Identified! PA - White Haven, 'Beth Doe' & Unborn Baby 169UFPA, 16-22, Dec'76 - #2 - Evelyn Colon

[Owutatangledweb]

That kind of chenille bedspread was popular in the sixties and lingered later in rural areas and among older people. It went with the "rustic" or "western" decorating style--it went with wood paneling, pine furniture, and lamps with a silouette of a cowboy on a bucking horse on the shade. Very common motel decor.

When styles changed, they were often used as couch throws, spare blankets carried in a car, extra spreads in a hunting or vacation cabin, that kind of thing. My dad used to use some similar ones to throw over his mechanic projects when he wasn't going to be working on them for a while.

Pennsylvania Missing Persons and Unidentified Victims
169UFPA

p.s. the suitcases weren't painted black, just the zippers. Both links have pictures.

Actually, if you look there are two sets of pictures. One with the set painted black and another to show what they look like unpainted.

169UFPA

 

[carbuff]

Actually, if you look there are two sets of pictures. One with the set painted black and another to show what they look like unpainted.

169UFPA

Thanks, my bad. Soooo much detail to keep track of...

 

[Owutatangledweb]

Thanks, my bad. Soooo much detail to keep track of...

I have the same problem so I double checked before I posted. Lol.

 

[Sweetluv]

They also went to great lengths to hide her true identity...cutting off her nose, breasts, and i believe ears....
Think this was personal, not random. Possibly infants father. She was about to give birth, maybe he didnt want this. Or, he was married...?? The letters and numbers on her hand are curious.

 

[Owutatangledweb]

A little chenille bedspread history.

Chenille Bedspreads | New Georgia Encyclopedia

 

[Mingsmom]

Welcome back! Did you once sign up under the name Stacy (moniker) C?

I am Mingsmom

 

[Mingsmom]

Welcome back! Did you once sign up under the name Stacy (moniker) C?

I was "unknownlady, UID, Stacey

 

[Mingsmom]

I cannot recall what your original call sign was, but do remember you. If you know that you were a poster on this thread, or the earlier/original one, then you might look through old posts to see if you recognize your writings. They will still be there under your old call sign.

Next, contact the administrator and arrange to get a pass word so that you can access your old account. Once you can log on under your original account, you will be able to access your inbox to read old (and maybe new) conversations and PM's.

Welcome back.

 

[Mingsmom]

Hey - glad to be back with no drama

 

[dotr]

Pennsylvania Missing Persons and Unidentified Victims
Warning: the following case file contains graphic and possibly disturbing details.

Reconstructions by Carl Koppelman
Left recon November 2015
Right recon September 2017

Unidentified Caucasian Female
Located on December 20, 1976 in White Haven, Carbon County, Pennsylvania

Vital Statistics
Estimated Age: late teens to early 20s (year of birth 1954-1960)
Estimated Height: 5'4"
Estimated Weight: 130 - 150 lbs
Hair Color: dark brown (natural, not dyed), medium length
Eye Color: brown
Dentals: Available. She had fillings and there were some teeth missing.
Fingerprints: available
DNA - Available for both Beth Doe and her unborn daughter.
Blood Type: O
Clothing: none
Isotope Analysis: In 2014, samples of her tooth enamel, hair and bone were sent to the University of South Florida for analysis. While not an exact science, the results suggest that she was born in Europe then moved to the United States as a child or teen. She resided in the States for at least 5 to 10 years prior to her death. She probably became pregnant in this country and most likely lived in the southeast, possibly in eastern Tennessee.
Distinguishing Characteristics: Small circular mole above left eye, mole on left cheek. 5 1/2" scar on left leg, just above the heel. No previous fractures.
Ethnicity: She may have been of Mediterranean heritage.
Estimated time of death: 7 to 24 hours prior to being found.
Cause of death: she was strangled and then shot in the neck.
Other: She had been carrying a full-term, white female fetus. The remains of the fetus were also found at the scene. It is possible that the moles on her face developed at some time during her pregnancy.

Case History
On December 20, 1976 at about 4:30 p.m. a local boy made a grisly discovery on the banks of the Lehigh River in White Haven, Carbon County.

The dismembered and mutilated remains of a young, white female and her unborn child had been stuffed into three suitcases and thrown from a bridge along Interstate 80 over the Lehigh River. Police theorize that the killer, traveling westbound on I-80, tossed the suitcases over the bridge in an attempt to throw them into the river, however, one of the suitcases landed on the banks of the river and the other two landed in a wooded area some 20 feet from the river.

The impact of the 300-foot drop broke two of the suitcases open, scattering the head, torso and fetus. The third suitcase, which remained intact, contained the arms and legs. The gender of the victim was not immediately apparent, but was determined at autopsy to be a young, white female. The fetus was recognized at the scene as that of a white female.

The dismemberment was not haphazard and was performed with a fine, serrated tool. While it was not a surgeon's type cut, an investigator was quoted as saying of the killer "he knew what he was doing". The arms, legs and head had been severed from the body. The torso was cut into two pieces. The ears, nose and breasts had been cut off and were not recovered at the scene. She had been sexually assaulted. Some of the body parts had been wrapped in a chenille bedspread and the torso had been covered with a newspaper.


Additional Details
The three suitcases are all the same size (23" x 14" x 7 1/2"). Two of them are blue, soft vinyl with side zippers and bearing a red, white and blue stripe on one portion. The third suitcase is a blue and tan plaid with brown vinyl trim and side zipper. The handles had been cut off of the suitcases and the zippers were painted with a flat, black paint.

The chenille bedspread was cut into three pieces. It was worn and dirty but appeared to be a rust or coral color with an embroidered yellow flower with dark green and pink design.

The newspaper was determined to be six sections of the New York Sunday News, dated September 26, 1976.

Also found in the suitcases were straw and dry packing foam.

There were letters and numbers written in ink (color of ink unknown) on the palm of the left hand of the victim. While there have been different interpretations of what was actually written on the hand, almost definitely was WSR. Next to that was either a 4 or a 5. Below and to the right was either a 4 or 7. Police checked license plates and CB call signs but were unable to determine the significance of the notations. The ink would have probably lasted 8-12 hours on living flesh.


Click here for photos associated with this homicide.

 

[dotr]

169UFPA

\
Artistic renderings of the victim by NCMEC, Carl Koppelman and Frank Bender. Suitcases and blanket the victim's remains were placed in. Facial features such as the nose and the hair style are an artist's estimation to complete the image.

 

[Sweetluv]

I keep thinking, facial features and breasts were removed because the killer thought she was def recognizable...
So i dont think she was completely secluded.
Maybe the babys father...he didnt want to be a dad and knew she would be delivering soon..or he was married and having an affair. He went to great lengths to keep her from being identified....

 

[Fuuro]

I definitely think the fact that she was pregnant is a major contributor to why and how she was killed and that she was probably killed by someone who had known her and who may have had a history of conflict with and animosity towards her, but there are a few details that make me question who killed her and what their exact motive was.

Let me make it obvious that this is only how I personally feel about what might have happened to her: the fact that a lot of the terrible things that were done to her (being shot, sexually assaulted, disfigured, and cut up into almost a dozen pieces) likely happened after she was already dead via strangulation suggests to me that the killer might have gone out of their way to be as disrespectful to her as possible when she was no longer able to defend herself. I honestly don't know who in her life would feel that way about her.

 

[Mingsmom]

Welcome back! Did you once sign up under the name Stacy (moniker) C?

StaceyK, Unknownlady

 

[Fuuro]

I keep thinking, facial features and breasts were removed because the killer thought she was def recognizable...
So i dont think she was completely secluded.
Maybe the babys father...he didnt want to be a dad and knew she would be delivering soon..or he was married and having an affair. He went to great lengths to keep her from being identified....

Hi again, sorry for spamming this thread, but I have something I feel adds to the discussion.

I have looked at her unedited postmortem half-photo and while it's certainly very graphic and awful to look at, I'd say that she's still somewhat recognizable. It's kind of difficult to make out her overall facial appearance since her nose was butchered and her ears were also removed, but her other features still give an okay image of what she might have looked like. (Also, Carl's recon is on point, which makes sense, considering he used the image as a reference point, if I recall correctly)

I think that the cutting off her breasts/nose/ears was more of a "screw you" statement than it was an attempt to make her unrecognizable, just like a lot of the other trauma she went through after death.

EDIT: I can't find any reputable sources that corroborate this, but I also heard that her killer may have also chopped off her hair shortly before she died. That also is very contemptuous and shows clear hostility towards her, if it is true.

I think that anyone who knew Beth Doe when she was alive probably would have known someone out there really didn't like her. Personally, I think it's likely that the killer had some sort of personal grudge and that he or she probably made their dislike for Beth Doe known when she was still alive.

 

[Mingsmom]

Hi again, sorry for spamming this thread, but I have something I feel adds to the discussion.

I have looked at her unedited postmortem half-photo and while it's certainly very graphic and awful to look at, I'd say that she's still somewhat recognizable. It's kind of difficult to make out her overall facial appearance since her nose was butchered and her ears were also removed, but her other features still give an okay image of what she might have looked like. (Also, Carl's recon is on point, which makes sense, considering he used the image as a reference point, if I recall correctly)

I think that the cutting off her breasts/nose/ears was more of a "screw you" statement than it was an attempt to make her unrecognizable, just like a lot of the other trauma she went through after death.

EDIT: I can't find any reputable sources that corroborate this, but I also heard that her killer may have also chopped off her hair shortly before she died. That also is very contemptuous and shows clear hostility towards her, if it is true.

I think that anyone who knew Beth Doe when she was alive probably would have known someone out there really didn't like her. Personally, I think it's likely that the killer had some sort of personal grudge and that he or she probably made their dislike for Beth Doe known when she was still alive.

Where can I find her unedited postmortem half-photo?

 

[Mrs. Badcrumble]

Where can I find her unedited postmortem half-photo?

Google it.

 

[Fuuro]

I had to go out of my way to find it. There was a thread on a certain website (whose name automatically gets censored on here) talking about "scariest doe cases" and one of the comments linked to the picture, which was originally posted on Instagram by a lady who works in the forensic field. The post caused a lot of controversy because it was tagged with terms such as "pregnancy", and people who would be looking for such tags may not want to see graphic content. From what I've heard, in previous years, it was easy to stumble upon the picture on accident, but in doing research for this case, I never saw it on Google Images. Granted, I wasn't specifically looking for it then, but as I became more interested in Beth Doe, I intentionally sought it out, as odd as that may seem. After seeing the picture, I realized that the killer didn't disfigure her chiefly to make her unrecognizable because if that was their main goal, they really didn't do that great of a job.

The reason why the photo is a half image is because the left half of the picture is actually Beth's 2002 reconstruction. The right half is the actual postmortem that was evidently used to make that reconstruction. I have no idea how the lady found or was given access to the photo, and on top of all of that, I don't know how she was allowed to share it online, seeing as another user on here has a copy of the WSR writing on her hand, but was only given the photo under the condition that it would never be released to the public.

I don't know if I am allowed to say the name of the Instagram account or if it has already been revealed on this thread.

(Sorry for so many edits; I kept forgetting things.)

 

[Owutatangledweb]

Recently I was in the Maura Murray thread and her West Point transcript was there. IIRC, WSR was an acronym on it. So I started thinking military here. Found a list of acronyms at Wikipedia. Thought something might pop out at someone here.


WSR

 

[Bit of hope]

Recently I was in the Maura Murray thread and her West Point transcript was there. IIRC, WSR was an acronym on it. So I started thinking military here. Found a list of acronyms at Wikipedia. Thought something might pop out at someone here.


WSR

Yes, it's still an intriguing thing. Wonder who put this on her hand. She or the killer....