Identified! WA - Yakima, WhtFem 18-25, 916UFWA, handmade yellow dress, 5-pt star tatt, "SCOTT-LILLIE-2H", Jul'77 Verata "Joni' Gates

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Bit of hope said:
Maybe Millie just slept in the van, released from prison, and left her stuff (at least her prison underwear) behind and had nothing to do with the murder. The home made yellow dress is bothering me: Was it common back then that female prisoners made their own clothes, to kill the time? Does a yellow home made dress fit the circumstances of living on the streets? It's not very practical. Just overthinking all of this. Maybe part of the clothes were there as long as the van was unused, although yellow (especially sunflower yellow/orange) sounds very 70's. Such a shame there are no pictures of the clothes.
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Still right with you on the dress! My Mom sewed most of our clothes, there are numerous vintage pattern sites, someone could probably determine the pattern number. (Yes, a copy may be in my sewing room. Please reserve judgement. Please. ). LE, please let us see pictures of the dress, either spread out flat or on a mannequin. Tell us the measurements, including back waist length. Tell us the fiber content of the thread; about the fastenings; any alterations....

How long is this dress? Was the dress made as a costume for a Bicentennial event?

Obsessing a bit over this dress recently....

This pattern was used for our choir dresses, a bit later in the '70's. Was our deceased wearing her choir dress?

latest
 
Bit of hope said:
According to Namus all the clothes, including the underwear, were found near the body, and no mentioning of clothes, for instance socks, on the body. Maybe Millie just slept in the van, released from prison, and left her stuff (at least her prison underwear) behind and had nothing to do with the murder. The home made yellow dress is bothering me: Was it common back then that female prisoners made their own clothes, to kill the time? Does a yellow home made dress fit the circumstances of living on the streets? It's not very practical. Just overthinking all of this. Maybe part of the clothes were there as long as the van was unused, although yellow (especially sunflower yellow/orange) sounds very 70's. Such a shame there are no pictures of the clothes.
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According to her doenetwork page she did have socks on - she was nude aside from the socks and a green sweater draped over her. All other clothing items were found near the body The Doe Network: 916UFWA

I personally wouldn't overthink the handmade dress. As a child of the 70s/80s my mum still made a lot of clothes for us kids - we were a regular upper middle class family. It was very common amongst people I knew across a range of socio demographic tiers. I think a handmade dress could just mean so many different things that it's a red herring trying to analyse it. Of course, if we knew the pattern the dress was made from that could be a lead but I doubt we're ever going to know that level of detail. All just my opinion!
 
sunnynz said:
According to her doenetwork page she did have socks on - she was nude aside from the socks and a green sweater draped over her. All other clothing items were found near the body The Doe Network: 916UFWA

I personally wouldn't overthink the handmade dress. As a child of the 70s/80s my mum still made a lot of clothes for us kids - we were a regular upper middle class family. It was very common amongst people I knew across a range of socio demographic tiers. I think a handmade dress could just mean so many different things that it's a red herring trying to analyse it. Of course, if we knew the pattern the dress was made from that could be a lead but I doubt we're ever going to know that level of detail. All just my opinion!
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I noticed the socks in the doe file, why is it not in het Namus file? I just wondered, was it her dress, Lillie's dress or did it lay there for ages and has nothing to do with UID....
 
There's a lot of variation in "homeless" or "on the streets," and many resources through churches, schools, communities, etc. For example, in the 70s in our small Montana town, there was an outreach to teach poor women to sew; we brought them into the home ec rooms so they could use the machines there, and provided a lot of supplies free or at low cost. After they finished the class, they could arrange to come in again and make more garments. Most of them were for their children, but I remember at least one woman making a nice dress for church. I'm not saying this woman, or whoever owned the dress, was in a program like the one I remember, just pointing out that there are a lot of possibilities.

For that matter, this woman is young enough that she might have made the dress recently in home ec in high school. In 1977 there were still quite a few places that required that before you could graduate.
 
A woman's body was found in a van in downtown Yakima in 1977. Investigators are still trying to find out who she is
Drury has requested funds to submit samples of Doe’s DNA to GEDmatch, a genealogy service with profiles of more than a million people, or another genetic genealogy site to identify relatives in hopes of contacting them and confirming her identity.

That could cost anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000, depending on the research involved.

“The request has been made. I’m waiting for further direction at this point,” Drury said. “As soon as I get the OK, it could within the next few months we could have that back."
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Bit of hope said:
That's good news...people still care. Sadly enough I can't read the article because of privacy laws but the main thing is she has their attention.
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From the article, re the clothes found:

"More clothing was found outside the van nearby — white panties stenciled in red lettering with 'Scott-Lillie-2H' — along with a Forever Yours candy bar. Investigators also found clothing scattered near the business, including a pair of blue pants, a homemade yellow dress, a white sock with blue and red trim and a pair of black boots."

It also says the top of her body was covered with a blue shirt, and her torso with a green sweater. Don't remember seeing mention of the blue shirt before.

And it says she wasn't killed there (can't remember if we knew this already either); she was killed elsewhere and placed there. Considering she was partially covered and was laid out straight, it seems someone went to a lot of trouble to "dump" her there. Staged?

A woman's body was found in a van in downtown Yakima in 1977. Investigators are still trying to find out who she is
 
Still wanna know about the dress.

Did the vocation program at the correctional center teach dressmaking/tailoring? Marketable skill.

Still curious, but the "hand made dress" is likely part of the evidence that is missing. Outside the van, the dress may have nothing to do with the murder, either.

Ms. Drury, keep looking!
 
Maybe someone used the OIC van for collecting and moving clothes for charity, that's why the clothes ended up outside the van. I'm just wondering. OIC was in full action during those days (it was on 19 second street in 1977, the old Chieftain hotelbuilding, so parking on the South Front Street looks logical to me) Why was the van left there for months without use? Somehow it doesn't fit well. Who drove it the last time?
 
Bit of hope said:
Maybe someone used the OIC van for collecting and moving clothes for charity, that's why the clothes ended up outside the van. I'm just wondering. OIC was in full action during those days (it was on 19 second street in 1977, the old Chieftain hotelbuilding, so parking on the South Front Street looks logical to me) Why was the van left there for months without use? Somehow it doesn't fit well. Who drove it the last time?
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Non-profit couldn't afford needed repair, parked the near-derelict van out of sight?

Non-profit was given nicer van, same parking place for old one?
 
jaejae said:
Not one per cent sure if this article is about the same Jane Doe but it is the same location:

Yakima coroner hopes to exhume woman’s remains, to find her identity and her killer
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The woman you posted is found on an the Yakima Indian reservation. The remains were found along a dirt road running parallel to the Yakima River in 1988. It's a different place. Good to know that they doing the effort now, because Native Americans killed and missing are let down for ages.
 
They edited the Doe project file with this:

Around the time the murder was publicized, tipsters told police the victim was a West Valley resident living with her boyfriend, a man thought she was his ex-wife, a notary public speculated the victim was one of two married individuals seeking a divorce. Another claimed to have seen the a young woman at a cafe along North First Street, who lived in at the Roza Hotel and spent time with members of a motorcycle gang. Additionally, an investigator working on a missing person case from Mount Rainier National Park called, citing that the decedent's similar description.

The victim was exhumed in July 2004. Despite that fingerprints and tissue samples were sent to an FBI lab in Washington, D.C., her identity was never established.

Authorities may use genetic genealogy in efforts to identify the victim.

It's a quote, the typos are not mine :rolleyes:
 
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