Cops look to DNA in 1979 case
Data banks to be checked to locate missing woman
DAVISON
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
Friday, May 19, 2006 By Ron Fonger
rfonger@flintjournal.com • 810.766.6317
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<LI>Paulette Jaster disappeared from her parents' home in Davison on May 12, 1979. She would now be 52.
<LI>State police are restarting their investigation of her disappearance, hoping DNA from Jaster's father and sisters will help them close the case. Until now, Jaster's DNA information has not been entered into a national FBI databank that helps match missing persons with unidentified human remains.
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If you have information that might be helpful to police, call state police Detective Sgt. Jason Teddy at (810) 732-1111.
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DAVISON - Police have restarted an investigation into the disappearance of Paulette Jaster, a former Davison High School homecoming queen candidate who vanished 27 years ago.
State police plan to collect DNA from the father and sisters of Jaster, who walked away from home carrying a green dufflebag in May 1979 and never was seen again by her family.
State police Detective Sgt. Jason Teddy of the Flint Township post said he plans to use the DNA in an effort to match Paulette to unidentified remains in a nationwide FBI database, including a body found in Blue Earth, Minn., one year after Jaster disappeared.
"It could help. The window is not closed," said Teddy, who took on the case just days ago. "I plan to use the technology available today to reanalyze the information that's been collected over the years."
Jaster's story was profiled by The Flint Journal last month. The April 30 article generated calls to state police, but no leads have paid dividends, Teddy said.
Her disappearance has troubled her family for decades, partly because the former honor student and high school basketball star had developed schizophrenia before she left home without warning.
Family members and police have since followed false leads, offered rewards and traveled around the country to find out whether Jaster is alive or dead, in trouble, or only interested in being left alone.
Before her mother's death in 2005, Jaster's parents both gave blood at the request of police, a family member said, but that information was only used to eliminate her from consideration in another Jane Doe case in Arizona.
"If she's out there ... we want her to know her family loves her," said Peggy Sperlich, one of Jaster's sisters. "This makes me more hopeful."
Police are interested in the possible connection between Jaster's disappearance and the unidentified remains of a Jane Doe whose body was found in a drainage ditch a few miles east of tiny Blue Earth on May 30, 1980.
The woman found in Blue Earth was nude, her head partly shaved, and a rope was around her neck. She was buried in a rural cemetery with a headstone marked "unidentified person."
Jaster was 25 at the time she disappeared, and her age and physical description generally match the description of the Jane Doe.
"I've always thought (Paulette Jaster) was a good candidate to be our Jane Doe," said Deborah B. Anderson, a Blue Earth resident who started a Web site devoted to identifying the woman found in her town.
Anderson said she has read about Jaster on Web sites dedicated to missing persons and calls the possible match between the two women a "very, very, very huge longshot," but believes it's worth pursuing.
"I would hope to God somebody would do the same thing if my daughter was buried somewhere under a stone," she said. "You can't say it doesn't matter just because she died in a ditch."
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https://mavdisk.mnsu.edu/bittid/#FACTS
Maybe her head was shaved by her killer? Also, if the ID card and sweater found under a nearby overpass really did belong to her, and the supposedly issuing state could not identify who it belonged to, then it was forged. That would suggest that she was either 1-an illegal alien, or 2-hiding from someone/law enforcement. I'm going to guess that option 1 is more likely. Either would explain why no missing persons reports.