Identified! PA - White Haven, 'Beth Doe' & Unborn Baby 169UFPA, 16-22, Dec'76 - #2 - Evelyn Colon

[CCJD]

WARNING GROSSNESS ALERT

Anyone read the report on NamUS that said that the nose and breasts were not recovered? Don't some middle eastern cultures cut noses off? Honor killing, maybe?

What database was the dna put into? If I read right, more than one.

Actually, her ears, nose & breasts were removed.
DNA for mother & child are available in CODIS

http://pennsylvaniamissing.com/bethdoe.html

 

[Magnum P.E.]

Thanks CCJD, one wonders if someone was taking a sick souvenir. This is one of the sickest cases I have seen.

What I was wondering is if they used familial dna to try to find relatives of the Does. If they went to the trouble of getting dna from the fetus they may have done so.
Anyone know if Pennsylvania has ever done this? It may be of use on another case and I am trying to find out if that precedent has been set.

 

[CCJD]

What I was wondering is if they used familial dna to try to find relatives of the Does. If they went to the trouble of getting dna from the fetus they may have done so.

To my knowledge, they have not.

 

[Ambercat]

WARNING GROSSNESS ALERT

Anyone read the report on NamUS that said that the nose and breasts were not recovered? Don't some middle eastern cultures cut noses off? Honor killing, maybe?

What database was the dna put into? If I read right, more than one.

Not with regard to the Arabic speaking Middle East. The closest example [which is quite a stretch, IMO] that I can think of is Mary Jane Kelly, the last known victim of Jack the Ripper, was also had her nose and breasts removed (she also had other mutilations) and Scotland Yard at the time believed (not because of the mutilations, I think it was based primarily witness statements) that Jack the Ripper was a Polish Jew (Aaron Kosminski or David Cohen). Even if this was the case (assuming that Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper), he was Ashkenazi in origin and not Sephardic or Mizrahi. He was also a single person and not an example of any particular group.

I was thinking about this last night, and wondered if, possibly, she had breast implants with serial numbers on them? Did implants have serial numbers on them? Going with the plastic surgery idea, maybe her nose had an obvious rhinoplasty or something very distinct about the shape of it?

 

[Ambercat]

fftopic: Serial killer Jerome Brudos cut the breasts off of two of his victims in the late 1960s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Brudos

 

[carbuff]

I have wondered based on the relative sizes of the suitcases and a woman's body whether possibly the breasts were removed just because he couldn't quite get the zipper zipped -- some women get really large during pregnancy. That wouldn't really explain the nose or ears, though.

 

[Magnum P.E.]

Not with regard to the Arabic speaking Middle East. The closest example [which is quite a stretch, IMO] that I can think of is Mary Jane Kelly, the last known victim of Jack the Ripper, was also had her nose and breasts removed (she also had other mutilations) and Scotland Yard at the time believed (not because of the mutilations, I think it was based primarily witness statements) that Jack the Ripper was a Polish Jew (Aaron Kosminski or David Cohen). Even if this was the case (assuming that Aaron Kosminski was Jack the Ripper), he was Ashkenazi in origin and not Sephardic or Mizrahi. He was also a single person and not an example of any particular group.

I was thinking about this last night, and wondered if, possibly, she had breast implants with serial numbers on them? Did implants have serial numbers on them? Going with the plastic surgery idea, maybe her nose had an obvious rhinoplasty or something very distinct about the shape of it?

\

Found some references to this being done in Afghanistan and Turkey to punish adultery.

Also, Ezikiel 23:25 says "And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire."
That is the King James Bible, other translations refer specifically to the cutting off of the nose and ears. The killer did everything but the burning part.

 

[Magnum P.E.]

Further musings;
Never heard of removing implants to preclude ID by serial number but could be. The killer certainly had enough time to do what he did. I imagine it is a long messy job to do what he did, so one can infer that he had the two things needed to accomplish that - time and privacy. And it sounds like it was very personal. Family honor thing by immigrants?

The Afghanistan and Turkey incidents are pretty recent.

There was never any real evidence that JTR was Jewish or any other ethnicity for that matter. There was a chalk message on a wall that may not have had anything to do with JTR, and the idea that the crimes were so horrible that, of course, no Englishman could have committed them; it had to have been a foreigner and Whitechapel was full of them at that time. But that is about it. Today we would have all manner of physical evidence but then, if they didn't catch someone in the act.......

 

[Ambercat]

Further musings;
Never heard of removing implants to preclude ID by serial number but could be. The killer certainly had enough time to do what he did. I imagine it is a long messy job to do what he did, so one can infer that he had the two things needed to accomplish that - time and privacy. And it sounds like it was very personal. Family honor thing by immigrants?

The Afghanistan and Turkey incidents are pretty recent.

There was never any real evidence that JTR was Jewish or any other ethnicity for that matter. There was a chalk message on a wall that may not have had anything to do with JTR, and the idea that the crimes were so horrible that, of course, no Englishman could have committed them; it had to have been a foreigner and Whitechapel was full of them at that time. But that is about it. Today we would have all manner of physical evidence but then, if they didn't catch someone in the act.......

If she was Afghani, it probably would have said in her profile that she was South-west Asian instead of Caucasian in her NamUs profile, wouldn't it?

Regarding JTR, I forgot about the Goulston St. graffiti until you mentioned it. There were some witness statements from people who saw [I think] Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes with a man, who for some reason or another, the witness thought looked "Jewish" that was later changed when reported by the press as "foreign looking."

With regard to Beth Doe, personally I don't think that she's from that far away [this is JUST my opinion, I could be wrong]. I think she's probably of Italian American origins (there are a lot of Italian Americans in PA), she got pregnant to someone he's married or otherwise engaged. Maybe she and his wife got into a fight, Beth got killed, and either the body was too heavy for that person to carry intact or they needed to get it out without the neighbors seeing it or something like that. The killer could have been jealous of Beth, thinking that she had a better bust line, nose, and ears than her or she could have been thinking something along the lines of "no one will ever look at her again and be attracted to her if I mutilate her," or maybe there was something notable about her breasts (implants with serial numbers?), nose, and/or ears and one or more was additionally cut off to confuse investigators. I think Carbuff is right that the suitcase wouldn't zip because of her breasts, if this was done by the baby's father's wife. I hadn't thought about that before, but it makes sense if she was cut up to be easier to transport.

 

[Ambercat]

This is a photo of the actual suitcases that "Beth" was found in --

There are more photos at the link --
http://www.pennsylvaniamissing.com/bethdoephotos.html

 

[Magnum P.E.]

If she was Afghani, it probably would have said in her profile that she was South-west Asian instead of Caucasian in her NamUs profile, wouldn't it?

Regarding JTR, I forgot about the Goulston St. graffiti until you mentioned it. There were some witness statements from people who saw [I think] Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes with a man, who for some reason or another, the witness thought looked "Jewish" that was later changed when reported by the press as "foreign looking."

With regard to Beth Doe, personally I don't think that she's from that far away [this is JUST my opinion, I could be wrong]. I think she's probably of Italian American origins (there are a lot of Italian Americans in PA), she got pregnant to someone he's married or otherwise engaged. Maybe she and his wife got into a fight, Beth got killed, and either the body was too heavy for that person to carry intact or they needed to get it out without the neighbors seeing it or something like that. The killer could have been jealous of Beth, thinking that she had a better bust line, nose, and ears than her or she could have been thinking something along the lines of "no one will ever look at her again and be attracted to her if I mutilate her," or maybe there was something notable about her breasts (implants with serial numbers?), nose, and/or ears and one or more was additionally cut off to confuse investigators. I think Carbuff is right that the suitcase wouldn't zip because of her breasts, if this was done by the baby's father's wife. I hadn't thought about that before, but it makes sense if she was cut up to be easier to transport.

Did not mean to imply that she was necessarily from Afghanistan, just that there are recent cases of that sort of mutilation. There are indeed many of Italian descent in PA, and if she were from New Jersey or New York, there are lots more. The reconstructed image certainly looks as if she could have been southern Italian, or at least Mediterranean.
So no one has commented on my quote from the Book of Ezekiel. Could a religious fanatic have done this?

 

[Magnum P.E.]

If she was Afghani, it probably would have said in her profile that she was South-west Asian instead of Caucasian in her NamUs profile, wouldn't it?

Regarding JTR, I forgot about the Goulston St. graffiti until you mentioned it. There were some witness statements from people who saw [I think] Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes with a man, who for some reason or another, the witness thought looked "Jewish" that was later changed when reported by the press as "foreign looking."

With regard to Beth Doe, personally I don't think that she's from that far away [this is JUST my opinion, I could be wrong]. I think she's probably of Italian American origins (there are a lot of Italian Americans in PA), she got pregnant to someone he's married or otherwise engaged. Maybe she and his wife got into a fight, Beth got killed, and either the body was too heavy for that person to carry intact or they needed to get it out without the neighbors seeing it or something like that. The killer could have been jealous of Beth, thinking that she had a better bust line, nose, and ears than her or she could have been thinking something along the lines of "no one will ever look at her again and be attracted to her if I mutilate her," or maybe there was something notable about her breasts (implants with serial numbers?), nose, and/or ears and one or more was additionally cut off to confuse investigators. I think Carbuff is right that the suitcase wouldn't zip because of her breasts, if this was done by the baby's father's wife. I hadn't thought about that before, but it makes sense if she was cut up to be easier to transport.

Did not mean to imply that she was necessarily from Afghanistan, just that there are recent cases of that sort of mutilation. There are indeed many of Italian descent in PA, and if she were from New Jersey or New York, there are lots more. The reconstructed image certainly looks as if she could have been southern Italian, or at least Mediterranean.
So no one has commented on my quote from the Book of Ezekiel. Could a religious fanatic have done this?

 

[Ambercat]

Did not mean to imply that she was necessarily from Afghanistan, just that there are recent cases of that sort of mutilation. There are indeed many of Italian descent in PA, and if she were from New Jersey or New York, there are lots more. The reconstructed image certainly looks as if she could have been southern Italian, or at least Mediterranean.
So no one has commented on my quote from the Book of Ezekiel. Could a religious fanatic have done this?

Could be, I guess. Or maybe even someone who wanted to frame someone they thought was "overly religious" in one way or another. Honestly, though, I'm still leaning more towards someone who thought that Beth was trying to steal "her" man. I would even go so far as to say the husband who made "Beth" pregnant helped his wife cover up the crime after the fact. Probably when I get these really preconceived ideas about an UID, it means I should probably back away from her for awhile until I can see other possibilities, too.

 

[carbuff]

In the earlier threads, somebody had pointed out that the timeframe is when the Vietnam War had just ended and tens of thousands of veterans were being released from the military. If somebody got home and found his wife pregnant and he knew it couldn't be his, he might have snapped. While there's no evidence either way on that one, I thought it was one of the more plausible scenarios.

She could also be a "throwaway," somebody whose parents kicked her out when they found out she was pregnant. They wouldn't have reported her missing, either.

 

[PaulaW]

Originally Posted by ClaireNC
The NamUs database does show that there was DNA tests done on the fetus. Look in the DNA section and it lists an ID number for the fetus. https://identifyus.org/cases/8913

As for the father ever being in trouble, I don't think that LE routinely take DNA on everybody arrested, just if they are suspected of a crime that would involve DNA (rape, murder, etc.) I am pretty sure that they were not using DNA tests in the late 1970's.

Changing the subject: This is the first that I have come across this case. I grew up in NJ less than an hour from where Beth Doe was found. I graduated high school in 1977, so we would be close to the same age. Something about her image is eerily familiar. I can't place it, but it could be a childhood memory of a girl that was in the foster care system. I can't remember her name but I think it started with a D - Darlene, Donna or Debbie? She was in our school district for maybe a year or two, probably around 1972/1973. I remember the place where she lived, it was a sort of group home or home for "wayward girls" as my mother described it. It seems to me that she was of Italian descent, which would match the Mediterranean mentioned.

Another thought is that she could have been part of culture that practiced arranged marriages when the girls were in their mid-teens. One of my high school friends was from Greece and her family arranged to have her husband brought over when she was 16. She was pregnant by the time she was 17 and by the time she was 20 she was divorced. The guy had beat her pretty badly but still she was shunned from the family when she left him. Beth Doe's murder seems very personal, not just random. So could it be that she was pregnant when the man she was promised to came to the US and when he found out, he killed her? Just a thought...


What HS did you graduate from? I may be able to get a list of "group homes" in NJ and PA from around that time period...

 

[Magnum P.E.]

In the earlier threads, somebody had pointed out that the timeframe is when the Vietnam War had just ended and tens of thousands of veterans were being released from the military. If somebody got home and found his wife pregnant and he knew it couldn't be his, he might have snapped. While there's no evidence either way on that one, I thought it was one of the more plausible scenarios.

She could also be a "throwaway," somebody whose parents kicked her out when they found out she was pregnant. They wouldn't have reported her missing, either.

IIRC, I think the last US troops left in Vietnam 1973. I turned 18 in June 75 and was about to register for the draft but it was announced that they were not taking registrations any more. A friend born in March did, I believe. The demobilization had already happened several years before this murder.
We have some good thoughts on here but I think it is more productive to go for her identity rather than try to identify motives of the killer or scenarios. And I have been doing that as much as any of us. To ID her we probably need familial dna run, there is no missing persons report on her.

 

[carbuff]

IIRC, I think the last US troops left in Vietnam 1973. I turned 18 in June 75 and was about to register for the draft but it was announced that they were not taking registrations any more. A friend born in March did, I believe. The demobilization had already happened several years before this murder.
We have some good thoughts on here but I think it is more productive to go for her identity rather than try to identify motives of the killer or scenarios. And I have been doing that as much as any of us. To ID her we probably need familial dna run, there is no missing persons report on her.

Okay, you're right, I was thinking 1973 for some reason

The who did it is tightly tied to who she is, in a circular sort of way. If we could get an idea under what circumstances she died, it might give a clue as to who she was. But beyond that, you're right, it's kind of irrelevant.

I'm not sure I agree that she wasn't reported missing. That's possible, but I think it's also possible that she's out there and nobody has made a match with her because she's in the wrong place, the wrong time (mistake in entering data maybe), people didn't know she was pregnant, etc. Maybe she's only in a small local or state database. I know Massachusetts often doesn't publicize missing people unless they have reason to think might have left the area.

 

[Magnum P.E.]

Okay, you're right, I was thinking 1973 for some reason

The who did it is tightly tied to who she is, in a circular sort of way. If we could get an idea under what circumstances she died, it might give a clue as to who she was. But beyond that, you're right, it's kind of irrelevant.

I'm not sure I agree that she wasn't reported missing. That's possible, but I think it's also possible that she's out there and nobody has made a match with her because she's in the wrong place, the wrong time (mistake in entering data maybe), people didn't know she was pregnant, etc. Maybe she's only in a small local or state database. I know Massachusetts often doesn't publicize missing people unless they have reason to think might have left the area.

I don't mean to insult anyone, because I am guilty of it too at times, but if we spend our time speculating about scenarios that we could not prove one way or another, well, I call that the "Colonel Mustard did it in the hallway with a candleholder" mode. It doesn't get us any closer, really.
I do not know why so many are not reported missing. I would think that in 36 years every possible match would have been looked at. I guess it is worth going through them again, maybe someone has recently been added to the missing list even though it has been a long time.
So what if the person who should have been the one to report her missing is the person responsible for her death? Or am I going Colonel Mustard again?

What we need is an organization to fund the use of familial dna in these cases like Beth Doe where everything else goes nowhere. If we can know her identity, we will probably know who did it very quickly. This was personal.

 

[Ambercat]

There is a post for another UID who was probably a little older than Beth who was found murdered in Long Beach, CA in 1974, but I think a lot of the reasons why no one is able to find a missing persons report for her would also apply to Beth.

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=114647

Quoting Zinc's post for Shoreline Jane Doe –

Violence from someone she knew is definitely a possibility here, but given that it was 1974, I think of the usual litany...
• Department refused to take the MP report
• Didn't occur to her loved ones that it would do any good to file a report
• Report initially taken but never filed/misfiled/mislaid/discarded/incorrectly ruled out as being UID and later arbitrarily closed after X number of years
• Report taken somewhere within several hours' drive but not in the jurisdiction where UID was found, integration of reports across jurisdictions was even poorer then than now; report was closed or discarded after X number of years, or report still exists in a dusty cardboard box but has never been put into any searchable database or checked against non-local UIDs

 

[carbuff]

I don't mean to insult anyone, because I am guilty of it too at times, but if we spend our time speculating about scenarios that we could not prove one way or another, well, I call that the "Colonel Mustard did it in the hallway with a candleholder" mode. It doesn't get us any closer, really.
I do not know why so many are not reported missing. I would think that in 36 years every possible match would have been looked at. I guess it is worth going through them again, maybe someone has recently been added to the missing list even though it has been a long time.
So what if the person who should have been the one to report her missing is the person responsible for her death? Or am I going Colonel Mustard again?

What we need is an organization to fund the use of familial dna in these cases like Beth Doe where everything else goes nowhere. If we can know her identity, we will probably know who did it very quickly. This was personal.

It's certainly hard to stay out of Colonel Mustard mode, isn't it?

If the person responsible for the death was the only/main one who would have reported her missing, that would certainly increase the likelihood she was never reported missing. And yes, it is worth going through the missing lists -- as many as we can find, not just the big ones -- looking for people we haven't seen or considered before. Names are getting added all the time as word about the problem spreads and more and more police departments are adding their people to the list.