Identified! TX - Huntsville, 'Walker County Jane Doe', WhtFem 14-16, 91UFTX, Nov'80 Sherry Ann Jarvis

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I wholeheartedly believe that WCJD was not expecting to hitch for more than ~48 hours, which means I highly doubt she was a runaway. Let's presume she did intend to meet someone at Ellis; it would go without saying this person meant something to her, since she put obvious diligence and care into this plan (sadly not enough in the end). Why would she go with clothes she had worn for days? I don't care if this is 50, 100, or 200 years ago, girls and women are taught to at least "primp" a bit, especially when you are in your teens. Something does not add up about the hitching story. Either she had bags that were not discovered or she meant for this to be only a day/two day trip. If WCJD is in fact Kathy/Cathy, the people she was staying with at the hotel are a SOLID connection to her.
 
I wholeheartedly believe that WCJD was not expecting to hitch for more than ~48 hours, which means I highly doubt she was a runaway. Let's presume she did intend to meet someone at Ellis; it would go without saying this person meant something to her, since she put obvious diligence and care into this plan (sadly not enough in the end). Why would she go with clothes she had worn for days? I don't care if this is 50, 100, or 200 years ago, girls and women are taught to at least "primp" a bit, especially when you are in your teens. Something does not add up about the hitching story. Either she had bags that were not discovered or she meant for this to be only a day/two day trip. If WCJD is in fact Kathy/Cathy, the people she was staying with at the hotel are a SOLID connection to her.

You bring up some valid points.
 
Forgive me if I missed this in the thread, but can you recap briefly the timeline of WCJD being dropped off by this blue car, the eyewitness reports/interactions with her, and when she was discovered?
 
Forgive me if I missed this in the thread, but can you recap briefly the timeline of WCJD being dropped off by this blue car, the eyewitness reports/interactions with her, and when she was discovered?

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Forgive me if I missed this in the thread, but can you recap briefly the timeline of WCJD being dropped off by this blue car, the eyewitness reports/interactions with her, and when she was discovered?

Posted info from Wikipedia above .. Initial sighting was at aprox 630 pm at Gulf Coast .. as far as I know no time is said for when she was at Hitching Post but if Hitchin Post is After Gulf Coast ( we can assume it was ) it would have had to been closer to 830-9 pm ( if we go with theory she walked to Hitchin Post) . I drove the most direct route fromGulf Coast to HP in 2010 ( and not much has actually changed from point A to B since 1980( I'm from Huntsville ) .. and if I remember correctly it's like 17 miles .. that's a long walk in heels or barefooted .. and that's assuming she didn't get lost on any one of the numerous side roads on Sam Houston .. or the main road in Huntsville (I can't remember it's name ) ..
I humbly submit the best bet on better answers IS to see if one can get a list of inmates released from Ellis on the date.. with the area they were initially sited it's a good chance they were looking to meet a released inmate .. (I'm honestly ashamed it's taken me this long to think of this)

My connection to Our Girl.. years ago I was visiting my grandma and uncle in the cemetery (not knowing exactly where they were buried ) I was searching for them, and stumbled across Our Girls grave.. and in less then a second she became MY girl. I go home to Huntsville and drive the route just to TRY sand get insite.. I sit at her grave hoping for a revalation.. and have been since early 2000, long before she became famous on the internet .. Oddly enough it is some small comfort she "hangs" out in the cemetery with my grandma.. but I'd prefer she at least had her name back.. Sometimes I feel selfish with her and think, her family only needs to give us answers, cause it feels as if they aren't searching ( yes I know this is juvenile and immature , but I tell ya in my heart this girl is "family" ) I feel she is OURS , all of us that come here hoping and praying and begging for answers begging to be able to call her by her given name..


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I do not think it was merely a coincidence you stumbled upon her! Thank you for sticking with this for so long...and the rest of the Websleuths community for brainstorming, forging ahead, and continuously rethinking. Truly, I think we can give this angel back her identity and name in the very near future. I only wish I was a few states south to physically see the scene!!!
 
I do not think it was merely a coincidence you stumbled upon her! Thank you for sticking with this for so long...and the rest of the Websleuths community for brainstorming, forging ahead, and continuously rethinking. Truly, I think we can give this angel back her identity and name in the very near future. I only wish I was a few states south to physically see the scene!!!

I'll try to locate the pictures I took in 2010 .. I don't have any from the gas station as it's totally gone .. but did get some of the approximate spot she was discovered


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I wonder...what about reaching out to reentry nonprofit programs in the State to help us possibly get a hold of some database or list of released prisoners? If positioned as "we think this girl was visiting a relative or loved one who did not know she existed," it may generate helpfulness/generosity from someone in those nonprofits. As an attorney, I really do believe kindness/appealing to one's good nature can get you really far in obtaining records that might otherwise be unattainable... https://exoffenders.net/reentry-programs-assistance/texas/
 
I am so excited..the kids and I actually got to have a sit down face to face interview with Lt. Perkins in Walker County today.. He was wonderfull.... We also got pictures(present day ones) of pretty much the site where they found WCJD.. I will get them uploaded as soon as I cna..I had forgot my camrea so they are on my daughters friends cell phone.

I do know they have a cold case task force working on WCJD now, they were to have had a meeting yesterday but it had to be post poned due to one member having a death in the family.. The task force is made up of five retired homocide detectives from around Texas.

So info that Lt Perkins shared(and the list of 100% postively eliminated will be in this message) but some other info he shared is:

As far as he can tell from crime scene photos WCJD only had one scar and it was at the right eye brow..he said he had heard there were reports of one on the elbow, but he can not see that in the pictures.. he said he considered having that info removed , but since he does not know where it came form..he has not.

He said he feels 100 % sure Henry Lee Lucas had nothing to do with our WCJD. I will explain that if anyone wnats the info at a later date.

I asked about IF the actual necklace was or was not in the evidence room, and he said " I was told it is around here somewhere, but I do not know where" (I had been told by another who was looking into WCJD she was told they did not have it. I also aksed if I could see a picture, a request he basically denied..but I think it was so we could not see the other crime sene photos..

On another day I will share a theroy he shared about a now dead serial killer they had been looking into... (I am very tired now..and that info is not as importnat as the list of excluded, and ones they are looking into..

He also said he spoke(in 2005) with the agency that did the exhuming of WCJD, and at that point they had collected the DNA samples but had NOT worked them up(yes I KNOw that was long ago) He said he would be contacting them to see about it.. I will call him in a couple of weeks, and see what the task force meeting came up with, and what if anything the lab has done.

I think there maybe other info..but I am so tired as I said.. so I will get onto the MUCH anticipated lis..I am typing it from the paper he hand wrote me from his files...

These missing HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED>>it is 100% positive they are NOT our WCJD...

I DO have his permission to post these names!!!
Kristy Lynn Booth
Diane Gueze Dye
Rachel Elizabeth Garden
Corrine Anita Hagler
Gina Renee Hall
Adrea Laderoute
Angela Mae Meeker
Cecile Frances Moch
Sophia Felicita Moreno
Jane Lousie Puckett
Lauren Ann Rahn
Jean Marie Stewart
Emma Lorene Vaughn


The next list also given to me written by his hadn..are names of missing they are looking at but have been unable to confirm or eliminate

Melinda Karen Creech
Brenda Crowley
Carol Elaine Donn
Kimberely Ann Kahler
Lori Jean Lloyd
Michelle Meredith Mulcahy
Deborah Quimby

Now the above list basically comes from relatives of these missing girls contacting Lt Perkins so their name goes in the file...

He also had a picture he did show me.. of a girl, that no one knows who she is..but is one of the pictures the man in California had, I can not remember his name, but there is a picture online of a poster with like a 100 girls pictures on it, found in his possesion..it is known he killed some..He was saying he was a photographer for modeling I believe... Lt Perkins and I both thought the girl in the pic(that is also unknown) looked way too old to be our girl..

Two of the things he dd tell me the task force was particullarly looking at is the prison angle, and looking to interview old dentist from the Port Aransas/Rock Port Txas area..

On the way home I shared what info we had with my aunt that is also form Hutnsville though she did not live there at the time.. she gave me some info about one of the place WCJD was sited that I do not feel safe sharing online..but it could actually related to the case..so I am not sure what to do with it???

Oh and apparently there was atleast four(or maybe even more) sitings of WCJD in Huntsville that day(10/31)..but a several of the siting could not be confirmed.. (ie times did not match) so they are unsure if it was people just trying to get in the action, or actual siting where they people just did not realize the time..!?!?

He did put my name in number in his files, and said he would let me know anything he could if anything ahppened about the case. LOL He had pulled out his typed file, of his own thoughts, feelings and investigation..what he used to go to the task fore with.. I tried to get him to lwet me have a copy..that request was also denied..roflmao. But hey I tried..

It was great but kinda agonizing.. I was sittingthere not a foot away from the box containing the whole case.. and could not touch it.. He only had 3 chairs and there were four of us.. my 19 yr old daughter was sitting with her elbow basically resting on the box.. and again we couldnt not "look" at any of it..ughhhhhh

But in my mind the list was a great gift!!! We also visited ehr grave today.. and got pictures.. My children and plan to go back when we can and fix it up.. My girl even want to buy some solar light and keep it lit up.. When I am not so tired I will explain if anyone is intrested on how we managed to get a sit down with him.. but my daughter basically told him, "I hope you understand this girl is ours now" I was so PROUD of her..

I have had to go back to work, so I have not updated her website in a long while and will get that fixed by the weekend.. I also have to find my file here at the house so I ca check her email... Now I am off to look up the unconfirmed names...

Here is my post from 2010 after I talked to Let Perkins the lead detective at the time


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He really did not say when the taske force would get to meet again, and sadly he gets very little time to look at this case, we visited with him around 230pm. This was the 6th case he had dealt with by that time of day.. When the task force gets going better, I pray it will speed the investigation up some. The weirdest thing about all the timing here is.. the meeting that got delayed was suppose to have been on Tuesday..we were there Wednesday.. I just asked my son if he remembers Lt Perkins saying when they would meet and he thought they said next Thursday.. (I honestly dont remember if anytime was mentioned.) So I will try to contact him Fri or the following Monday. I also am anxious for him to call the agency that collected ehr DNA(I forgot the name he told me) but he did say he needed to call them again and see if her DNA had been worked up.. I would think surely in five years, but I have no idea how that stuff works. If it has not been ran yet, I hope also the task force lights a fire under them.

Another post after meeting with Let Perkins (WCSO) in 2010


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Ok at long last the pictures of the site they found her. Remember we photographed aprox a 1/2 mile area around where the Lt said her body was found.

1) The newest pic of her grave
2-4) the trees in between access road and I-45 in the area I was told she was found

Pictures of the area Our Girl was found


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I was just re-reading my post from when I talked with Lt. Perkins.. I know some have done lots of research in Aransas .. has anyone contacted dentist (. Perkins told me they were looking into that angle) I just feel they got to busy to really do the investigating .. and it seems the task force never really did much?? It's been seven years and none of us have heard a word about the task force since Perkins told me they were starting one?? And I have a cousin pretty high up in TDC am gonna ask her if she knows how we can tell us how to find a list of releases from Ellis that day..


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Think it's a long shot that the Texas Prison Museum in Huntsville might have tips on how we can go about investigating WCJD's interest in Ellis?

http://www.txprisonmuseum.org/index.html

I've been there many times and didn't see anything that would help.. it is not far from where she was found.. but was not there when she died .. it started on the square in town, then they built the present building on I45.. BUT if any make it to Huntsville it is a very interesting place ( at least to me an old school
TDC brat,, but I grew up literally on prison units as an officers child/grandchild..


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Do y'all think it would be worthwhile to write to the inmates Zelda so wonderfully found and ask them what they remember if anything? I'm not really interested in becoming an inmate penal but it's possible they may remember anything that was discussed among the inmates but not passed along to authority.

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Because I am at a loss as to what can be done to help identify Walker County, Texas Jane Doe, I am posting a list (I'm very sure it is only a small portion) of criminals who may have been housed at the Ellis Prison Unit on October 30, 1980, the date the Walker County Jane Doe was "possibly" trying to get to the prison to see a friend.

Stephen Lindsey Moody (executed 2009)
http://www.txexecutions.org/reports/440.asp

Stephen Lindsey Moody, 52, was executed by lethal injection on 16 September 2009 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder and robbery of a man in his home.

On 19 October 1991, Calvin Doby, 29, Lloyd Larrieu, 49, and Melvin Ellis drove to the Houston home of Larrieu's drug supplier, Joseph Hall, 28. After some discussion about robbing Hall, Doby telephoned Moody, then 34. About an hour and a half later, Moody and Doby met at Hall's house. They then forced their way inside and demanded money and drugs from Hall. While Hall pleaded for his life, Moody shot him at close range with a sawed-off shotgun. Moody and Doby then fled with $1,200 in cash. About 45 minutes later, they met at Ellis's house to divide the money.

The murder case went unsolved for nearly a year until a relative of Doby give police a tip. Hall's girlfriend, Rene McKeage, who witnessed the murder, then identified Moody from a photo lineup. By that time, Moody was already in prison, serving a 40-year sentence for robbing a Houston bank in December 1991. MORE

Michael Lynn Riley(executed 2009)
http://www.txexecutions.org/reports/438.asp

Michael Lynn Riley, 51, was executed by lethal injection on 19 May 2009 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder and robbery of a convenience store clerk.
On 1 February 1986, Riley, then 27, entered a convenience store in Quitman in northeastern Texas, carrying a concealed butcher knife. Riley was a frequent customer in the store. Clerk Wynona Harris, 23, told him to help himself to the ice cream he wanted while she counted some money. While Harris had her back turned to Riley, he came up behind her and stabbed her to death. He left the store with a cloth bag containing $1,110 in cash. A customer came in later and found Harris's body behind the counter. She was stabbed 31 times. MORE

Joseph Bennard Nichols (executed 2007)
http://www.txexecutions.org/reports/387.asp
http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/nichols1066.htm

Joseph Bennard Nichols, 45, was executed by lethal injection on 7 March 2007 in Huntsville, Texas for the robbery and murder of a store employee.

On 13 October 1980, Nichols, then 19, Willie Williams, 24, Charlotte Parker, and Evelyn Harvey drove to a spot near Joseph's Delicatessen and Grocery in Houston. Williams and Nichols went inside, both carrying guns. Williams had a .380 semi-automatic pistol, and Nichols had a snub-nosed .38-caliber revolver. MORE

I wonder what happened to Charlotte Parker and Evelyn Harvey. 'Googled' on them but they are no missing persons at least not registered a such.
 
East Texas Today magazine

Whose Child is This?

by Michael L. Hargraves

Halloween is the time when make-believe monsters, ghosts and goblins fill every child's imagination. But on Halloween night 22 years ago a real monster lurked in Walker county and turned one young girl's last night on earth into a hideous nightmare. Tortured, sexually brutalized and then strangled, her grisly death shocked even hardened detectives. She has never been identified and the crime is a riddle that haunts investigators to this day.
Long-haul truck driver James Rhoades of Friendswood was making a run up the north-bound lane of Interstate 45 on the first of November back in 1980, and enjoying the scenery. The gray concrete canyons of Houston were behind him and the vantage point of the semi's high seat gave him a clear view as he rolled along. The sharp overnight temperatures had snapped the sweet gums and red oaks into scarlet torches and the elms, hickories and sycamores formed shimmering patterns of raw gold. Blurred together by an early morning breeze, they glowed against the dark pines of the Sam Houston National Forest like the muted flames of a campfire at dusk. A half mile south of the FM 1696 exit near Huntsville, Rhoades was startled to see what looked like the nude body of a young woman lying face down in the grass off the shoulder of the road. The pale feminine form was starkly visible against the deep green of the mowed vegetation. It might have been a mannequin; perhaps only part of a macabre Halloween hoax left over from the night before. Huntsville is the home of Sam Houston University and practical jokes by high-spirited college students during the holidays were common, but Rhoades decided to check and make sure. It was no prank, however, but the beginning of a two decades long search for answers.


The crime Rhoades reported shocked even the veteran investigators of the Walker County Sheriff's Office. The victim, an attractive young teenage girl, had been savagely beaten and sexually assaulted before being murdered by slow strangulation. There were bruises all over her face and body; her right eye was swollen shut and her lips were puffy and distended from the blows she had received. There was a human bite mark on her back, up near her right shoulder. Her throat was purple under the pantyhose the killer had used to choke her with and her tongue protruded from her mouth. A thin gold chain hung from her slender neck with a smoky stone attached and her toenails had been painted a delicate pink. A pair of high-heeled sandals had been thrown beside the body. An autopsy later showed that, prior to her death, she had been raped vaginally and anally with a large blunt instrument and her panties and part of her pantyhose had then been forced into her vagina, perhaps in an effort to stop bleeding when the body was moved to the dump site. The medical examiner, Dr. Aurelio Espinola determined the young victim had only been dead for six hours before she was found. The victim's teeth had been well cared for and the general condition of the body and her overall health and nutrition indicated she had probably come from a middle class home. There were no distinguishing marks or any identification with the body to help the investigators. It is interesting to note that male sexual predators who bite their victims usually attack the genital area, the thighs and the breasts. Does the bite mark on the back and the use of a blunt instrument in the rape indicate a female assailant? Male sexual predators often take a trophy, like a piece of jewelry, but the victim?s jewelry was left on the corpse. Does this further indicate a lesbian attack?


When the murder became known through media accounts, several people came forward and said they?d seen a teenager matching her description the day before her body was found. Bobby Roach, who managed the South End Gulf station, (which no longer exists) positively identified the victim as a girl who had been at the station around 6:30 p.m. Halloween night asking for directions to the Ellis prison unit. She had been wearing blue jeans, a yellow pullover sweater with big pockets that hung below her waist, and she was carrying high-heeled sandals in her hand. To the best f his recollection, she had been let out of a 1973 or ?74 blue Chevrolet, possibly a Caprice, with a lighter colored top, which was being driven by a white male. She looked disheveled like she had been traveling and perhaps sleeping in her clothes. She left the station, walking north on Sam Houston avenue. A waitress working at the Hitchin? Post truck stop out on Interstate 45 said the girl came into the restaurant the same evening and again, asked for directions to the Ellis Unit, saying she "had a friend there." A map was drawn for her and she departed. She never reached the Ellis Unit and she was never seen alive again.
Twenty-two years later the original investigators still vividly remember this case. I spoke with several of them recently and they all remembered the victim's youthful innocence and the brutality of her murder. Detective Judy James is the current investigator and is keeping the case alive. The victim was approximately 14 years old with hazel eyes and medium brown hair cut in wing fashion. She was just over 5 feet and weighed 100-108 lbs. Someone, somewhere knows who this child is. Please call Detective Judy James at 936-435-2400 if you have any information about this crime.

Just started reading this thread. What a hard, persistent work everybody put into it for all these years. I'm grateful for people like you excisting. Kind of sentimental, but that is what this case does with me. This article is quit hard for me to take in. Very explicit....but no use of denying what happened to this wonderful girl. What if she had a (girl) friend working at the jail. Wondering about the personnel list from that days. I'm not saying this horrible crime is committed by a woman, but it's always a possibility we are not easy willing to think about.
 
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