…
Police now suspected their unidentified victim—a Jane Doe—was not from the area. She had been kept in the morgue all this time in the hope somebody would come to claim her.
She was buried in Washington Park Cemetery in Berkeley on Dec. 2, 1983.
Very few people were present for the original burial – the officiant, the funeral director, the city medical examiner, and a few police detectives. The gravediggers had to serve as pallbearers. The service lasted five minutes.
In the months and years following, investigators continuously filed missing person bulletins across the country and placed ads in Black magazines and newspapers. Detectives even consulted with psychics in a desperate search for any lead.
In one instance, a detective attended a seance in Maplewood. One of the psychics
touched a photograph of Little Jane Doe’s fingerprints and claimed the child’s head was on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico.
The child’s head was never found.
In the mid-1990s, detectives even went on a nationally-syndicated TV show to consult with a Florida psychic. Police mailed the psychic the yellow sweater and the rope used to bind the girl’s hands, so this person could touch the items and get a “psychic impression” of the victim. Nothing useful came of the TV appearance. The
sweater and rope were never returned. The psychic claimed they were lost in the mail.
In 2009, police wanted to exhume Little Jane Doe’s body to run new tests in an attempt to identify her. Unfortunately, her remains weren’t in their listed location. Instead, authorities found three other bodies near her gravestone. Washington Park Cemetery
had been neglected for decades.
Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis ultimately helped locate Little Jane Doe’s remains by examing old photographs and utilizing geolocation. She was
finally exhumed in June 2013.
Her remains were examined by researchers from the Smithsonian Institution and the University of North Texas. They took DNA and bone samples for isotope testing, with the hope being they could identify where she lived by the mineral content in her bones. They determined the girl lived in any of 10 southeastern states: Alabama, Arkansas, the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, or Texas. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children lists the following seven states on Little Jane Doe’s profile: Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, or Wisconsin.
Little Jane Doe was reburied following an hour-long ceremony on Feb. 8, 2014, at the Garden of Innocents in Calvary Cemetery; this time, dozens of people turned out for the service. A grave marker identifies her as “Hope.”
The building where Hope was discovered was torn down. It’s been replaced by a senior living apartment complex.
The
St. Louis City Cold Case Unit, formed in 2019, has a
room devoted just to the case of Little Jane Doe.
Of all the children listed on the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children,
Little Jane Doe is the only child without a photo or facial reconstruction image attached to their profile.
Police are still looking for tips on this homicide
and several other unsolved cases. You can send them by email to
homicidecoldcase@slmpd.org or you can call the Homicide Division directly at
314-444-5371.
Anyone with a tip who wants to remain anonymous and is interested in a reward can contact CrimeStoppers at
866-371-TIPS (8477) or visit their website:
CrimeStoppers.
Grizzly child murder remains a St. Louis mystery after 39 years
