Identified! AZ - Florence Junction, WhtFem UP7209, 1131UFAZ, "Clandestine Grave Jane Doe," Jun'88 - Evelyn “Dottie” Lees

[Caring1]

 

[Hochman]

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Article

Florence Junction Clandestine Grave Jane Doe 1988 | DNA Doe Project

dnadoeproject.org

"DNA Doe Project solves 1988 Jane Doe Case
Elderly woman found in clandestine grave ID’d as Evelyn “Dottie” Lees"

 

[lightofmine99]

She was born in 1898. She would've turned 90 in 1988. Holy cow.

 

[MadMcGoo]

Rest peacefully now Dottie.

 

[summergirl1]

Human remains found in shallow grave in Arizona identified as grandmother who may have been murdered

The human remains discovered in Pinal County over 30 years ago have been identified as a Scottsdale resident who may been the victim of homicide, officials said.

www.12news.com

 

[formerlyme]

Murdered body identified after found in 1988 in Arizona desert

A murdered woman's body has been identified after it was found strangled to death in 1998 in a remote desert area east of Queen Creek.

www.azfamily.com

Clearly claiming she was strangled. First I have seen this.

 

[summergirl1]

The article I posted mentions it, too.

 

[djanga]

From the article below: “She had been living in Scottsdale at the time but wasn’t reported missing. There also wasn’t a death certificate until now and investigators believe she may have been used as part of a pension fraud case.
PCSO said evidence suggests “investigative leads” collected Lees’ benefits for more than 10 years after her death. However, those people are also dead.”

Woman’s remains discovered in 1988 east of Queen Creek identified

A woman's body, which was found in the desert east of the Phoenix area in 1988, has now been identified.

www.azfamily.com

 

[JCM]

The case of Evelyn 'Dottie' Lees has just been featured on the newest DNA:ID podcast.

Per Jessica Bettencourt's reporting, the afore mentioned pension checks were mailed to the home owned by her nephew, Lynn Gowan. Because her deceased husband's former employer, Union Pacific, had never been notified of her death, they continued to pay the pension and someone continued to cash those checks on Dottie's behalf for approximately ten years after she was last seen.

When LE approached her living nieces and nephew, LE told them Dottie had died around 1988. The living relatives were adamant that she had died a decade after that. One of the nieces told investigators that her father, Lynn Gowan, had told them that Dottie had turned mean because of her Alzheimer's and not to visit her. That they should 'remember her the way she was'.

So, for ten years, no one attempted to visit Dottie, thinking she was ill when in fact they couldn't – she was dead. The previous poster @djanga mentioned that PCSO said that 'those people' (that collected her benefits for ten years) are also dead. At some point, roughly ten years after Dottie was dead, Union Pacific was made aware that Dottie was deceased. So, the checks stopped coming. One of the nieces inquired about Dottie's cremains and was told by Lynn's wife, Carrell, that there had been a mix-up at the crematorium so they had no remains to bury.

Apparently, as soon as Lynn Gowan's living relatives started to put all of this together, based on LE injuries, they stopped cooperating with the investigation. And that's where it stands today.

Please check out the excellent DNA:ID podcast for complete details.

 

[summergirl1]

It's obviously a very sad story. It sounds like maybe a family disagreement of some sort ended in murder (maybe financial, maybe not) and then the nephew mentioned above ended up committing pension fraud, too. It may or may not have started out as pension fraud, though. She could have been killed for other reasons and then the nephew didn't want to report her death right away so the checks kept coming, an additional benefit, possibly..

It's too bad her younger remaining family don't want to acknowledge the truth either. Obviously, what they were told wasn't true.