VA VA - Hillsboro, WhtFem 15-18, UP84926, Blue Corduroy Pants, Dec'61

[Oakie]

That kind of repeated beating sounds more like domestic abuse (parent?) than kidnapping.

I agree. And if she'd been beaten to death by an abusive parent, she may not then have been reported as missing. There might be no record of her disappearance.

 

[DS2021]

Finding her burial would definitely be a good next step.

I'm also confused about whether or not this was a sex crime. These articles are giving conflicting information

 

[DS2021]

Hillsboro Jane Doe Richmond Times-Dispatch Richmond, Virginia 03 Mar 1963, Sun • Page 30

She is believed to have come from a southern state due to the way she was dressed.

"The wounds indicate prolonged physical abuse of several days’ duration prior to death and some are suggestive of perverted assault"

 

[DS2021]

Websleuths wouldnt let me post the jpeg so heres a PDF version

 

[HopeRains]

Dec 15/16 = Friday/Saturday; she was found early morning hours (I believe I read around 330 a.m.) Saturday.

From Baltimore Sun, 15 Dec 1961, pg 1 (Baltimore is ~ 75 miles east of Hillsboro, VA)


Hillsboro, VA - estimated population in 2019 was 169

Rt 9 VA/WV Charles Town Pike.

Searching for missing girls/young women during the year 1961 yields quite a few results - there were a few very high profile cases across the country and also regionally. A case or two I downloaded to try to find additional info.

 

[DS2021]

I think we have a few possible scenarios here. The first being that this person had faced prolonged abuse by a partner, that ultimately culminated in her murder.

She may have never been reported missing, or she just may have never made it into NamUs. Another possibility is that she ran off as a teenager and became a victim of foul play years later.

It's also possible that she was the random victim of a predator who held and abused her for days before dumping her.

 

[Zach Ford]

I've tracked down as many newspaper articles as I could about this case, but after a couple of papers ran an initial series of articles in the week after finding the body, I've only seen two follow-ups over the next couple of years where they basically just describe a specific lead that didn't pan out. Many of the articles describe the clothing differently, but it's clear that for the most part it's just a difference in specificity/terminology. Some contradictions are never sorted out, such as different descriptions of the empty pocketbook found at the scene. All of the articles mention old/healed wounds/scabs but don't clarify just how old they were thought to be. While it seems like long-term abuse is implied, the police representative in the 1963 article posted above described “prolonged physical abuse of several days duration prior to death" which makes it sound like it still occurred over a fairly short period. The reference to wounds that "are suggestive of perverted assault” is odd to me since police concluded that no sexual assault/molestation occurred. So what he meant by that, I'm not sure.

 

[Beccalicious]

Bumping

 

[phantomstrider]

Added to the Doe Network Today https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/software/main.html?id=1765ufva