Jane Doe,April 1954,Boulder Canyon,CO.Dorothy Gay Howard
In 1954, an unidentified female was found murdered in Boulder Canyon, Colorado. Jane Doe's murdered body was found in April 1954. It is estimated that she was born between 1934 and 1937. She would have been in her late 60s or early 70s if she were still alive today. Two male CU students hiking along Boulder Creek below Boulder Falls found her body lying on rocks at the bottom of a 29-foot embankment. All identification had been removed from the slender young victim, estimated to have been 20 years old. She had been stripped, beaten, and left to die, and then was exposed to the elements for three or four days. All that remained of her personal belongings were three pins in her long reddish blond hair. There were no fillings in her teeth, so there could be no dental records. The only clue was a scar from an appendectomy. Police combed Boulder Canyon and nearby mountain areas for her clothing, but nothing was ever found. If YOU lost a sister, aunt, or friend prior to April 1954, get out your photo albums and compare your lost relative's or friend's photo to Jane Doe's reconstructed face, created by noted forensic sculptor Frank Bender. With DNA from a family member, the identity of this murder victim can be confirmed, and her remains will be returned (at no charge) to the family to whom she belongs. If you have any information on this case, please contact the Boulder County Sheriff's Office at 303-441-3627. Photo available at: http://www.boulderjanedoe.com/index.cfm?go=Story Sources for this story: http://www.boulderjanedoe.com/index.cfm?go=Story http://hometown.aol.com/mflavigne/page1.html

Police May Have Break In 50-Year Old Murder Case Shaun Boyd Reporting (CBS4) BOULDER, Colo. Boulder investigators announced they may have a suspect in a 50-year old murder case, but the victim's identity still remains a mystery. Boulder County Sheriff's office exhumed "Jane Doe's" body almost two years ago and released a facial reconstruction last year, but this is the first time her case has gone national. "We're looking at a serial killer from the late 1950's by the name of Harvey Glatman," said Det. Steve Ainsworth with the Boulder County Sheriff's office. Ainsworth said Glatman lived in Denver at the time Jane Doe was found and abducted another girl from Boulder in 1945, but didn't kill her. "I think he was just honing his craft, you might say," Ainsworth said. By the mid-1950's, Glatman had killed three women. Ainsworth said he would pose as a photographer for a detective magazine, tie the women up, photograph them, rape them and then kill them. He would dump their naked bodies in secluded areas. "Which would explain why she was found with no clothing," Ainsworth said. He believes Jane Doe escaped and was running down the canyon when Glatman hit her with his car, sending her over the embankment. There's no record of Glatman ever being questioned in the case. He was executed in 1958. Glatman took photographs of his victims' remains and some of them were never identified. Ainsworth believes one of them may be Jane Doe. "I'm going to investigate him to wherever it leads to," Ainsworth said. He's already asked other area law enforcement to look for other unsolved abductions or homicides that are similar to Jane Doe's case. He says she may not have been the only victim of Glatman's in Colorado. The Federal Bureau of Investigation extracted DNA from Jane Doe's remains last week and is expected to enter it into the National Missing Person's database, which includes millions of entries from around the world. http://cbs4denver.com/crime/local_story_074200916.html

Not the first ‘Jane Doe' By HEATHER PARK Colorado Daily Staff Thursday, June 8, 2006 8:47 PM MDT The recent discovery of a badly-decomposed body is proof that history repeats itself in the form of bad horror movie plots. The unidentified female body, which was found in the South St. Vrain Canyon last Sunday afternoon, triggers a flashback to the similar case of “Jane Doe,” a murdered woman who was found by the banks of Boulder Creek in 1954. “The circumstances are exactly the same as the 1954 case,” said Silvia Pettem, a Boulder freelance writer who has covered the Jane Doe case since September 2003. A preliminary autopsy has identified the more recent body as an adult female. Her height and age were undetermined due to the extent of decomposition. The Boulder County Sheriff's Office is treating the case as a homicide investigation due to the circumstances in which the body was found. “If you consider the fact that there is an unidentified body found in the Forest Service area that has obviously been there for quite some time. In and of itself, it is suspicious. It is not an area that is particularly frequented,” said Cmdr. Phil West of the Boulder County Sheriff's Department. West said there are other reasons to believe this most recent case is a homicide, but he states that the information cannot be revealed at this time. The Boulder Sheriff's Office is trying to match the body with one of the 350 women reported missing since November in Colorado. A second autopsy that took place on Wednesday will uncover physical characteristics, such as height, hair color, and other identifying features such as dental work and old fractures that could help investigators. The results of the second autopsy have not been released to the public. Boulder County Coroner Thomas Faure was unavailable for comment for this story by the Colorado Daily's deadline late Thursday afternoon. Late Thursday, the Sheriff's Department released additional information in the case. It provided photographs and a description of a ring found on the body, in hopes that someone might identify its origin or make a connection with the unknown victim. Investigators are still searching the scene in South St. Vrain Canyon, 3.5 miles southwest of Lyons, north and west of Boulder, for clues that could lead to uncovering the woman's cause of death. As West examines the case, he acknowledges the similarities between this case and the 1954 Jane Doe case. “Some of the similarities are pretty striking. The fact that the body was found by a couple of hikers, that she is unidentified, she had been there for quite some time and the situation was alongside a creek - it is eerie in that respect,” he said. However, West predicts that this case will be solved much quicker than the Jane Doe case, which remains unsolved after 52 years. “The tools that we have now with making identification, the advances in forensic science, DNA, the computer systems where we can exchange information with other law enforcement agencies, not only locally and in state, but across the nation, really promote the likelihood that we'll be able to identify her in the next few weeks,” he said. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation, established in 1967, is currently working with the Sheriff's Department to analyze forensic evidence for this case. “In a case like this, we will mostly be working with DNA,” said Lance Clem, spokesman for the CBI. Clem explains that the numerous advancements in DNA will help solve this case. This includes quantity of DNA that is needed to conduct a DNA test and the repository of DNA profiles from convicted criminals, which gives the CBI the ability to match the evidence with criminal DNA profiles and databases. West said the investigation will also be helped by the Sheriff's Department's increased competency and all the changes it has undergone in the last half-century. “We have more experience with dealing with death investigations than they did in the 1950's,” West said. “The Sheriff's Office of that time consisted of five to six people and I've got that number of people working on this case alone.” Pettem, who is currently writing a book about the Jane Doe case, takes this new case as an opportunity to reflect on the social changes that Boulder has undergone in the more than 50 years since the 1954 case. “Boulder was a much smaller town then and there was a much greater interest. The community came together, donated money for her gravestone, sent flowers. They embraced her as one of their own,” said Pettem, “It is a lot less personal now. Missing persons are all put in some database somewhere.” The Jane Doe case is scheduled to air on the television program “America's Most Wanted” on July 8. Information about that case may also be found at www.boulderjanedoe.com. To contact Heather Park in regard to this story, please call (303) 443-6272, ext .113, or visit editor@coloradodaily.com. http://www.coloradodaily.com/articles/2006/06/08/news/c_u_and_boulder/news1.txt

Identity gives important link in piecing together 1954 homicide By Brittany Anas, Camera Staff Writer Posted: 10/28/2009 01:17:53 PM MDT Photo of Dorothy Gay Howard, who has been identified as Boulder's "Jane Doe." The picture was taken when she was 17, circa 1953. (Boulder County Sheriff's Office) Boulder County's famed “Jane Doe” — the homicide victim whose identity has been a mystery for more than five decades — was identified today by the sheriff as a woman who went missing from Arizona. Sheriff Joe Pelle announced that the woman's identity has been confirmed as Dorothy Gay Howard, who was reported missing from Phoenix, Ariz., in March 1954. She was 18 years old at the time of her disappearance. The sheriff's office received lab results that showed a match between Howard's DNA and DNA samples provided by a long-lost sister, confirming family's suspicion that their relative, known as “Dot,” was Boulder's “Jane Doe.” Detectives think the identification will help them finish piecing together the heinous murder. Howard's naked body was discovered battered along the banks of Boulder Creek, near Boulder Falls and eight miles west of Boulder, on April 8, 1954. Investigators, and local historian Silvia Pettem, have, for years, doggedly tried to identify the woman — exhuming her body from her grave, and publicizing an artist's re-creation of “Jane Doe's” face. Her re-constructed skull provided a DNA profile. The case was featured in an episode of “America's Most Wanted.” Howard's great niece had been following Pettem's Web site, www.boulderjanedoe.com, but put her suspicions aside that “Jane Doe” could be her great aunt because investigators had initially believed the woman was Katharine Farrand Dyer. However, Dyer was discovered alive, living in an assisted living center in Australia last month. That discovery prompted Howard's great niece to come forward with information about Howard and her disappearance. The younger sister of Howard provided a DNA sample that was then compared against “Jane Doe's” profile, establishing a match. Sheriff Pelle commended Pettem's skills as a researcher and her persistence in pushing the investigation forward, while complimenting Detective Steve Ainsworth, who has diligently pursued and documented every lead in the case. Together, they built a compelling circumstantial case for naming serial killer Harvey Glatman — who was executed in California in 1959 for the murder of three other women — as Howard's murderer. “With her identification, a major piece of the puzzle has been added,” Ainsworth said in a news release. “I'm confident now that we will be able to find the missing links that will tie this all together.” Howard's surviving family members have expressed their preference that she remain interred in Boulder's Columbia Cemetery. The sheriff's office is not releasing information about Howard's family because they've requested privacy. Pettem, with Pelle's cooperation, has announced a fund drive to purchase a new headstone for Howard. Donations may be made to the “Jane Doe Fund”, c/o the Boulder History Museum, 1206 Euclid Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302. http://www.dailycamera.com/news/ci_13658937