm writing an episode of a podcast about the Lady of the Dunes and I'm really interested in the Jaws theory. From the look of the photo of the extra, she's wearing a blue bandana, but it's not the traditional kind with the white design on it--it looks completely solid blue. I'm wondering if there's anyway to confirm the type of bandana found with LoTD?
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Hi and welcome. I never saw a picture of the bandana found, but this is a recon. We still can't be sure the bandana looked like that, I guess.

images
 
Interesting. Thank you for sharing!
Is anybody aware of the exact location of where her body was found and if the area is still the same? I know that the Black Dahlia's site is now a suburban neighborhood and I'm wondering if the area has remained the same in P-Town? Does anyone know the location? I've heard mixed reports with some citing the Race Point Dunes, but also near the Pilgrim monument, which are on opposite sides of the isthmus.
 
Nowhere near the monument, though I think there's one theory that centers on whether she could have been seen from the top of the monument.

Wikipedia's article about her has photos and information about the location that looks right based on what's been in the news.
 
jonbenetglamzee said:
Interesting. Thank you for sharing!
Is anybody aware of the exact location of where her body was found and if the area is still the same? I know that the Black Dahlia's site is now a suburban neighborhood and I'm wondering if the area has remained the same in P-Town? Does anyone know the location? I've heard mixed reports with some citing the Race Point Dunes, but also near the Pilgrim monument, which are on opposite sides of the isthmus.
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My partner and I were in Provincetown last weekend on vacation.

The National Seashore around Race Point still looks the same. Desolate, sandy and scrubby. Certainly during the day there were a fair number of folks going to the beach.
 
MadMcGoo said:
Surely Carol would have been compared? Given the close proximity in time and location...

MA - MA - Carol Louise Rodriguez, 29, Spencer, 4 Aug 1973

View attachment 261012
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I would assume so, but it's really hard to figure out. The list of ruleouts is long--one of the detectives flashed it briefly on a TV interview a couple of years ago and it looked like it might have been a hundred names or more--but only a handful of names have ever been released. And those aren't all in one spot. You can find some, like Rory Kessinger, by looking through news articles, but even that's incomplete.
 
Re: American Horror Story

https://www.tvguide.com/news/american-horror-story-season-10-release-date-theme-cast/

“The Lady of the Dunes case may be a key inspiration. Many AHS fans are speculating that the Lady of the Dunes will be an influencing factor in Season 10. The unsolved murder of a woman in Provincetown, Massachusetts, has troubled detectives since her body was discovered in 1974. And with theories about who she was and what happened to her ranging from connections to mobster Whitey Bulger, serial killers Hadden Clark and Tony Costa, or the 1975 movie Jaws, the Lady of the Dunes is a case ripe with its own lore and urban legends, making it easy to imagine a myriad of ways for it to play a role in AHS Season 10.”
 
dotr said:
April 8 2020
How American Horror Story Season 10 Location Hints To Lady of the Dunes Connection
''How The "Lady Of The Dunes" Case Supports AHS Season 10 Theme Theories

American Horror Story loves to create grim fiction but there is usually a lot of true influences for the theme of each season. Whether it is real-life figures or true crime cases, the series is no stranger to America's history with horror. American Horror Story could use the Lady of the Dunes as a murder case that sets up a much larger mystery for the new season. It would be thrilling to see the cast transported to the '70s for a New England-based season. A town like Provincetown already connects to Murphy's beach teaser and the notion that oceans could be the site of all kinds of terror, whether supernatural or otherwise.

Massachusetts was introduced to aquatic horror with the first-ever summer blockbuster, Jaws. The 1975 movie featuring the man-eating shark was filmed in Martha's Vineyard and coincidentally has a connection to the Lady of the Dunes. Joe Hill, the son of Stephen King, speculated that the unidentified murder victim resembled a woman in the background of the Fourth of July scene in Jaws. Since the Steven Spielberg movie was filmed in 1974, it was plausible that she appeared as an extra prior to her death. Including this unsolved case on American Horror Story could once again stir up interest in the mysterious murder. Though the new season might face delays due to the coronavirus restrictions, more details regarding the project will soon be made public.''
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That's insane did they ever look into the extras??
 
Their Bodies Made Headlines, But Their Names Were A Mystery: Famous Jane Doe Cases

The horrifying murder of the “Lady Of The Dunes” continues to haunt Cape Cod to this day, 45 years after her death.

The Jane Doe’s body was found on July 26, 1974 by a teen walking her dog near Race Point in Cape Cod. It was a gruesome sight: The killer had gone to great lengths to make the woman unidentifiable, cutting off her hands, removing some of her teeth, and almost entirely slicing her head off, CapeCod.com reported in 2019. Police believed she had been dead for about a week and a half to three weeks. Despite having a basic sense of what she looked like (red hair, average height), they were stumped. She was buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery in Provincetown.

However, she wasn’t exactly laid to rest. She was exhumed in 1980 in an attempt to gain new information, and then again in 2000. None of the exhumations yielded new hints. However in April 2019, authorities stated they would use DNA testing techniques to try to finally identify the Lady Of the Dunes, the Telegram reported at the time
 
folieadeuxnola said:
Their Bodies Made Headlines, But Their Names Were A Mystery: Famous Jane Doe Cases

The horrifying murder of the “Lady Of The Dunes” continues to haunt Cape Cod to this day, 45 years after her death.

The Jane Doe’s body was found on July 26, 1974 by a teen walking her dog near Race Point in Cape Cod. It was a gruesome sight: The killer had gone to great lengths to make the woman unidentifiable, cutting off her hands, removing some of her teeth, and almost entirely slicing her head off, CapeCod.com reported in 2019. Police believed she had been dead for about a week and a half to three weeks. Despite having a basic sense of what she looked like (red hair, average height), they were stumped. She was buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery in Provincetown.

However, she wasn’t exactly laid to rest. She was exhumed in 1980 in an attempt to gain new information, and then again in 2000. None of the exhumations yielded new hints. However in April 2019, authorities stated they would use DNA testing techniques to try to finally identify the Lady Of the Dunes, the Telegram reported at the time
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Seeing the 2019 announcement I can't help wondering if they are still working on the case. Do they use genetic genealogy? I didn't see her case listed on the DNA Doe Project, nor Othram. Did they team up with Parabon Nanolabs? As far as I can tell there aren't any updates? It would be nice to know what the status is.
 
Anyone familiar with the case of Rosemarie Roginski? I came across her profile while looking for something else and she reminded me of LOTD. Especially after reading her thread. Hers is a complicated case as well and I only quickly read through her thread, but there’s a newspaper article linked in post #33 that looks so similar to this UID (I can’t add the photo here for some reason, but here is the article). I was hoping someone would take a look, or weigh in if they’re more familiar with her.

PA - PA - Rosemarie Roginski, 21, Ambridge, January 1973

Rosemarie Roginski – The Charley Project
 
Bit of hope said:
Seeing the 2019 announcement I can't help wondering if they are still working on the case. Do they use genetic genealogy? I didn't see her case listed on the DNA Doe Project, nor Othram. Did they team up with Parabon Nanolabs? As far as I can tell there aren't any updates? It would be nice to know what the status is.
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Look a couple pages back on this thread. This summer there was an exchange on DNA Doe Project's page where someone local to Provincetown asked "What would Provincetown PD have to do to get you to take Lady of the Dunes' case?" DDP responded that they made contact with Provincetown PD over a year ago or something, offered to cover all expenses and use a famous scientist and a cutting edge lab for all the work. Provincetown PD was initially very enthusiastic but then just stopped responding. DDP has tried reconnecting multiple times but has gotten no response. No idea if any other genealogy group picked up the case or if anything has changed since this summer but it's a little strange.
 
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