FL- Police seek suspect after identifying 1981 Coconut Creek murder victim- Barbara Overby- Jan.14, 2026

[PatLaurel]

Police seek suspect after identifying 1981 Coconut Creek murder victim


"On Sept. 28, 1981, officers responded to the 6700 block of Lyons Road, where a woman was found dead in a canal."

"Police later identified the victim as Barbara Overby, who was 24 years old and lived in Fort Lauderdale at the time of her death."

 

[HopeRains]

Does anyone remember the Jane Doe case? I'm not remembering it and finding nothing on any sites with regards to updates/resolved cases (fluiddb, DoeNetwork, etc).

I'm not familiar with Ms. Overby either, however, I feel it is important for us to see her face. I am really hopeful that her identification via finding her print card in the ME archives changes how Broward County does their work - this took 44 years! They need to put these pictures of her in their office as a daily reminder. Over and over again, fingerprint submission/resubmission has resulted in identifications (victim and suspect). This is not rocket-science.

Last November (insert mine, as in November 2025 if I am reading the article posted in the thread correctly), the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office discovered the victim’s original fingerprint card in its archives. The fingerprints were submitted to the National Crime Information Center database, where investigators received a match.

Police later identified the victim as Barbara Overby, who was 24 years old and lived in Fort Lauderdale at the time of her death.

 

[The4TierBridge]

Does anyone remember the Jane Doe case? I'm not remembering it and finding nothing on any sites with regards to updates/resolved cases (fluiddb, DoeNetwork, etc).

I'm not familiar with Ms. Overby either, however, I feel it is important for us to see her face. I am really hopeful that her identification via finding her print card in the ME archives changes how Broward County does their work - this took 44 years! They need to put these pictures of her in their office as a daily reminder. Over and over again, fingerprint submission/resubmission has resulted in identifications (victim and suspect). This is not rocket-science.

View attachment 637415
Last November (insert mine, as in November 2025 if I am reading the article posted in the thread correctly), the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office discovered the victim’s original fingerprint card in its archives. The fingerprints were submitted to the National Crime Information Center database, where investigators received a match.

Police later identified the victim as Barbara Overby, who was 24 years old and lived in Fort Lauderdale at the time of her death.

As far as I can tell, it was never in NamUs.

 

[HopeRains]

As far as I can tell, it was never in NamUs.

I didn't find anything in fluiddb either - but will go back and look at my historical files. I am also not easily finding any info in Ft Lauderdale News of the day regarding this discovery of her body but will keep looking. Below is a map of the area showing Coconut Creek location in Broward County, the county of which she lived and was discovered deceased. The map was in the Ft Lauderdale News on 9/21/1981 (the date of the discovery of her body) so should be accurate of the time period.

 

[PatLaurel]

I didn't find anything in fluiddb either - but will go back and look at my historical files. I am also not easily finding any info in Ft Lauderdale News of the day regarding this discovery of her body but will keep looking. Below is a map of the area showing Coconut Creek location in Broward County, the county of which she lived and was discovered deceased. The map was in the Ft Lauderdale News on 9/21/1981 (the date of the discovery of her body) so should be accurate of the time period.

View attachment 637423

When I read the article yesterday, the description seemed familiar, and I was sure I had started a thread for this Jane Doe, as my main focus is AA and Hispanic UIDs mostly found in Florida. I was surprised when I couldn’t find any information on this Jane Doe.
And now, after seeing this map, I’m even more convinced I’ve seen this case somewhere; I just don’t recall where.

 

[PatLaurel]

Found some articles:

Lyons Road Sep. 1981

Lyons Road Sep.1981

Lyons Road Sep. 1981

 

[PatLaurel]

Here's one more.
Police consider using psychic

 

[PayrollNerd]

Identifying her via her own fingerprints should mean a paper trail. Why was she in the system? Traffic crash? Protestor? A misdemeanor crime, like petty theft? It seems that could lead to many avenues, ex partner? Domestic violence?

 

[HopeRains]

Thanks for the articles, @PatLaurel. I hadn't searched far enough forward in the archives yet this morning. Case still does not sound familiar to me, but one would think given the articles of the day that she would have made it into fluiddb at some point, and then ultimately into other sites.

 

[paulhaynes]

So, I first came across the Sep-Oct-Nov 1981 news briefs (from the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel) while researching something else—for a story I was writing for Boca Raton magazine—back in 2024. I subsequently spent countless hours trying to find anything, anything at all, about this case beyond the very limited 1981 coverage, and I found nothing; no entry in Namus or any other databases, and no further media coverage . All I found was an entry on Ancestry for an unidentified white (consistent with the police description) decedent who died 9/28/1981 in Broward County, sourced from the Office of Vital Records.

I reached out to the Coconut Creek PD, who advised that they wouldn't have records dating back to 1981 due to Florida retention laws and referred me to the Broward County Medical Examiner. That office was unable to locate any record of an unidentified decedent found in September of 1981, and their explanation was that the case must have been closed (i.e., the victim identified and the case adjudicated). It was only upon reaching the cold case unit with the Broward Sheriff's Office that any interest was stirred, and Coconut Creek presumably dug further and unearthed the file.

So, bottom line here is, this 1981 Jane Doe had been forgotten to time and wasn't on any of these agencies' radars—and there are at least a dozen or more South Florida Does from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, spread across the tri-county area that are not in Namus, and—like this case—not in any other database, discoverable only via Newspaper archives or, in rare cases, other resources.