From 2004:
http://www.riverfronttimes.com/content/printVersion/117278/
"Buried within the Web site for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children lies a page devoted to Jane Doe. Of the roughly 1,400 children profiled, she is the only child without a mug shot or artist's rendering. In its place appears the bloodied yellow sweater found on her body, along with information about skin color, weight and age.
It is on this Web site, and a handful of other databases devoted to missing children, that detective Tom Carroll continues to search for Jane Doe's identity. Police long ago abandoned the hopes of finding her head. Even if they were to find it, it would be nothing more than a skull, perhaps providing the girl's dental records, but little else.
It is in the ethereal world of the Internet that Carroll digs for clues. In six years of scrolling through thousands of profiles, he's identified a dozen missing girls who perhaps match the description of Jane Doe.
Carroll, 40, is the latest detective to head up the case from inside a department whose interior is little changed since the days of the girl's vicious death. Detectives are outfitted with the bare minimum: a desk, phone, filing cabinet. Fluorescent lights, a worn linoleum floor and half-finished coffee cups complete the scene. Save for the width of the cops' neckties, it might be the stage set for the 1970s sitcom Barney Miller.
Once Carroll comes across a possible match, he contacts the child's parents. Each phone call is another stab in the dark.
"It's to the point you really are walking on eggshells when you're calling these people," says the soft-spoken Carroll, who works the Jane Doe murder whenever he has a free hour or two. "People will let time heal a lot of things, and do you really want to gash that back open?"
The conversations are more or less the same. Carroll identifies himself and prefaces the discussion by saying he's not calling to report good news. He tells them St. Louis police have a deceased black female they can't identify. He then describes Jane Doe as best he can. Inevitably the strangers on the other end of the line begin quizzing him, wanting to know what color hair the victim had. What color were her eyes? Doesn't he have dental records?
After a while Carroll is forced to show his hand. He tells them the little girl's head was never discovered. That revelation comes followed by a long pause, but most parents of missing children sympathize with the cop. After so many years, they're looking for any answer, good or bad." (snip--more at link above)
However, the case of the missing Rilya Wilson is still very much open.