I just came across a book written on this while doing a little research. The title is The Shanty by Sandra Lee. That is the name of the young girl that found the body but nowhere can I find if this Sandra Lee is of the same person. Anyone?
rbbm.
Whitey Bulger, gays, and the Lady Of The Dunes murder mystery
"The ghost of Provincetown's most infamous gone girl continues to follow Sandra Lee, author of
The Shanty, and Provincetown regular since the 1970s. The crime writer was only nine-years-old when she claimed to have stumbled on the cold case of the century. According to Lee's exclusive interview with
Boston Spirit magazine, the Lady of the Dunes' decomposing body continues to haunt her dreams. During an emotional discussion which stirred up childhood demons, Lee says the woman's dead body sounded like a string of pearls rubbing together.
Provincetown Crime Scene
"She was in the brush, in the sea grass about 15 feet from an access road," Lee recalls. "The road follows the backside of Dunes' Edge Campground. She was in the thick of the brush. It was nothing shy of horrific. It was something I will never forget."
Lee, who camped at Dunes' Edge every July in the early '70s, says it has taken her years to talk publicly about the horrors from her childhood. While there is a local teenage girl on record who is credited with calling responding officers at the scene in 1974, the 49-year-old author says she and her sister found the rotting corpse of the Lady of the Dunes two days before police were alerted.
"I stumbled down an incline with my dog," she continues. "The dog was ahead of me. My dog got excited about something. I heard a very strange noise. If you could imagine someone holding a string of pearls, I heard that sound. And then there was a horrible smell. At first, I attributed it to low tide," Lee recalls the horrific scene with emotion. "She was face down. Her hair was a mess and I could see a gouge in the right side of her neck. Her arms were tucked down in the sand so I didn't know anything was missing. I recognized the green blanket right away."
"I believe there were a few people who found the body, but there is only one who spoke to police in person about it."
"On July 26, 1974, the naked decomposing body of a woman in her 20s or early 30s was
discovered by a girl (not Lee) walking her dog"
"James "Whitey" Bulger. In fact, Bulger — who had a past as a gay-for-pay male hustler — was a regular at popular LGBT hangout The Crown & Anchor, and has been linked to a woman with a similar description to the Lady of the Dunes. There was also a size 10 shoe imprint found at the scene, the same shoe size as Bulger, and a green towel or blanket believed to be from the Crown & Anchor.
Did Bulger do it? According to Lee, he should be a person of interest.
Bulger in Provincetown
Provincetown became a safe haven for lesbians and gay men in the late 1960s and early '70s. There were several LGBT friendly bars, including the A-House, which "turned gay" in 1976, the Pilgrim House, P'town's earliest drag bar called Weathering Heights, The Moors, and of course the Crown & Anchor."
