Victim's Rings
Case History
The victim was located on a pile of debris at the end of a Brazoria County road on September 10, 1990
The skeleton was found by an Alvin man who had pulled off the highway to find a place to urinate. He stepped behind a barricade and saw a skull in an old tire.
Authorities beleive the rings are the clue to solving the case. Three rings were on the skeleton's fingers. One was silver with a scroll design, another had a turquoise unicorn on it. But investigators think the 1975 Lee High School ring probably has the best chance of leading to her identity. A jeweler told investigators the ring was a size 9 1/2 and had been resized twice. The person it fit was probably about 175 pounds. She would have been far too young for the 1975 class ring to be hers. It could have been given to her by an aunt, an older sister, by anybody.
The company that made Lee High School's rings doesn't have records from 1975. The Lee class of 1975 probably had about 150 girls. Authorities would like to hear from any of the girls who lost a ring or gave it to somebody else. An ornate "L" inlaid in the blue stone could have stood for the owner's last name or for Lee High School.
No traces of drugs were found in the bone marrow.
Manvel, Texas
Manvel Police Department
POC: Jay Coffman - 281-489-1212
Saturday, September 2, 2006
Ring is top clue in cold case
Teens Remains were found along Brazoria County road in 1990
By: Richard Stewart (richard.stewart@chron.com), Houston Chronicle
ANGLETON, TEXAS - A well-worn ring from the 1975 class of Houston's Robert E. Lee High School is the main evidence police have to try to unravel a 16-year-old mystery. It was found on the finger of a skeleton at the end of a Brazoria County road in 1990.
"It's not much to go on," said Manvel police Detective Jay Coffman, "but it's about all we've got."
In the nine years since the remains were found, investigators have not been able to tell what happened to the female victim, how she got to be on a pile of debris or, more importantly, who she was.
"Somebody's missing this girl," Coffman said, holding the ring. Somebody is missing the ring, too, he said, because he doubts it originally belonged to the victim.
A medical examiner's report estimated that the skeleton found on September 10, 1990, was that of a girl about 17 years old, plus or minus two years, Coffman said. She would have been far too young for the 1975 class ring to be hers.
(Please Note: Princess Blue's time of death has recently been changed from between 6 months to 1 year prior to being found on September 10th, 1990 to, "Unknown." Therefore, it is possible that the ring did originally belong to her. I am currently trying to work this possibility out with the fact that it was reported that bone marrow was taken from at least one of her bones for drug testing. I don't know how there would have been viable bone marrow left in 1990 if she had been killed years before in the mid 70's. Please look for updated information on this in future posts).
"It could have been given to her by an aunt, an older sisters, by anybody," Coffman said.
Richard Rosser, an investigator with the Brazoria County Sheriff's Department, is working with Coffman to solve the mystery.
"Back then, Brazoria County was a dumping ground for bodies of people killed in Houston," Rosser said. "It seemed like we had at least one a month."
The skeleton was found by an Alvin man who had pulled off the highway to find a place to urinate. He told investigators that he stepped behind a barricade and saw a skull in an old tire.
Investigators have no clues as to how she died. No traces of drugs were found in the bone marrow. Medical examiners estimated she had been dead six months to a year.
The victim was about 5 feet tall, plus or minus 2 inches. Medical examiners said the skeleton was probably that of a Hispanic female.
Investigators looked at dozens of different reports of missing teenage girls, but none seemed to match the skeleton.
Three rings were on the skeleton's fingers. One was silver with a scroll design, another had a turquoise unicorn on it. But investigators think the 1975 Lee High School ring probably has the best chance of leading to her identity.
A jeweler recently told investigators the ring was a size 91/2 and had been resized twice. The person it fit was probably about 175 pounds. [Please Note: The TX dps site has changed her weight to, "unknown". A forensic pathologist was not used to help determine her weight. Going by just the ring size would not necessarily be accurate]
An ornate "L" inlaid in the blue stone could have stood for the owner's last name or for Lee High School. The company that made Lee High School's rings doesn't have records from 1975, Rosser said.
The Lee class of 1975 probably had about 150 girls, Rosser said. He would like to hear from any of them who lost a ring or gave it to somebody else. The skeleton is now at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Forth Worth. That facility operates the Texas Missing Persons DNA Database, which, in turn, feeds information about missing persons to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), operated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
If investigators get new leads, they can try to test the DNA of relatives to identify her.
"We would at least have a name," Coffman said.
Anyone with information about this case can contact Manvel Police Detective Jay Coffman at 281-489-1212 or e-mail him at jcoffman@manvelpd.org.