Identified! MN - Blue Earth, WhtFem 183UFMN, 20-35, May'80 - Michelle Busha

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maureen said:
Here is Cassandra that the other forum was talking about-does anybosy have any thoughts? http://charleyproject.org/cases/l/landrum_cassandra.html
Click to expand...

I think Cassandra Landrum bears an uncanny resemblance to Jane Doe. It would be helpful to see a post-mortem photo of Jane Doe to compare it to Cassandra's photo because, as we all know, the sketches of unidentified persons aren't always very accurate. Does anyone know if a post-mortem photo is available on the internet?
What makes me doubtful is the lapse of time between Cassandra's disappearance and the death of Jane Doe (5 years) and the phone calls her parents received shortly after her disappearance stating that Cassandra was murdered. That indicates that she probably died in 1975. The caller was not identified, so it is difficult to say if the calls were only a very bad "joke" or if the caller really knew something about Cassandra's disappearance.
Anyway, based on the looks I would say that Cassandra is a great possible match. Was it ever called in?
 
I need to go back and read these post...I almost gave up on anyone posting...

no post-mort photos that I know of...the sketch was done by using an x-ray from the original autopsy...by measurements and such so how great the photo is...is anyones guess. I will be meeting with a lady who has extensive information on this case including about 80% of the original police file...some was lost

I have someone in TX trying to get a DNA comparison done..on the three girls I mentioned..well see where that goes..

not that anyone can be eliminated just in case the "cult" angle doesn't pan out...but cults were not into taking underage kids...they didn't need those problems with law enforcement they had enough and they seemed to be quite content on using the kids they had or just dropping them off to biological family members houses or letting them go into foster care....

Thank you everyone for your post and thoughts!!!
 
Cassandra Landrum ,whereas the photo is very similar we would have to explain why she would have shaved her hair off (remember the sketch of Jane Doe is a guess if she had hair - they could have given her any hair style)
shaved head could be any of the following...can we tie any of it to Cassandra?

could be cult - Is there known cult activity in GA that had females shave heads

could be joined a skin head group - was she known to hang with this type of crowd. Where there known skin head groups in GA that might have migrated to MN area at some point

could be cancer victim - after effect of chemo - highly doubt at her age and a person on the run would probably reach out to home for support/scared

could be a torture method of a sicko - from what I have learned of some of this murderers who knows...but is there a known murderer with that m.o.?

seepage - loss of hair due to long exposure to wheather BUT Jane Doe did have some hair (a tuff of hair it says) and they decided that seepage was most likely not the cause because of the existing hair..but can't be ruled out.

we have to keep in mind that there are hundreds of girls out there missing that meet the physical characteristics..we need to give a compelling reason why that person would be found in the area of Jane Doe or her murderer being in the area of the missing person and why they meet Jane does known appearance to get authorities to look at it seriously. To many suggestions burns them out on "regular folks" doing their (police) jobs...which they should appreciate any help I would think.

for example...when I first contacted TX I got the feeling it was just collecting info...like yeah yeah...go ahead..when I went into the fact I looked at every single missing person they had listed and narrowed down on three with no reason to exclude them, I could tie in a TX connection by the id, could tie in the shaved head - by known cult activity in both MN and TX well the conversation took a whole new feel...a feel as hey you could possibly be on something...But I gave them a story plausible enough to say hmmmmm

So we need a hmmmm story for anyone we consider....I can give you a list of a hundred girls that could fit the physical description (unfortunately)...but make me say hmmm...do you know any back ground on Cassandra?
 
Hello, Just a small thought, when Cassandra went missing, she was barefoot, going to a payphone. Someone who would do that, obviously was barefoot a lot and would have heavily calloused feet. I tend not to think of the girls from TX because it is so far from MN. Have you looked at girls from Canada...Maureen
 
Haven't looked at the girls from Canada yet...was working the "cult" angel first because they were for sure in the area at the time.

Other areas I will be focusing my attn to will be OR, ID, and WI because they were mentioned as possible areas by the murderer. If I exhaust those leads with no result then I will focus on other states/and even countries.

I would like to know about CODUS, NCIC how comparisons are done, time frame to have it done... Also would like to know if CODUS does a auto check of DNA when cases are entered or is it only a database for pulling record asking for comparisons? What sites do automatic chks and what do they chk for?

thanks again
Ken
 
Ok,
Can we get some more information about the shaved head? Are we sure that is factual? I was looking at different religions that shave their heads, and there is a Jewish sect called: Hasidic Judaism. Hassidic Jewish women shave their heads upon marriage and wear wigs. They also have to shave their heads after the death of a parent or after coming into contact with a corpse. I also found out that there are two Hasidic Sherman Park neighborhood of Milwaukee, and St. Louis Park, a Minneapolis suburb. SO maybe he was telling the truth, maybe she was from that area. Just a thought.
 
Thinking about this doe, someone must know her identity! Did anyone figure out of the shaved head thing was factual or not?
 
Alfonso Rodriguez was in the area a month prior to the discovery of this Jane Doe. He was accused of a crime in Mankato in April, by early May he was custody in Crookston for a kidnapping/sexual assault. If the medical examiner was off a few weeks on the time of death, he could be a possibility. The crime fits his pattern.
 
Eoanthropus Dawsoni said:
Alfonso Rodriguez was in the area a month prior to the discovery of this Jane Doe. He was accused of a crime in Mankato in April, by early May he was custody in Crookston for a kidnapping/sexual assault. If the medical examiner was off a few weeks on the time of death, he could be a possibility. The crime fits his pattern.
Click to expand...

I believe they already know who the killer is, an ex-highway patrolman who is already in jail for another crime.
 
I believe Aleca Manning has the most striking resemblance to Jane Doe. She is from AZ and if that ID found from TX (used for fake ID?) was Jane Does, that would place her going through TX, so its possible she's from AZ. There's a 5 year difference but if Aleca left of her own accord, that could explain the fake ID, shaved head (Christ Family in TX), and hitch hiking that it looks like Jane Doe went through. It all fits.
http://doenetwork.org/cases/2581dfaz.html
 
I went to Blue Earth today, I wanted to visit Jane Doe's grave, but unfortunately didn't have the time to. It's a very cute, small town. (Big enough that they have their own Wal-Mart though-thumbs up!)
It's a town where if you're not from there, it'll be noticed.
I-90 stretches from MA to WA. Maybe she was from the Eastern US, and was hitch hiking her way to the West side, since she was hiking her way towards Blue Earth?
I also attempted to find the area where she was found in a drainage ditch (by a river, near the exit to Bricelyn) and it's a very swampy/marshy area. Lots of tall grass and little ponds/creeks in that little area, it's very lucky a farmer happened to find her other wise I really don't think she would have been found. The area she was picked up/found at was really in the middle of nowhere. Bricelyn is more a camping area than a town. Otherwise there's really nothing but farmland, swampy ponds, and interstate for miles and miles and miles. She wasn't found as close to Blue Earth as I had thought.
Nevertheless, I do believe she was never reported missing, and that she was estranged from her family, maybe even friends too. I do wonder why her head was shaved? In the above posts I've heard it maybe she was in a religious cult? Could she have been heading out west to join a cult? Was their any chance her killer (Nelson) had shaved her head as a cruel way of torture? Or was she that much of a wild child? I don't think it was that common for a woman to have a shaved head outta the blue in the 80s. I'm surprised not more people have reported seeing her. Surely a young woman with a shaved head hitch hiking would have been remembered?
Any more thoughts on this case?
 
I am repasting the Doe Network link here as it was way in the beginning of this thread. I was taken aback by the reference to the head shaving as it was not in the DN profile but it was in one of the newspapers that reported the incident early on. one of the articles mentioned that her eyes may have been blue.

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/183ufmn.html

odd that they do not have her in Namus yet maintain their own website for this UID:

https://mavdisk.mnsu.edu/bittid/Welcome.htm

both of these had been posted before but I wanted to put them together for the sake of easy reference.
 
here's a wild guess. this is the only missing person at Namus with reference to Hare Krishnas, Karthrine Barnum, age 24 missing from Colorado in Feb 1979. supposedly she went to CA and became a Krishna and is supposedly dead in a mineshaft somewhere in Colorado.

hair is not exactly a match but brown and auburn can be confused depending on the degree of redness in the hair and Kathrine was substantially heavier when last seen than the UID was but walking around enough to get heavily calloused feet would certainly burn off some body fat.

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/15042/0/

I would add that even if it was Katherine, at this point in time they have no identifiers for her.
 
What if the Hare Krishna/cult angle is wrong??

1979 puts us right in the area where punk and New Wave were gaining a foothold in the U.S. Camo jacket, sweatshirt, black leather purse, one earring sounds more punk to me than Hare Krishna or cult, IMO. Since the girl talked about Milwaukee supposedly, I looked into that a little bit. Milwaukee did have a burgeoning punk music scene at that time, (being memorialized this year by a multi-act reunion concert titled "Lest We Forget.") Although it wasn't ground zero for punk in the U.S., there apparently was a significant local following. The Violent Femmes came out of the Milwaukee punk/New Wave scene around this time. Portland, Oregon too had a happening punk scene, although the same could not be said for Idaho.
 
I also think it's odd she's not in NamUs, her case is still open. I really don't believe she was ever reported missing. You'd think she'd have friends or family out there looking for her!
But who knows how long she was on the move for? I think publicity and new technology is the best bet to solve this case. Many people are never reported missing, especially if they leave of their own accord. Authorities back than especially didn't take stuff like that seriously, especially in young adults or teens.
 
assume for the sake of argument, the missing person who became this UID had left home to join a cult. I am not at all certain that the police would take a missing person's report as the adult voluntarily left to join a religious group.

think about it, "officer, I want to make out a MP report for my daughter _____"

"okay ma'am, what are the circumstances?"

"she joined a cult"

"so what do you want me to do ma'am? it is not against the law to join a cult and it is not a police matter if she did, unless she was being held against her will. do you know what cult or where she went?"

"no I don't officer"

"well then there is nothing I can do for you ma'am, I am very sorry".
 
webrocket said:
assume for the sake of argument, the missing person who became this UID had left home to join a cult. I am not at all certain that the police would take a missing person's report as the adult voluntarily left to join a religious group.

think about it, "officer, I want to make out a MP report for my daughter _____"

"okay ma'am, what are the circumstances?"

"she joined a cult"

"so what do you want me to do ma'am? it is not against the law to join a cult and it is not a police matter if she did, unless she was being held against her will. do you know what cult or where she went?"

"no I don't officer"

"well then there is nothing I can do for you ma'am, I am very sorry".
Click to expand...

This is so true. And if the girl was a minor when she left home in the 70's, even if they took a report, it would probably have been purged on her 18th birthday. That's just the way they did things then.

I believe Nelson killed her. I don't believe any of the details, except maybe that he threw her purse in the grain silo.

The ring on the website is interesting. I used to have one exactly like that; got it at a hippie crafts store in a Denver suburb in 1973.

I can believe she was headed to Idaho. She sounds like an older hippie who's been traveling the countryside and Idaho at the time was full of hippie communes and cult groups with small farms in the mountains. In 1975, I had friends in a lesbian separatist commune outside of Salmon; in a Buddhist...I dunno, it was almost like one of those Chinese caves in an old mine, also near Salmon; and in a small Christian group outside of Moscow attempting to recreate "original" Christianity by subsistence farming, modesty (for both men and women), and being nice to people. And I was not terribly radical or that much of a hippie. Oregon too. (I think a lot of the favored areas were good for marijuana growing, too...)
 
So I confirmed by reading old newspaper articles that the Doe's head WAS IN FACT SHAVED, save for a small round spot, which was deliberately left unshaven. One article attributes this to the Doe as being a cult member.

Here are the links to the articles (only the last 3 mention that her head was partially shaven):

http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/bittid/newspaperarticles.htm

This website is dedicated solely to BEJD and has a lot of information, much more than what can be ascertained from the DoeNetwork profile.


What does everyone think about the Texas ID card connection? Do you think it really was related to the Doe? Its such an odd find in rural Minnesota. Why was it deliberately hidden? Is it just coincidence that it was discovered right after BEJD was found and in the same vicinity? It doesn't appear that BEJD was hispanic (as the name on the ID suggests, if in fact it was hers) but you never know.

Here is link to some information (and official police report) about the Texas ID find:

http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/bittid/idcard.html
 
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