Identified! SC - Columbia, WhtFem 35-50, UP12594, schizophrenic, died in hospital, Feb'82 - Virginia Clyde Higgins Ray

[bflocket]

And bflocket *I totally know what you mean* about that phrase!! It sure is descriptive and usually perfectly captures a vision. I can't bring myself to say it, though, because it's just so...icky (and I have the mouth of a sailor). I usually end up saying something like "it looks like she's lead a hard life." Not as much of an impact but it's the closest thing I can come up with!

I hate that so many of those generations are passing on or are trapped in nursing homes now. Nobody knows most of the "clean" dirty phrases that I learned from them. Now we just flat-out cuss and get straight to the point.

I think I can see the spot on her face in the original photos, but it is "retouched" away in the clearer photo and not present in the drawing.
It looks more like a big freckle or even a shadow to me.
Wish it had some kind of date-stamp...

 

[Migmuu]

I'll call on Monday to see if I can get us more info + some clarification on the circumstances. I'm especially curious to know whether she had dentures, because a lot of the missing women who fit the stats wore them. Any questions you'd like me to ask?

 

[bflocket]

NamUS says she has dental records available. I don't know where they are or what to do with them if I had them in front of me. She also has DNA available, albeit not yet submitted.

Those two said facts made me ask two big questions, both specific to this case and in a general sense.

If someone is a runaway or a transient in some form but has some form of dental records from when they were last seen....
If something happened where their teeth changed, would someone be excluded based on their own (old) dentals?
I'm thinking of someone who somehow got dental work done afterward, or had some teeth punched or pulled out and the other teeth shifted as a result.

If there is a "sample" of DNA that hasn't been tested, that means that they have a sample of some form of her tissues...
If they have the tissue and haven't tested it, wouldn't the results of the testing "keep" longer than the sample?
We can freeze and preserve stuff pretty well now, but that doesn't STOP things from degrading. It just slows it down substantially.
If (actually when) DNA/RNA/etc technology advances, the sample may be too degraded to utilize it.

I don't know what kind of advances in forensics may happen, but in a case like this we have all we need to identify her. Other than a missing person to match her to.
Those technological advances aren't going to go back to 1978 or 1981 or whenever and report her missing.

If she wasn't reported missing, that's just another hurdle in ID'ing her. There's nothing we can do about it, now or in the future.

 

[bflocket]

I'll call on Monday to see if I can get us more info + some clarification on the circumstances. I'm especially curious to know whether she had dentures, because a lot of the missing women who fit the stats wore them. Any questions you'd like me to ask?

Glad you're doing that. I'm too big of a wuss to call somewhere like that. I'm too scared to mention suggestions/etc to authorities because I'm scared of cops (plethora of reasons, but not a fugitive or anything like that).

Check up on admission date. That would help in relation to dates of missing persons.

Also her mental state.
"...unable to provide her own name" could many things. Did she seem elusive? Did she have any mannerisms suggestive of CVA or head injury? Was she mute?
Was she indeed suicidal? "Fall" doesn't specify how it occurred.

 

[Migmuu]

Glad you're doing that. I'm too big of a wuss to call somewhere like that. I'm too scared to mention suggestions/etc to authorities because I'm scared of cops (plethora of reasons, but not a fugitive or anything like that).

Check up on admission date. That would help in relation to dates of missing persons.

Also her mental state.
"...unable to provide her own name" could many things. Did she seem elusive? Did she have any mannerisms suggestive of CVA or head injury? Was she mute?
Was she indeed suicidal? "Fall" doesn't specify how it occurred.

Will do. I'm also going to ask if the stats are correct, just to be sure. And whether that dot on her cheek is actually a mole.

Do you want me to submit Bettina Antone too, since you're uncomfortable talking to LE?

 

[bflocket]

Will do. I'm also going to ask if the stats are correct, just to be sure. And whether that dot on her cheek is actually a mole.

Do you want me to submit Bettina Antone too, since you're uncomfortable talking to LE?

If you wish...
I am more unsure of her now that I've realized that the photo was JD's admission photo. If she'd been on-the-road in the state she was in, I would think that the JD photo would be her once she's been "stabilized" (i.e. already had treatment/detox/etc that led to her being more well groomed).
But she does look like what Antone would likely look like were she taking better care of herself (such as post-hospitalization).

 

[carbuff]

NamUS says she has dental records available. I don't know where they are or what to do with them if I had them in front of me. She also has DNA available, albeit not yet submitted.

Those two said facts made me ask two big questions, both specific to this case and in a general sense.

If someone is a runaway or a transient in some form but has some form of dental records from when they were last seen....
If something happened where their teeth changed, would someone be excluded based on their own (old) dentals?
I'm thinking of someone who somehow got dental work done afterward, or had some teeth punched or pulled out and the other teeth shifted as a result.

If there is a "sample" of DNA that hasn't been tested, that means that they have a sample of some form of her tissues...
If they have the tissue and haven't tested it, wouldn't the results of the testing "keep" longer than the sample?
We can freeze and preserve stuff pretty well now, but that doesn't STOP things from degrading. It just slows it down substantially.
If (actually when) DNA/RNA/etc technology advances, the sample may be too degraded to utilize it.

I don't know what kind of advances in forensics may happen, but in a case like this we have all we need to identify her. Other than a missing person to match her to.
Those technological advances aren't going to go back to 1978 or 1981 or whenever and report her missing.

If she wasn't reported missing, that's just another hurdle in ID'ing her. There's nothing we can do about it, now or in the future.

General answer to the dental question: if the differences between the chart and the UID's dentals are all things that could have happened after the chart was made, then no, it won't be a ruleout. But it probably won't be a confirmation either.

General answer to the DNA status: most of the time a status of "sample available, not yet submitted" means that it's somewhere in the paperwork-and-processing trail.

 

[Migmuu]

I called William Stevens (the contact listed for NamUs). He was really nice and was able to give me some good information.

Circumstances: Jane Doe 8 was found wandering the streets and preaching to people. She was taken to the hospital in Columbia, SC on Valentine's Day, and was only there for a day before dying of an accidental fall. I can't detail the circumstances of her death beyond what was already in NamUs, but I will say it was not the result of any negligence or wrongdoing by the hospital. It was purely an accident.

Jane Doe 8 was schizophrenic and claimed to be the daughter of Oral Roberts. She wasn't able to give her name or any good identifying information because of her schizophrenia and how short the stay was. She did provide a DOB of 1/31/1944, but no one knows if this is really her birthday.

She actually had pretty good teeth, with some very well-done amalgam restorations. She did not have dentures. This tells us that, at one point, she had access to quality dental care. So if you're looking for potential matches, look out for any mention of dental fillings/restorations.

Her remains are listed as ''skeletal'' because she was exhumed years later for testing and to get a DNA sample, and they were skeletal at that point. Also, the vital stats (age, race, height, weight etc.) are all accurate.

I asked Stevens if she had any scars, moles or other identifying marks, but he said he didn't know.

Jane Doe 8's case was well-publicized in the local media at the time.

I asked if he thought she was a local or transient (or at least someone from outside Columbia) and he says he believes she may have been transient or an outsider, because the local media covered it so much that someone should've come forward by now. They had followed up on many leads but they never panned out, and so she's never been identified.

 

[Migmuu]

BTW, that would rule out Bettina Antone because she had dentures.

Jane Doe 8's appearance is a little confusing. You'd think that a possibly transient/homeless schizophrenic would be in bad shape, but this woman looks fairly well-groomed and was at a normal weight. And she obviously had access to good dental care, at least at one point. If she was a transient, I don't think it was for very long.

I'm going to look for missing women born on 1/31/1944, but I'm not too hopeful. This does sound like a very solvable case though.

 

[carbuff]

If she was an itinerant preacher, she might have been staying with members of the congregation. I had a friend who lived like that for five years or more on the gospel circuit. She'd come into town, phone the pastor, and he'd find her someone who had a spare bedroom while she held revival meetings at the church.

 

[trisha_mc]

I grew up in South Carolina, and in 1982 if this woman did not have a southern accent, someone would have noted this. It was pretty rare and thus pretty memorable to hear a Yankee accent back then, so I'm pretty sure we should keep this search focused in the Southeastern US.

But JMO of course.

 

[Migmuu]

My psychiatrist was active (or just finishing up her residency) during the early 80s, so I texted her to ask if a person with schizophrenia would be able to live independently using the medication they had back then, and if people with the disorder have a tendency to wander. I detailed Jane Doe 8's symptoms and appearance to her.

She replied that she thinks Jane Doe 8 may not have had schizophrenia at all, but actually bipolar disorder w/ psychotic features. She said that schizophrenics tend to deteriorate over time, while people with bipolar disorder can still be high-functioning, independent and relatively ''normal'' between episodes. And that, yes, it's not uncommon for people with psychotic disorders to wander.

 

[annemc2]

That makes sense - I've seen people become hyperreligious during a manic episode. It's a relatively common symptom, actually.

They would have at least had lithium for mood stabilization back then. Some of the older neuroleptics for acute management, too.

Like someone said earlier, she does look almost too put-together to be schizophrenic (untreated). Thanks for getting all this info, Migmuu.

 

[vermontaigne]

Any mention of Oral Roberts makes me think of Tulsa, so I'm just going to toss in the possibility of Francine Frost for you all to kick around. Hair and eye color are okay, Francine was reported as 5'3", rather than this UID's measured 5'0", and 115 lbs to this UID's 134 lbs. Age when she went missing, almost a year before our UID died, was 44. She left her house late at night while her husband was asleep. He located her car at a local grocery a few days later, with the keys, ominously, in the driver's side door lock and a grocery bag inside with a receipt with a time stamp from the night she went missing and some cheese. Considered probable foul play, but . . .

Unfortunately, the photographs of Francine available at Charley and other sites aren't very good.

 

[bflocket]

They've got her on DoeNet now...

DoeNetwork 1197UFSC
Unidentified Female

Date of Discovery: February 14-15, 1982
Location of Discovery: Columbia, Richland County, South Carolina
Estimated Date of Death: Same day
State of Remains: Recognizable face
Cause of Death: Accidental fall

Estimated Age: 35-50 years old
Race: White
Gender: Female
Height: 5'0"
Weight: 134 lbs.
Hair Color: Brown, wavy and shoulder-length.
Eye Color: Blue
Distinguishing Marks/Features: Schizophrenia

 

[badhorsie]

View attachment 60112

This is kind of what I was talking about in my last post. The DoeNet pic of Antone LOOKS like she wasn't taking care of herself (or at least caring about her appearance) well.

The photo of this Jane Doe doesn't have messed up hair, she looks like she's put on make up non-haphazardly and her eyebrows look "fixed" like she groomed them often.

Antone looks like she might have groomed eyebrows, but pic is too small to make sure. I can't see her having her mental issues, going missing and then taking better care of herself/looks.


I can't find this JD on Doe or anywhere other than NamUS. I wish we knew approximately how long she'd been in the hospital. NamUS just refers to as being a patient there. Nothing about how long she'd been there.
Has anyone run across that info anywhere?


Slightly off topic...
What is a nicer (less vulgar/offensive) way to say "rode hard and put up wet." That's a term I learned as a child, mainly from from "older people" (i.e. my grandma's age, born around 1920).
I understood the look they were talking about then, but didn't realize what the actual phrase meant until I was older (i.e. that it was pretty damned crude without using real cuss-words).

I don't find it crude, maybe I am naive.....
.

 

[Migmuu]

Yeah, I submitted her to DN a while ago. Actually forgot about it until I checked my email a few minutes ago and saw an email saying her profile had been added.

 

[bflocket]

Just saw this lady while looking for something else...

Her height is a few inches too tall, but weight and age are about right. She also went missing from a different mental hospital (or was in a "regular" hospital for stress related things).

I didn't re-read all of this thread, so I hope she hasn't already been suggested. I had the hardest time remembering how to find this thread after I saw her.

Alma Louise O'Con (Shreveport, LA 6/1/1981)

The eye color may be different, but I take it with a grain of salt when hazel is mentioned. There are people I know who have have "hazel" eyes that can look bright blue or dark brown, depending upon lighting.

In a movie I really like (Lisa and the Devil) Telly Savalas describes Elke Sommer's eyes as "changeable, my lady. But by candlelight... Blue" to a blind woman.

 

[amateur_sleuth]

Do you think Andrea Coyle could be a match? She went missing in 1978. Her Doe Network page mentions that she had "past mental health issues."
http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/2495dfpa.html

 

[Migmuu]

Hmm, Andrea would have been about 34 in February 1982 and the circumstances line up very well (DN says she had past mental health issues and may be traveling along the eastern US). And she does look pretty similar to Jane Doe 8 in the black-and-white photos, especially the in first one where she has very short hair.

The only discrepancies seem to be in the height (5'4 as opposed to Jane Doe's 5'0) and eye color (brown vs. blue). But we all know that those inconsistencies - particularly in regards to height - aren't uncommon in older cases.

Jane Doe 8 looks (in my opinion) to be on the older side of the age range, but being transient for 4 years with mental health issues can age a person's face.