Luke Skywalker
Super Moderator
{vb:raw ozzmodz_postquote}:
A reconstructed image of the "Buckskin Girl," who was beaten and strangled in rural Ohio in 1981.(Photo: Courtesy of Miami County Sheriff's Office)
ASBURY PARK, N.J. — She was beaten and strangled, her body left in a ditch along a highway in rural Ohio. A hitchhiker, some speculated, but she had no identification.
Years passed. Then decades. No relative or friend ever came forward. The authorities had precious few leads to work with, even as to who this young woman in pigtails might be.
But now, 35 years after her death, the cold case of "The Buckskin Girl," as she became known because of the leather jacket she wore, has suddenly heated up.
On Friday, investigators in Ohio released new detailed reconstructive images of an apparently Caucasian female in her late teens to early 20s, with long, reddish-brown hair, parted in the middle. What’s more, they believe she may have ties to the Northeast, and possibly New Jersey.
That belief stems from a recent analysis of the pollen on her clothing, which provides tantalizing clues about where she’d been prior to her death.
‘THE BUCKSKIN GIRL’
The case began on April 24, 1981 — 35 years ago this week.
That day, officers with the Miami County Sheriff’s Office converged on a ditch along a highway in the outskirts of Troy, Ohio.
The victim was a young woman, about 5-foot-6, 125 pounds. She had a ruddy complexion and freckles on her face. There was a scar under her chin, another on her left arm, two on her left wrist, and others on her right hand, right ankle and right foot. An autopsy revealed a porcelain-metal crown on her top right central incisor. The coroner estimated she’d been killed perhaps two days earlier.
A reconstructed image of the "Buckskin Girl," who was beaten and strangled in rural Ohio in 1981.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: Courtesy of the Miami County Sheriff's Office)
Her clothing provided what little evidence investigators had. She was wearing bell bottom blue jeans, a brown turtleneck sweater with an orange crisscross design on the front, and a handmade tan buckskin pullover jacket.
The jacket was distinctive: a hoodless poncho with leather fringe around the seams and a deep purple lining. It was the kind of detail that someone who’d known the victim or met her might remember.
Only nobody did.
The mystery of the Buckskin Girl, as investigators came to call her, quickly hit a dead end.
“Any good homicide detective will tell you that job one is to identify your victim so you can take the next step, which is to find out who’s responsible for their death,” said Michael Murphy, program manager for the long-term missing at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va.
The years wore on, and investigators couldn't move the case beyond that crucial first step.
“We interviewed several people. It just never got anywhere. Nobody could give us a name,” said Stephen Hickey, a detective with the Miami County Sheriff’s Office.
HIDDEN EVIDENCE
Hickey, who’s about to turn 31, wasn’t even born at the time of the Buckskin Girl’s murder.
But he took a special interest in her case after noticing that it had been removed from the national missing and exploited children database, apparently because it no longer met certain criteria.
Hickey contacted the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to find out what could be done. The center’s staff had a number of suggestions, one of which was to have a pollen analysis done of the Buckskin Girl’s clothes.
USA TODAY
Investigation Discovery to examine case of Speedway chef's headless body
Though still obscure, forensic palynology, as it’s called, has been used for the past 50 years to solve a wide range of crimes, from counterfeiting and art forgery to terrorism and genocide.
It’s possible because of three critical features about pollen: There’s a lot of it, it gets on everything, and each region has a distinctive pollen “fingerprint” because of its unique mix of plants and trees.
A palynologist, of which there are precious few, can use pollen samples to determine a host of information, including where the person or piece of evidence has been, the time of year the crime occurred, and how long ago it was committed.
With not a little trepidation, the Sheriff’s Office shipped the Buckskin Girl’s clothing to a top palynologist at a U.S. government lab in Houston in February.
“You’re crossing your fingers that they arrive there, because that’s all the evidence we have,” Hickey recalled. The results came back about a week later.
“Thirty-five years is a long time, but yes, people do come forward. We do see identifications in cases that are older, sometimes. You might have 100,000 people look at it, but it only takes one to recognize her.”
Michael Murphy, program manager for the long-term missing at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
The analysis uncovered microscopic clues investigators couldn't possibly have noticed. It suggests the Buckskin Girl was either from the Northeast, or spent a significant amount of time there, perhaps a year or longer. That’s because the pollen on her clothing comes from the northeastern dry-oak forest region, which includes areas in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
Her clothing also contained high levels of soot from vehicle traffic, nearby industrial activity, or both. That suggests she spent significant time in a Northeastern urban area, or may have been a hitchhiker. The former is considered a strong possibility, Hickey explained, because even her undergarments were covered with soot particles.
The pollen on her outer clothing, including her jeans and leather jacket, tells a different story. It comes from a more arid region in the Western U.S. or northern Mexico.
Could she have hitchhiked out west and been on her way back when she was killed? It’s one possibility investigators are considering.
In addition to helping set up the pollen analysis, Hickey said, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children arranged for a detailed, computerized reconstruction of the Buckskin Girl’s face, based on her autopsy photographs and other information from the coroner’s report.
These new, life-like images have added another, compelling dimension to the ongoing investigation. One of the first persons Hickey showed them to was a retired Sheriff’s Office employee, now the part-time manager of the office’s property room, who worked on the case at the onset and was a pallbearer at the Buckskin Girl’s funeral.
Still buried in Troy, her body might be exhumed for additional tests, Hickey said. For now, investigators are hoping that bringing the case to the attention of people in the Northeast will produce fresh leads. The hope is that someone will be able to identify her.
“Maybe she was a teenager who ran away, or a foster child. We don’t know,” Hickey said. Once they know the identify of the Buckskin Girl, they begin to retrace her steps, and perhaps eventually bring her killer to justice.
“We’re just trying to take one step at a time, and hope for the best," Hickey said.
Murphy, of the national center, said seeing the Buckskin Girl's reconstructed image might very well trigger a memory.
"Thirty-five years is a long time, but yes, people do come forward. We do see identifications in cases that are older, sometimes," he said. "You might have 100,000 people look at it, but it only takes one to recognize her."
Until then, he said, "We never stop looking, we never give up hope."
Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed