On Sept. 19, 1995, a woman’s severed midsection was found on a conveyor belt at the Silver State Recycling plant, at 333 W. Gowan Road. Detectives combed through piles of trash to find the woman’s dismembered head, arms and legs, but not all of her body could be found.
“We’ll probably never have a definitive cause of death unless we find all the body parts,” Metropolitan Police Department homicide Sgt. Ken Hefner told the Las Vegas Review-Journal at the time.
Jane “Silver State” Doe, who was in her early 20s, may now have been an unnamed homicide victim for longer than she was alive. Police know basic details — she was 5 feet tall with brown eyes, brown hair and auburn highlights — but nothing else.
But like the coroner’s office, Las Vegas police don’t stop investigating unidentified bodies. Metro homicide Lt. Ray Spencer said cold case detectives are actively investigating the Jane “Silver State” Doe case and are conducting genealogy testing in hopes of identifying her.
“We are hopeful to have preliminary results within the next couple of months,” Spencer said.
Meanwhile, the information on Jane “Silver State” Doe and other unidentified bodies has been entered into databases such as the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
While investigators hope that sketches can lead to an identification, other database entries have images of white busts meant to depict what the unidentified person may have looked like while alive.
The Clark County coroner’s office has investigated thousands of deaths over the years, but 273 people remain unidentified. Some of them were likely homeless.
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