It's been eight years since one of the most baffling cases in the annals of the St. Louis Police Department began, and the mystery remains.
On that cold, crisp, clear day of Feb. 28, 1983, two men looking for a piece of metal to rig a broken drive train on their car made a grisly discovery. While rummaging through a vacant apartment house at 5635 Clemens Avenue in the Cabanne neighborhood, they found the body of a girl on the boiler room floor.
The body was clad only in a dirty yellow sweater with the hands bound behind the back with a red and white nylon rope. The head was missing.
An autopsy disclosed that the girl, who was black, was 8 to 11 years old and had been sexually assaulted. She had been killed elsewhere.
After eight years and countless hours of detective work, police still don't know the identity of the victim, much less who may have killed her.
''I don't suppose I'll ever forget that case,'' said Chief of Detectives Leroy J. Adkins, who was the commander of the homicide squad when the case began.
''It still bothers me,'' said Adkins. ''I guess I'm perplexed more than anything else because we've never identified her after all these years.
''Here you have a child, 8, 9, 10 years old and there's no relatives, parents, neighbors, schoolmates or friends who have reported her missing. Nobody has come forward to offer any information about her.
''What is most distressing is how a child that age can't belong to anybody.''
Adkins called the investigation ''one of most extensive, thorough, painstaking investigations in the history of the department.''
Homicide Sgt. Joe Burgoon has been the primary investigator in the case. He points to a file cabinet stuffed with information such as leads, lists, computer printouts of missing children and stacks of school rosters.
''We've even got information from psychics in there,'' he said.
In 1986, Burgoon sent a report to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., which runs a special program that analyzes unsolved killings throughout the country.
''The FBI could find nothing to compare to our case anywhere in the United States,'' Burgoon said. ''It's amazing.''
But Burgoon has not given up hope. ''Right now, I'm looking at an abduction case from Chicago,'' he said. ''A 7 1/2-year-old girl was reported abducted in January 1980, and she's never been found.''
Another homicide sergeant thinks that a man on death row in Missouri may be the killer of the girl, and the detective plans to question the man soon.
Dr. Mary Case, the medical examiner for St. Louis County and St. Charles County, remembers the ''Jane Doe'' case well because she was deputy chief medical examiner for St. Louis at the time.
''I remember there were more hours spent on that case than any other I can recall,'' she said.
''In this part of the country, for a child to be murdered like that and not identified is just so unbelievable.''
Adkins says, ''There are so many theories. The girl lived a secluded life. Her mother, or parents, were involved in the murder. The possibilities go on and on.
''She probably was from out of the state, though,'' he said. ''We checked school records around here very, very thoroughly.
''We conducted a nationwide search,'' Adkins said. ''We ran ads in every black newspaper and magazine in the country and corresponded with every state police agency.
