Identified! DE - Bear, WhtFem 16-25, UP7097, pregnant, in laundry bag, Mar'67 - NamUs removed

[MargotKidder]

I really do not know where to go with this one. I would really hope that this young lady was reported missing. I started reading alot of old newspaper articles from before Roe vs. Wade, up until 1973. It was really sad all of the abortion deaths because women were so desperate not to have a child. From the articles, they were happening in motels on the interstate, in apartments in the cities, and trailer parks even. I could not even find any cases of "vigilante" MD's who would do them in the safety of a Doctor's office. Alot of the women in the articles were dying of embolisms, thromboses, and infection. I think most of the articles that I read, the causes of death were from infection. Not to start a debate, but I am pro-choice, and reading all of these articles made me feel sad for the women who died in this manner and kind made me glad that there are options for women today to have a safe and sterile procedure. That is my thread drift.

I did check NAMUS for her, and there are some rule-outs now and they also were able to extract DNA and get viable samples. I think that is wonderful. I did check the Doe Network, too.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to where to go next with this? I am open to them.

Earlier in the forum I was not so sure that someone had done this to her, but after reading all of the articles, in which some of the parties were attempting to dump bodies once the person had died, I am leaning now that someone probably did this to her.

In some of the articles, too, husbands were being charged with manslaughter, and in one instance a mother was charged as an accessory because she helped to arrange the abortion procedure for her married daughter. With how this victim was found, the personal circumstances could be anything. It is bewildering to me.

 

[webrocket]

Margot,

one thing we have seen from other threads is that missing persons cases were handled vastly differently years ago. sometimes LE did not bother with missing adults, other times missing teenagers were purged from records when they turned 18.

as for this Jane Doe, anything is possible. back in the day, and this is really before my time, it was common for pregnant teenagers to go off to grandma's to have a baby, give the baby up for adoption then come back home, primarily to save face with the community. perhaps this young woman officially did that and decided to find someone to do the procedure with tragic results. the family, for whatever reasons, did not report her missing thinking maybe she just decided to start life anew elsewhere.

in any event, Bear, DE is just off I-95 so she could have come from anywhere on the Eastern Seaboard, although I would think her most probable home was in DE or the neighboring states, PA, MD, NJ or maybe even DC or VA.

 

[webrocket]

I just noticed something that I did not see discussed in this thread. (forgive me if I missed it and someone already brought it up).

in the images section there is a copy of a newpaper article wherein the Jane Doe is described as a "dark-complected white woman".

the first thing that comes to mind is Italian ancestry.

 

[MargotKidder]

I had the same thoughts about ethnicity and race. She appears dark complected and olive toned to me. Italian? possibly, but I think that she could look Greek or Hispanic in nature, too.

 

[MargotKidder]

Another thing that I wanted to mention. In her post mortem photos, while I can understand her face being bluish in tint, did you notice the blood color on her lips? Would this happen from blood settling if she were positioned in a certain way post mortem? or could this possibly be the position she was in when she died? I do not want to post the picture here, but if someone could cut out just the lip portion and post it, you would get an idea of what I am talking about. Does that look like blood to anyone else or am I just being weird?

 

[CarlK90245]

I just noticed something that I did not see discussed in this thread. (forgive me if I missed it and someone already brought it up).

in the images section there is a copy of a newpaper article wherein the Jane Doe is described as a "dark-complected white woman".

the first thing that comes to mind is Italian ancestry.

I had the same thoughts about ethnicity and race. She appears dark complected and olive toned to me. Italian? possibly, but I think that she could look Greek or Hispanic in nature, too.

I spent a few hours today revising the reconstruction. I darkened her complexion, made her eyes look more awake and gave her a more natural looking smile, and cleaned up the lines and smoothed it all out. I also decided to give her an outfit that looked a little more 1967.

 

[CarlK90245]

How about this girl? Any chance that she could be our Jane Doe?

Her initials are BP - The larger photo comes from the 1961 Tatnall HS (Wilmington DE) yearbook 11th Grade group photo. The smaller one comes from a group photo of the drama club.

... and here's her 10th grade photo from the 1960 yearbook.

Unfortunately, the 1962 book was not available. During that era, the senior photos were taken as portraits, and the rest of the grades were group photos, so if there was a 1962 book available, we would have a much better look at her facial features.

If she was about 16-17 in 1961, she would have been 22-23 in 1967.

I googled her name and "Wilmington DE" and found an online obit of a woman with the same name from Wilmington who died just last week. However, the woman was 71 years old when she died. This means she would have been 21 in 1961, and too old to have been still high school at that time.

I forwarded the photos to Hal Brown, and he was very interested. He says he will contact LE later this week, and he will keep me in the loop.

 

[Cubby]

Gosh, I see a strong resemblence here, even down to the larger earlobe. With females it is so difficult to research, imo, based on only having a maiden name. Carl, do you ever search Ancestry.com to see if there are marriage records with these HS surnames? Do you have an ancestry membership? I know ancestry can be difficult to navigate w/o a membership.
Just thinking outloud on various ways to search some of these females from the HS yearbooks.

On another note, clearly someone got her pregnant. Why wouldn't the potential father come forward and report the female missing in these cases where the UID died as a result of a botched illegal abortion? It's not as if the potential father performed these illegal abortions so I don't undertand why they wouldn't come forward. It's not illegal to get someone pregnant and the statute of limitations for an underage overage relationship is long since over. Just something that has crossed my mind several times so had to share.

 

[Cubby]

On another note on the HS yearbook thing. The eyebrows are so hard to consider as a match due to, iirc, most HS aged girls wouldn't have tweezed their eyebrows in the early 60's. At least from what I have noticed as that time frame is before I was born.

 

[CarlK90245]

Carl, do you ever search Ancestry.com to see if there are marriage records with these HS surnames? Do you have an ancestry membership? I know ancestry can be difficult to navigate w/o a membership.
Just thinking outloud on various ways to search some of these females from the HS yearbooks.

No, I don't have an Ancestry membership. I signed up for the free trial, but cancelled out before I had to pay.

I have a paid Classmates membership, and that gives me access to all the yearbooks.

Since Hal is going to get LE involved, they might be able to get her SS# from school records, and then check to see if there has been any activity on her SS# since 1967.

On another note, clearly someone got her pregnant. Why wouldn't the potential father come forward and report the female missing in these cases where the UID died as a result of a botched illegal abortion? It's not as if the potential father performed these illegal abortions so I don't undertand why they wouldn't come forward. It's not illegal to get someone pregnant and the statute of limitations for an underage overage relationship is long since over. Just something that has crossed my mind several times so had to share.

Not to disparage the deceased, but that was around the beginning of the "free love" era when young women became a little less particular about the nature of their relationships with the men whom they slept with. Perhaps the male wasn't even aware of the pregnancy.

Or she may have even been the victim of a rape.

 

[Cubby]

Ancestry is pretty expensive imo, at least for those of us on a tight budget. And I don't know how many counties are really available to make it worth it for research such as this.

I wonder about researching to see if we can determine two things - did the female have siblings in the same HS. If she has male siblings we might be able to find someone that way to determine parents names and then search for obits with the parents names to see if they are listed either as the deceased or as a relative of whomever the obit is for. Maybe we can find a married name for the female going that route and research if the female is listed on any people search sites after that date the UID was found deceased. Does that make sense? (lol)

We'd have to share the possible name off forum, via pm, which I believe is within TOS if the information is not restricted to who it is shared with and anyone requesting the full name off forum is able to do so. At least that is my understanding of how TOS works. It's only against TOS if the info is not available to anyone who asks.

 

[CarlK90245]

We'd have to share the possible name off forum, via pm, which I believe is within TOS if the information is not restricted to who it is shared with and anyone requesting the full name off forum is able to do so. At least that is my understanding of how TOS works. It's only against TOS if the info is not available to anyone who asks.

I just PM'd you her name. If anyone else wants her name, PM me, and I will share it with you.

 

[Cubby]

Carl, did you look to see if she has any male siblings in the year book? I don't search the HS yearbooks so don't know how the search works. It might be helpful in the search to know if she has any male siblings.

 

[Cubby]

I googled her name and "Wilmington DE" and found an online obit of a woman with the same name from Wilmington who died just last week. However, the woman was 71 years old when she died. This means she would have been 21 in 1961, and too old to have been still high school at that time.

Respectfully snipped. The problem for me with a search such as the above is the deceased having the same surname is likely a married name versus a maiden name. We'd have to determine BP's married name, which might prove to be difficult if she married more than once.

 

[CarlK90245]

Carl, did you look to see if she has any male siblings in the year book? I don't search the HS yearbooks so don't know how the search works. It might be helpful in the search to know if she has any male siblings.

I see one male in the alumni listing with the same surname who attended that school from 1988-1992. It's a somewhat common surname, so he is probably unrelated.

The school is Pre K-12, so there are group photos of all students Pre-School to 11th grade (with more than one classroom photo per grade in most cases) , and individual portraits of the seniors. There is no table of contents, so I would have to go through the captions of each class. And since it is a fairly common surname, it probably wouldn't be much help.

 

[Cubby]

I meant a sibling during the same years BP attended. Someone attending 20 or so years later would likely not be related.

 

[CarlK90245]

I meant a sibling during the same years BP attended. Someone attending 20 or so years later would likely not be related.

I agree. That was my point when I said that they were probably unrelated. But he was the only person listed with that surname.

I did go through the Pre-K through 12 photos, and didn't see anyone else with that surname. She might have older siblings who went to that school, but those books are unavailable.

 

[Zanko]

If I have the right person, BP has a senior portrait in the 1962 yearbook. IMO, there is less of a resemblence from the senior photo. In Classmates, there are several entries for the same High School. This one is listed as "The Tatnal School" versus "Tatnal High School"

 

[webrocket]

Carl, do you ever search Ancestry.com to see if there are marriage records with these HS surnames? Do you have an ancestry membership? I know ancestry can be difficult to navigate w/o a membership.

I snooped around Ancestry.com (I have a membership) but nothing looked like a match. there are few if any records available from Delaware at least nothing semi-contemporary (she would have been born c. 1943).

 

[CarlK90245]

If I have the right person, BP has a senior portrait in the 1962 yearbook. IMO, there is less of a resemblence from the senior photo. In Classmates, there are several entries for the same High School. This one is listed as "The Tatnal School" versus "Tatnal High School"

I found it. Here's the Senior photo. You're right that there is much less resemblance here, though there's nothing there to entirely discount her.

If you can visualize her with the same hairstyle that she has in her 11th grade photo (which I put alongside), that makes a big difference.

The eyebrows are consistent (taking into account that eyebrows often rise up after death). Her chin is consistent with a very slight hint of cleft. Her nose doesn't seem as large, but it's basically the same shape (i.e., very narrow at the bridge and broadens at the tip, lump on dorsum, elongated nostrils), Her left ear is pretty consistent to Jane Doe's right ear. She has dark eyes, and similar size of lower-eyelids.

A person's lips change quite a bit after death, so I wouldn't put much on the differences there.

I'm not as confident as I was based on the 11th grade photos, but it's still possible IMO.

Here's the passage that accompanies her photo:

Amidst the clang and clatter of Senior noise-making, one girl sits on the counter, quietly meditating upon her lettuce sandwich. This is our B-----, a constant wanderer, a poet, the inspiration for Longfellow’s line: “the thoughts of youth are long, long, thoughts.” As a fixture in Mrs. Squire’s History classes, she is famous for coming up with the middle name of some heretofore obscure character. Her cosmopolitan background enables her to expound on various Japanese mannerisms and comparisons to American ways of life. Through it all, B-----‘s quiet but profound comments always manage to involve the class in a heated intellectual debate.

Mumble, mumble, mumble … pet peeve: status seeker … pet like: free samples … often seen deep in a book … secret ambition: to be an actress … probable occupation: court jester.