Identified! MA - Provincetown, Race Point, 'Lady in the Dunes' WhtFem 27-49, UP11840, Jul'74 - Ruth Marie Terry

[amber1]

Almost hate to add my two cents,but it cannot be Amy Billig they found in the dunes,if the info on the doe site is accurate.Amy is too short and it also states something like three weeks to three days for estimated time of death for the lady of the dunes,unless they held the lady in question,Amy dissapeared in March,"lady" was found in July.Closer would be,doe file 138DFNY,Valarie Lorraine Cuccia.I could be wrong about everything I just posted.hee hee

Even if the height is a bit off, it's not enough to rule this match out. Also, I have seen where information entered in is not always correct on some of these sites. Amy is thought to have been taken by bikers, traded amongst them and held hostage. Also, a biker fest was in the general direction of where Lady in the Dunes was found. In her book Without a Trace, Amy's mother remembered the biker gang rumored to have taken her was in that area. So the few months apart would actually make perfect sense, given the biker theory is true, which it does have so many consistent sightings. Either way it would just be nice to at least have AMy ruled out as a PM, vice versa

 

[Richard]

July 2012 marks the 38 year anniversary of this young woman's murder. Hoping for an identification and resolution to this case.

 

[Richard]

I still think that Hadden Clark is the most likely killer of this woman. He described in detail a very similar murder which he claimed to have committed.

Here is a link to his thread here on Websleuths:


Meet Hadden Clark: Not-So-Sweet Transvestite - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community

 

[CarlK90245]

This woman has been in NamUs for a while, but her casefile must have been restricted from public view until recently because she didn't come up in my previous screens.

Karen O'Donoghue

https://www.findthemissing.org/en/cases/10038/0

Aside from the time-lag (she was last seen 5 years before LITD was found), everything else seems to fit.

Her height (5'6" to 5'7") fits exactly, her age fits. She's from Massachusetts. She has a similar facial shape and similarly narrow angular jawline. She had light-colored hair.

And if she just up and left to escape from a marriage that she didn't want to follow-through on, perhaps she ran off with the man who eventually killed her.

 

[amber1]

Nice, Carl! A very probable match indeed! Their facial features are eerily similar.

 

[WholeLottaRosie]

I agree, Carl - I really think you have something here!!! Good job!

 

[CarlK90245]

I left a voicemail message with Chief Jaran of the Provincetown PD. Hopefully he will return my call.

 

[CarlK90245]

I got a call back from Meredith Lobur of the Provincetown PD. She is the person currently assigned to the LITD case.

She asked what made me think there was a connection. I indicated that her height matches perfectly, her age is consistent (she would have been 30 in 1974), she was from Massachusetts, and she has the same narrow angular jawline as is shown in the depictions of LITD.

As for the different hairstyles, that could be easily explained by the 5-year lag. The time lag was not a problem because there is nothing in her circumstances to suggest that she died at the time that she disappeared. Her disappearance appeared to be voluntary, so a five-year lag would not be a negative.

She says that Karen O'Donoghue has not been looked at as a possible match, but she has a call out to Springfield PD to get more info on her. She will let me know what she finds out.

I told her that I was a member of Websleuths, and she says that she would be interested in joining WS and commenting on matters pertaining to this case.

I mentioned that there isn't currently a NamUs UP casefile for LITD. She said that she is working with the coroner to create a NamUs casefile for LITD.

 

[Angie4b1g]

Right down to a "scar on her finger" which would lead them even more to remove her hands.

 

[CarlK90245]

I spoke again with Meredith Lobur. She says that they were able to rule-out Karen O'Donoghue based on dentals.

 

[carbuff]

Very Interesting news on this case:

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120302/NEWS/203020319

and: http://www.wickedlocal.com/truro/ne...case-point-to-Bulger-connection#axzz1o1NX2Cus

Evidently there is now some evidence that Whitey Bulger might be connected to the case!

The old guy I talked to at the restaurant years ago insisted there was a gangland connection...though I'm still inclined to Hadden Clark as well.

 

[AW23]

CarlK90245, Your suggested match looked so promising, sorry it wasn't her. There are still plenty of good possibilities. Amy Billig could have ended up here in Cape Cod, certainly. Our lady of the Dunes could also have been a tourist who was never reported missing or whose name and story is not known yet. Very sad, no matter what.

 

[alliemay]

http://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/clark-hadden.htm

"One of his jobs was in Provincetown on Cape Cod. He would later confess to killing several women during this time and drinking their blood. He buried one of the women under a sand dune after chopping off her hands at the wrists. He used her fingers as bait for fishing."

Reading the last paragraph of this article shows this type of thing runs in the family.
Maybe the "jesus-like" friend he has could talk to him and find out if he also killed the lady in the dunes and if he knew who she was.

 

[amber1]

Does anyone know if Amy Billig was officially ruled out for LITD?

 

[amazing-sea-monkey]

I agree, I believe I also posted about Amy Billig as a match. Come on folks, Susan would never let this rest and neither should we. We gotta pick up where she left off...

 

[Ambercat]

I know that the circumstances don't really match up, but has Marilyn Ann Byskal been looked into as being the Lady in the Dunes?

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/2416dfmb.html
http://www.macp.mb.ca/results.php?id=143

 

[amber1]

Does anyone know if Amy Billig was ever ruled out as being Lady in the Dunes?
www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/billig_amy.html

 

[Redwood146]

:twocents: My two cents worth, I do not think the Lady in the Dunes is Amy for several reasons. Mostly because I do not the physical descriptions match enough. I do not see much of a resemblance of Amy to Lady in the Dunes. Secondly I think the circumstances regarding Amy's disappearance suggest that it is unlikely that she would end up buried near Race Point Beach.

 

[EmmaliLucia]

I spoke again with Meredith Lobur. She says that they were able to rule-out Karen O'Donoghue based on dentals.

I'm wondering if this is the type of case that could be ruled out by dentals?

I mean what happens if she left, went to New York, got a rich boyfriend, maybe she had some insecurities about her teeth and decided to get them fixed?

To be honest it really sounds to me like Karen is probably in some nursing home right now with her children and grandchildren either not having a clue about her old life or rolling their eyes every time grandma tells her crazy story about how she left her rotten fiancee and found the love of her life.

 

[EmmaliLucia]

I wonder if they didn't make a recording error on those jeans. 34 inch waist is HUGE, absolutely HUGE.

I wonder if they just measured the opening of the waist instead of looking at the tag for the size? Because back then in the 70s didn't they wear their jeans much closer to their hips? I mean they obviously didn't wear them on the widest part of their hips because that would be halfway down their butt, but the measurement would be halfway between their waist size and their hip size.

If my theory is correct than the smallest part of her waist (ESPECIALLY if she were athletic) was much closer to 28 inches. I would say pants size she's probably a lot closer to an 8 than a 20 (She'd be about a size twenty if her waist measurement really was 34)