Identified! MN - St Paul, Childs & Warner Rd, WhtFem 16-30, UP4804, in Miss River, chipped teeth, clothes Jul'77 - Mary Jensen

I just received a message from the sister indicating that the mother doesn't feel comfortable about discussing details of Cheryl's case with a stranger.

She did say that she has already provided dentals to the Major Crimes Unit and the CID.

This is very understandable, and I am thankful to have received what information that I have.

I asked if she would provide copies of the 1983 newspaper article to Charley Project and DoeNet. She hasn't responded back, but if she doesn't, I will leave them alone and leave it at that.

I do know for sure that they have dentals. They just have to find them. So I will contact Butch Huston on Monday and pursue it from that angle and leave the family out of it.
 
Good job Carl! Maybe the sister will join us here, that would be great!
 
I asked if she would provide copies of the 1983 newspaper article to Charley Project and DoeNet. She hasn't responded back, but if she doesn't, I will leave them alone and leave it at that.

She replied back, asking for an address or fax # where she can send the article. I provided her a mailing address because I don't have a fax machine.

She says that the "articles are available at Widner [sic] University archives under Delco Daily Times".

I went onto the Delco Daily Times website, and couldn't find the Widener University archives on that website. Maybe someone else on this board can find it.

ETA: I also went to the Widener University website and looked for Delco (or "Delaware County") Daily Times in their archives section. I couldn't find it there either.
 


It looks like it only has archived newspapers dated 1977 and prior.

The drop-down boxes to select a date range includes only years from 1876 to 1977.

If you select "Daily Times 1977 to 2007" using the Title drop-down (Under "Narrow Results By ..."), they only give you editions from the year 1977.
 
I just contacted Butch Huston again, and apparently, this case is still on his front-burner. He says that he had gotten nowhere dealing with the local LE agency in Secane PA, and he had planned to contact me this morning to see if I had anything new on this case.

I told him about my communications with Cheryl's sister, and relayed to him the sister's comment that the dental records were given to "Major Crimes and the CID". He asked if they had kept copies of the records when they passed them on to LE. I replied that I didn't get that impression, though they did not explicitly say one way or the other.

I also gave him the sister's name and suggested that maybe they would be more receptive to working with someone acting from an official capacity.

At least it's encouraging to see that St. Paul is still trying to pursue this, even if Secane LE has completely dropped the ball.

ETA: I sent the sister a message and provided her with Butch Huston's telephone number and e-mail address. If they are willing to, they can contact him and that way, I am kept out of the loop.
 
I checked in again with Butch Huston to find out whether Cheryl's mother had called. He verified that she had, and that they had a fairly detailed conversation.

I didn't pry too much regarding the content of his discussion with Cheryl's mother, as I told the sister that I would stay out of the loop when I gave her Butch Huston's phone number. But he did tell me the following:

She did not keep copies of the dental records. She told him that the dental records had been given to a task force that was operating at the time, but which has since been disbanded. He left a message with Detective in charge of her case, and he spoke with a detective who says that he wasn't around at the time. Butch's comment to me was that he wasn't around at the time either, but that doesn't keep him from doing a little research.

He says that the Detective sounded somewhat interested, but he couldn't really get a sense of whether he was truly interested. So far, they have not gotten back to him regarding what happened to the dental records after the task force was disbanded.

The other thing that he mentioned from the conversation with the mother was that there were about five other disappearances of young women in the area at the time and the task force was in charge of all of those cases. She had told him that the remains of only one of the five women were ever recovered.

I found this particularly interesting, as I can see only a couple of cases from 1975 - 1978 of young female MP's from Eastern PA or NJ (Wendy Eaton and Edna Thorne). I am not sure if these two women were among them, but there must be a couple of others that are not in NamUs, Charley, or DoeNet. I wish I knew who these others are.
 
looking back on some of thes older threads, I have to commend you Carl for all the hard work you did trying to match this UID to Cheryl Mose Iacovone.

I looked at the Namus page and there are no names listed as rule outs.

very sad and frustrating.
 
carl90245, you are a great advocate for the unidentified and the missing, and a real asset to this website.
 
I looked at the Namus link again and there are still no rule outs. the page was updated in June 2011 but for what reason is unknown.
 
I looked at the Namus link again and there are still no rule outs. the page was updated in June 2011 but for what reason is unknown.

Since Karl is in contact with Butch, I have a simple question for him you may want to pass along.
An infant found 10 days earlier, still unidentified. Could this be the baby of the unknown female? This is along the same river, not 10 minutes drive away. What if they are related?
Baby was found at Hidden Falls Park in the Mississippi River also.
https://identifyus.org/cases/4805.
It says insufficient DNA for profiling, but that may not be the case anymore.
 
Interesting. It didn't say whether the Jane Doe skeletal indications of having given birth, but it did say "abdominal striae" (meaning stretch marks). Unfortunately, they don't have much info on this Jane Doe, and I don't know whether they ever intend to exhume.

As for the infant, I would suspect that they have even less info on her.

It seems that as of late, Minnesota has taken quite a bit of interest in getting their MP's into NamUs, so perhaps they might want to exhume the adult female. But who knows whether the infant was buried or cremated.
 
whatever came of this search?

Until they exhume the body, there isn't much that can be done. I know that Minnesota plans to take advantage of a Federal grant to exhume UID's for DNA testing, but I don't know if this UID is among the ones slated for exhumation.
 
Here's an interesting possible (newly added to NamUs):

Michelle Elaine Meiser
https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/20954/0

dd9e8d14-76c6-4744-a5a7-91c312036074.jpg
2da57ae3-326b-4c05-8f1a-869161357c7b.jpg


* She's missing from St. Paul MN. The Jane Doe was found in St. Paul.
* Her height (5'8") matches spot-on.
* Her age (22) is solidly within the age estimate (16-30)
* Brown hair color matches UID description, although hair Length (UID's "medium" vs. Michelle's "Long") are a slight negative.
* Brown eye color matches the Jane Doe's "Brown or Green" description.
* The timeframe (11-Mar-77 to 20-Jul-77) is 4 months. There's no indication of postmortem interval. But the water in spring months in Minnesota may still have been cold enough to prevent significant decomp, or she may not have died on the Date LKA.
* The smiling photo is not clear enough to see if her #9 & #10 teeth are chipped. But they might be.

As for negatives:
* The clothing doesn't match.
* No mention of scars on arm or breast of Jane Doe, and no mention of abdominal striae (i.e., "Stretch marks") on Michelle.
 
Carl,

I am just reading this thread for the first time. I sit here and am gobsmacked at the effort you have put over the past three years into trying to get this case resolved, and the laundry list of road blocks. It also gives me insight into the awkwardness that exist for the family in dealing with contacts that are "not official" but which I know are clearly altruistic. I sense these families must have a huge sense of mistrust (who knows what type of contacts the families of missing people receive over the years). I appreciate your transparency here in sharing all the information you have learned, explaining the contacts that you have pursued, protecting the privacy of the family by not listing their names, and following your good judgment to remove yourself from the "loop" when you sensed that was best.

This thread also enlightens me as to the fact that families need to keep copies of information that is handed over to law enforcement, as documents can and do get lost or misplaced. It also highlights how an old case that has gone cold often has no one "official" to champion it due to resources and cutbacks. Thank you for being this case's champion!
:cheers:
 
Not sure if this is pertinent or not. I am from MN, and live right by the Mississippi River, so this is of interest to me.
Re; stretch marks or not.
It may be that Michelle was a mother. It is a creepy connection if true and I don't mean to be gossipy, so hope this is taken the right way.
In trying to find any info I might on Michelle locally, I happened upon an article about a murderer (now in State Hospital), named Erik John Meiser. He was born in 1974 and his mother was "murdered when he was a toddler". He grew up in MN, and has St. Paul MN connections for sure. So time and place are right.
Was Michelle Native American as Erik John Meiser is?
 
if his mother was murdered, you'd think they would have had a body but maybe I'm just being too literal.

Not sure if this is pertinent or not. I am from MN, and live right by the Mississippi River, so this is of interest to me.
Re; stretch marks or not.
It may be that Michelle was a mother. It is a creepy connection if true and I don't mean to be gossipy, so hope this is taken the right way.
In trying to find any info I might on Michelle locally, I happened upon an article about a murderer (now in State Hospital), named Erik John Meiser. He was born in 1974 and his mother was "murdered when he was a toddler". He grew up in MN, and has St. Paul MN connections for sure. So time and place are right.
Was Michelle Native American as Erik John Meiser is?
 

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