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UNSOLVED: UNKNOWN WOMAN FOUND IN FAYETTEVILLE SHALLOW GRAVE
Unidentified Body Story | Lindell Kay
A crooked tooth may be the best bet in identifying the body of a woman found buried in a shallow grave deep in the Cumberland County woods nearly half a century ago.
No broken bones or metal – bullet fragments or broken blade shards – were found during autopsy, meaning the woman’s cause of death was most likely due to smothering, strangling or poisoning.
She is considered a homicide victim because her body was found buried in a foot-and-a-half deep grave in an isolated location by two boys playing in the woods along Andrews Road in Fayetteville on Sept. 15, 1977.
“An unusual rotation of a central mandibular incisor may be helpful in establishing identification,” according to her autopsy report.
All her remains were recovered, but the body was in an advanced stage of decomposition. She was dead for around six weeks before her body was found.
The biracial woman is estimated to have been between 30 and 40 years old when she died sometime in 1977. She had longer than shoulder length black hair. Her eye color couldn’t be determined. The woman was 4 feet, 11 inches tall and weighed around 130 pounds.
The woman’s case number is 1408 in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. The NamUs case was created in April 2008.
Anyone with information can call the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office at 910-323-1500 or Fighting Crime at 252-406-6736, email [email protected] or drop a message in the Facebook inbox.
Lindell Kay is a professor of writing and journalism. He spent 20 years as an award-winning investigative reporter at newspapers across Eastern North Carolina. This is the final entry of the Unidentified series published by Fighting Crime with permission of the author.
Unidentified Body Story | Lindell Kay
A crooked tooth may be the best bet in identifying the body of a woman found buried in a shallow grave deep in the Cumberland County woods nearly half a century ago.
No broken bones or metal – bullet fragments or broken blade shards – were found during autopsy, meaning the woman’s cause of death was most likely due to smothering, strangling or poisoning.
She is considered a homicide victim because her body was found buried in a foot-and-a-half deep grave in an isolated location by two boys playing in the woods along Andrews Road in Fayetteville on Sept. 15, 1977.
“An unusual rotation of a central mandibular incisor may be helpful in establishing identification,” according to her autopsy report.
All her remains were recovered, but the body was in an advanced stage of decomposition. She was dead for around six weeks before her body was found.
The biracial woman is estimated to have been between 30 and 40 years old when she died sometime in 1977. She had longer than shoulder length black hair. Her eye color couldn’t be determined. The woman was 4 feet, 11 inches tall and weighed around 130 pounds.
The woman’s case number is 1408 in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. The NamUs case was created in April 2008.
Anyone with information can call the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office at 910-323-1500 or Fighting Crime at 252-406-6736, email [email protected] or drop a message in the Facebook inbox.
Lindell Kay is a professor of writing and journalism. He spent 20 years as an award-winning investigative reporter at newspapers across Eastern North Carolina. This is the final entry of the Unidentified series published by Fighting Crime with permission of the author.
