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

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A couple of things to add to the above list for Richard Cottingham that are similar to the Beth Doe case...

  • He left his victims nude
  • He strangled at least one of his victims
  • He killed some of his victims in towns that were within just a couple of miles from I-80 (so he had easy access to Rte 80)

One thing I did note about him is that the torture was the name of the game for him, not so much the killing. Did Beth Doe have any signs of torture? Bruises and such?

A couple of other things....his first known murder was in 1967. The next murders he is known for are 1977 on up. I don't think he quit for 10 years.

In addition, one of his victims, Maryann Carr, was killed on December 16, 1977 which would have been exactly a year after Beth Doe. Two of his victims in 1979 were also killed in December. There are other victims in other months, but I still find the above very interesting.
 
I was also looking at possible mob connection, Gambino. I don't really think Beth's case has to do with the mob, but I found it interesting. Roy Demeo, part of the Gambino mob would use the Gemini Method (blood is drained and then body cut up) then thrown in the dump. Demeo was a former butcher as well as his associate Joseph Testa. Part of the Gemini Method was to also stab the victim in the heart. As far as we know Beth was not stabbed in the heart. It had me thinking though if she saw or knew something that these people had done she would have been done away with. Suspected informants or any conflicts would be handled in this way. Trying to find more information on a hearing in January of 1976. There was a woman who testified against these men. She may have been the girlfriend of either William Serrano or Charles Padnick who had flown to New York to meet up with Demeo.
 
carbuff said:
The ink they used to use in the ubiquitous Bic ballpoints would last a long time, through several washings. We used to use it to make fake tattoos.

By 1976, punch cards were widely used for billing and such (do not fold, spindle, or mutilate) but I don't know whether car registration data was computerized by then, or in what states.

One thing I noticed about the description of the writing: "...almost definitely was WSR. Next to that was either a 4 or a 5. Below and to the right was either a 4 or 7." Makes me wonder if the writing had already been partly erased?
Click to expand...

I have been pondering the "WSR" and it struck me that this could be West Shore Rail Line and the numbers could've meant either a Car number or the times they would arrive. Surely the investigators looked into this, there were plenty of runs made from New York to Pennsylvania, or switchovers along those lines. In 1976, most of the West Shore Rail lines became Conrail, the ones in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, etc.. Some folks still called it the West Shore Rail excursion in 1976. Would it be demeaning to LE, if I were to ask them if this was pursued?
 
That sounds very plausible. It wouldn't hurt to run that idea past LE. But 37 years later, I would think that any records are long gone. But it might be able to narrow down a geographic area for them.
 
I will send an e-mail with the suggestion, today...
 
skeet said:
Just wondering if you got a reply yet.
Click to expand...

Nothing yet! Hoping to hear, soon! Took me a bit to find the State Police e-mail address, but finally did and sent Corporal McAndrew a note!
Will certainly come here, first thing, when I do!
 
Did Beth Doe have any signs of torture? Bruises and such?
Click to expand...

I never read that but it may have been difficult for them to determine it at the time because of the long fall from the bridge. She did have her nose and I think ears removed as well. There was never a mention if that was done while she was alive.

Does anyone know if the Delaware Water gap bridge was a 24/7 manned toll bridge in 1976?

I was looking at an article about Andre Rand from Staten Island who was mainly a predator of children but it led me to looking at Willowbrook State School and the patients who went missing from there. I found an article about Pennhurst State School and looked it up on Wikipedia.

The building names are interesting considering the writing on her hand:

"Building Designation[edit]
From 1903 to 1908 the first buildings were constructed on 633.913 acres (2.56535 km2) of Crab Hill in Spring City, Pennsylvania, Chester County on what was referred to as the lower campus. Out of the first few buildings constructed, 'F' was the Girl's Dining Room, 'G' was the Kitchen and Store Room, 'H', 'I' and 'K' were a Cottage for Girls, 'N' was the Boys' Dining Room, 'P' was the Teachers Home, 'Q', T', 'U' and 'V' were a Cottage for Boys, 'R' was a School, 'W' was Laundry and Sewing, and 'X' was the Power House.
'P' was used as a temporary Administration building until the institution's opening in 1918 along with the opening of 'L' and 'M' in 1919. In 1921, Whitman and Wilson I and II were constructed along with Penn Hall for employee housing; in 1929, the Assembly building was complete and functioned as the gymnasium and auditorium.
The buildings on lower campus are currently labeled with letters such as 'F', 'I', 'K', 'P', 'Q', 'R', 'N', 'U', 'V', 'T', 'W' and 'X' with names later assigned in the 1960s (see below).
In 1930, the first buildings on the upper campus, otherwise known as the Female Colony, were completed and named Pershing, Buchanan, Audubon and Keystone. Capitol Hall was erected after World War II along with Devon constructed on lower campus. Horizon Hall opened later in 1971."

Pennhurst State School and Hospital - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I didn't see anything about missing patients from this place but I could see them using the letter names with diminished capacity patients to help them go to the right places, even after the 1960 building names.
 
Received an email today from Mr. McAndrew, basically said that my suggestion was not the first, also, the time lapse and records no longer available made it difficult to investigate. Also, he stated there were bus services with the same initials, back then, I feel like those were probably investigated but nothing was concrete or it just didn't give them any leads!
Back to the drawing board, I suppose!

Also, I came across this lady; http://doenetwork.org/cases/3029dfmd.html
JOxenrider.jpg

Juanita M. Oxenrider

Juanita Oxenrider, her husband Donald and Thomas Maynard rode to the White Rocks Marina in Pasadena shortly before 10 a.m. Police said no one saw the trio board the Oxenrider's 28-foot cabin cruiser. The boat had to be taken from storage for the fishing trip. The trio reportedly told friends they were going out for the afternoon. Several minutes later, the boat was seen motoring out near Bodkin Creek at the mouth of the Patapsco River. Oxenrider's car was found at the White Rocks Marina.

At about 10:30 a.m., several nearby boaters said they heard an explosion and spotted the wooden cabin cruiser in flames. Within five minutes, two Department of Natural Resources patrol boats arrived.
The fire spread quickly, however, and the boat sank in about 15 feet of water. No bodies were found.
Because of the 45-degree temperature of the water and the severity of the fire, investigators theorized that all aboard perished.
The victims apparently were carried away by the tides and remained on the bay floor. A check of the boat's charred hull did not indicate what ignited the fire. The fuel tanks were intact.

Donald Oxenrider's body washed ashore six months later.
Maynard, a precious metals dealer from Peninsula Farm Road, was spotted several times in Florida and Canada in the six years after the incident. Once, he was stopped by Canadian police on a traffic violation, but later released.
Investigators said his quick departure after the accident and apparent attempts to conceal his identity have cast doubt on whether the sinking was an accident and whether Mrs Oxenrider drowned. Thomas Maynard reappeared in 1986. After a decade of hiding, he surrendered to police to face an old, unrelated robbery charge in Baltimore County.

Juanita Oxenrider's body has never been found. She has since been legally declared dead.

Could she have been further along in her pregnancy and that's why her husband was killed and could Tom Maynard have been the father and then he murders her?
What a scenario, huh?
 
http://www.ada.org/news/8525.aspx


From April 18, 2013 - The American Dental Assoc. website

"Do you recognize this woman?
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children releases dental X-rays of unidentified woman; asks dentists for help"
 
I put the bedspread on Facebook to see if it drums up any info on where it may have come from. If anyone is on pic sharing sites like Pininterest maybe you can do the same. One comment I got was that it looked more like a 1940's era sheet. Then someone else sent me a vintage bedspread site which I need to explore.
 
I keep looking at one missing case that looks like a possible for Beth but the eye color didn't match so it was bugging me. Since I am a nursing student I started thinking about postmortem changes in the anatomy & physiology of the eye. I was actually looking for trauma changes but upon searching for info on that I found this study from 2008:

In a nutshell - due to postmortem changes - all 137 blue pig eyes changed from blue to brown/black with in 48 hours of death (outside the skull) or 72 hours of death (inside the skull). Pigs are anatomically similar to humans. This issue has been noted in forensic science books.

They further note - and this is why I mention it on this site - "Autopsy reports should also note this artifact in order to prevent inaccurate victim identification and unwarranted exclusion based on differences in postmortem and antemortem eye color. "

I haven't looked into trying to get the full article but I will. It makes sense that the color would change just as color changes take place in other body tissues. For this case - and others - it is good to know. I also ran across a good deal of info in hospice threads about brown eye colors changing to blue close to the time of death which is the reverse of an infants eye color changing from blue to brown early in life when the pigments start being produced.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=245306

All isolated blue eyes changed to brown/black within 48 hours at room temperature and higher. In addition to the isolated eyes a Sus scrofa head was obtained in order to observe postmortem change of eye color "in situ." The "in situ" blue eye turned brown/black within 72 hours at room temperature. Given that Sus scrofa eyes are anatomically similar to human eyes, if iris color consistently changes postmortem in humans, then this artifact must be incorporated into victim identification protocol, including disaster-victim identification software. Autopsy reports should also note this artifact in order to prevent inaccurate victim identification and unwarranted exclusion based on differences in postmortem and antemortem eye color. The main experiment consisted of a controlled observational study of 137 isolated Sus scrofa eyes. The eyes were observed over several days in three different environments, each at a different temperature and monitored every 12 hours, beginning with their placement in one of the three environments. One environment was an LMS Series Four cooled incubator (4-8 degrees C), an isothermal fume cupboard (room temperature, 21-26 degrees C), and a Gallenkamp Plus II oven (30-36 degrees C). As in humans, blue eyes in pigs are less common than brown. In the main experiment, there were 13 pure blue eyes.
 
Hi Apearn! Interesting information to keep in mind on this case & others - thanks for sharing. If you don't mind me asking, who is the possible you are looking at?
 
I have been looking at Sylvie Ouimet recently.

- Height is the same
- Age is the same
- Weight is within reason for pregnant/non-pregnant weights - 25lb difference (there was an appropriate amount of time for the pregnancy as well))
- Sylvie went missing April 18 1975 from Montreal
- Hair color is the same (style and texture even matches)
- Sylvie has blue eyes - Beth has brown eyes
- Eye shapes, sizes, distances and depth appear to match up. Eyebrows match.
- In both Sylvie's photos there is a blemish above her left eye - mole? maybe....I can't really tell. I thought it was interesting that it was in both images though.
- Regionally it is certainly a possible match
- The shape of Syvie's frontal bone matches well to the shape in the frontal bone on Beth's heavier (pregnant state?) drawing. The left sides appear to both have some noted characteristics. The computer generated image smooths that out some and elongates her face.
- Cheekbone shapes match, jawbone looks about the same
- I am ignoring the nose because that was not found with Beth and I'm not looking to hard at the mouth because that is soft tissue and could have been swollen or disfigured - it changes in all three of the police images.

I found an article (from Oct 2012) in French about Sylvie which said (because she had some mental health issues) that the police did not actively publicize her missing case because they thought it might make her hide more. So in Dec. 1976 it was not well known 600 miles away in White Haven PA that Sylvie was a missing person.

I also commented on the new article but it never posted - maybe I can't because I'm not in the same country?? I wanted to see who knew about her dental work.

Here is the article:
http://www.montrealexpress.ca/Vie-de-quartier/Enfants-retour/2012-10-25/article-3107351/Derniere-tentative-pour-retrouver-Sylvie-Ouimet/1

My browser translates it for me and it gets a little choppy but it's understandable. Her cousin and sister's names are in there. Sylvie's family submitted their DNA but I would assume that CODIS and Canada's system do not cross check automatically.
 

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Wow, that does look like a good possibility. No, Canada and the US don't automatically cross-check.
 
apearn said:
I have been looking at Sylvie Ouimet recently.

- Height is the same
- Age is the same
- Weight is within reason for pregnant/non-pregnant weights - 25lb difference (there was an appropriate amount of time for the pregnancy as well))
- Sylvie went missing April 18 1975 from Montreal
- Hair color is the same (style and texture even matches)
- Sylvie has blue eyes - Beth has brown eyes
- Eye shapes, sizes, distances and depth appear to match up. Eyebrows match.
- In both Sylvie's photos there is a blemish above her left eye - mole? maybe....I can't really tell. I thought it was interesting that it was in both images though.
- Regionally it is certainly a possible match
- The shape of Syvie's frontal bone matches well to the shape in the frontal bone on Beth's heavier (pregnant state?) drawing. The left sides appear to both have some noted characteristics. The computer generated image smooths that out some and elongates her face.
- Cheekbone shapes match, jawbone looks about the same
- I am ignoring the nose because that was not found with Beth and I'm not looking to hard at the mouth because that is soft tissue and could have been swollen or disfigured - it changes in all three of the police images.

I found an article (from Oct 2012) in French about Sylvie which said (because she had some mental health issues) that the police did not actively publicize her missing case because they thought it might make her hide more. So in Dec. 1976 it was not well known 600 miles away in White Haven PA that Sylvie was a missing person.

I also commented on the new article but it never posted - maybe I can't because I'm not in the same country?? I wanted to see who knew about her dental work.

Here is the article:
http://www.montrealexpress.ca/Vie-de-quartier/Enfants-retour/2012-10-25/article-3107351/Derniere-tentative-pour-retrouver-Sylvie-Ouimet/1

My browser translates it for me and it gets a little choppy but it's understandable. Her cousin and sister's names are in there. Sylvie's family submitted their DNA but I would assume that CODIS and Canada's system do not cross check automatically.
Click to expand...

Great find! Was this submitted already?
 
I emailed it to the PA officer in charge of her case.
 
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