Have you read about Brandywine Jane Doe? Not sure if there is anything about her on WS...
__________
Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
March 9, 2003
Edition: CITY-D
Section: LOCAL NEWS PHILADELPHIA & ITS SUBURBS
Page: B02
Body in suitcase still unidentified
Author: Marc Schogol INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Article Text:
Her torso and head, stuffed in a suitcase, were discovered in a remote area of Chester County in July 1995.
Her leg bones were discovered in a remote area of Bucks County in January 1996.
But seven years later, despite an intensive and continuing investigation - and despite two segments on TV's America's Most Wanted in recent years - her identity and her killer remain undiscovered.
Over the years, there have been hundreds of tips - including the "vision" of a psychic on The Montel Williams Show.
"All have been followed up on - we've taken them to end but produced no viable leads," says Pennsylvania State Trooper Leo Hegarty, the Chester County-based officer in charge of the investigation.
"As recently as September or October, the fingerprints were again sent to the FBI, which has an enhanced [fingerprint analysis] system now," Hegarty said last week. "That also came back negative."
The grisly case, dubbed the "Pennsylvania Suitcase Jane Doe" by America's Most Wanted, is the kind of mystery that television crime-scene investigators routinely solve in an hour.
But for the real investigators in this case, there have been many fruitless and frustrating hours.
The unsolved mystery began on July 11, 1995, when a fisherman found a partially submerged suitcase in some bushes along the bank of the Brandywine Creek in East Caln Township, Chester County.
Inside the maroon leather suitcase was a zippered garment bag, and inside that was a dark-green trash bag sealed with plastic packing tape.
Inside that was the dismembered body.
About six months later, 50 miles away in Middletown Township, Bucks County, a hiker in Core Creek County Park found two leg bones and another green plastic trash bag containing items of clothing.
Although mutilation and decomposition made it impossible to get a conclusive DNA match, other evidence convinced investigators that both sets of remains were those of the same woman - and that her legs had been amputated after death.
Experts were able to get dental imprints and a clear set of fingerprints. In 1997, police commissioned Frank Bender, a top forensic artist, to reconstruct a replica of the woman's head from the facial bones found in the suitcase.
Pictures based on that bust were widely circulated and entered into national crime databases, along with the fingerprints, dental imprints, and the woman's DNA.
One Chester County deputy coroner has written copiously illustrated articles in three dental journals, hoping the dental work would be recognized.
All, so far, to no avail.
Who was she?
The reconstructed bust shows a young woman with short, dark-brown hair and sparkling brown eyes. She's believed to have been 25 to 30 years old, of European or possibly Hispanic descent, 4-foot-11 to 5-foot-4, and 125 to 140 pounds.
She was wearing a light-blue denim shirt with a collar, long sleeves, copper-colored buttons, and light-colored bands across the chest and back. She was also wearing a denim skirt.
Investigators are fairly certain she was killed elsewhere and her remains dumped where they were found.
Police presume she did not come from the Philadelphia area. "My hunch is that if she was local, we would have identified her by now," said Hegarty, who's assigned to the Criminal Investigation Unit at the state police Embreeville barracks.
As a rule of thumb, police believe that if no identification is made after several days in such cases, the investigation could take months or years.
Presciently, one state trooper said in 1996 that this investigation "may last forever, but it's going to last until the case is over. Time won't run out."
Time won't run out as far as Hegarty's concerned, either.
If you think you have any information, call 484-340-3241. A toll-free number for Pennsylvania residents only is 1-866-756-1790.
Inquirer researchers Denise Boal, Frank Donahue and Ed Voves contributed to this article.
