PA PA - Economy Borough, Beaver Co, WhtFem 40-80, UP13338, embalmed head, gray hair, Dec'14

[CCJD]

The UB dental forensics team was tasked with determining if the head belonged to a torso in a broken-into mausoleum in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. The police knew the head belonged to an older woman, but not her identity.
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What they discovered revealed that the severed head did not match the headless body.

“The problem was the body was interred in 1952 and all the dentistry in the head was modern, from the mid-1980s at the very earliest,” Bush said. “It more likely was done in the 1990s or even later.”

Dental professors’ forensic work included in new volume of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’

The forensics team was tasked with determining if a severed head belonged to a torso in a broken-into mausoleum in Uniontown, Pennsylvania.

www.buffalo.edu

 

[TootsieFootsie]

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/449018144/snap-judgment

Was listening on my internet radio, going through the stations and came across a Podcast of this case.

August 1, 2024​

The Bone Reader - Snap Classic​

A severed head turns up in a small rural town. While police investigate this as a crime, they look at disturbed graves, search for missing people — suspect a killer. But the forensic artist on the case has a very different theory for how the head ended up in the woods.This story contains references to forensic material, sensitive listeners please be advised.Thank you to Michelle Vitali & Mike O'Brien for sharing this story with Snap.

 

[Find Brenda]

The UB dental forensics team was tasked with determining if the head belonged to a torso in a broken-into mausoleum in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. The police knew the head belonged to an older woman, but not her identity.
---------------------------------------
What they discovered revealed that the severed head did not match the headless body.

“The problem was the body was interred in 1952 and all the dentistry in the head was modern, from the mid-1980s at the very earliest,” Bush said. “It more likely was done in the 1990s or even later.”

Dental professors’ forensic work included in new volume of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’

The forensics team was tasked with determining if a severed head belonged to a torso in a broken-into mausoleum in Uniontown, Pennsylvania.

www.buffalo.edu

Thanks for sharing.

I’m surprised they could not get a DNA sample.

 

[eoyste]

Can we get @othram on her case?? If anyone can help give her her name back, it's them!

 

[Find Brenda]

Can we get @othram on her case?? If anyone can help give her her name back, it's them!

Probably the only chance

 

[Melquiades]

I think Unsolved Mysteries generally got to the gist of what happened here even if they didn’t explain it explicitly.

Some sketchy mortuary is selling body parts from bodies that were ‘cremated’ or some such. On this specific body, the eyes were removed and sold separately.

The weird neighbour JG somehow got wind of how to buy a head and put it in that specific spot as some sort of weird revenge plot against the teen he thinks has stabbed his horse - to scare him? To try implicating him in a crime?

The only thing I don’t understand is how they didn’t get DNA from the head. I get that the embalming fluid ruined soft tissue samples but surely they could have obtained DNA from deeper in a skull/jaw bone or from teeth? It seems absurd given what you can get DNA from now that they were presented with an entire head and somehow failed.

 

[AlwaysTheUnderdog]

It will be key to collect more information about the suspect, Jay Grabner, who committed suicide after failing a polygraph. I live in Beaver County and have spoke with people who know him personally. Based on what they have shared, it seems there is a lot more to learn.

 

[Susikatze]

I think Unsolved Mysteries generally got to the gist of what happened here even if they didn’t explain it explicitly.

Some sketchy mortuary is selling body parts from bodies that were ‘cremated’ or some such. On this specific body, the eyes were removed and sold separately.

The weird neighbour JG somehow got wind of how to buy a head and put it in that specific spot as some sort of weird revenge plot against the teen he thinks has stabbed his horse - to scare him? To try implicating him in a crime?

The only thing I don’t understand is how they didn’t get DNA from the head. I get that the embalming fluid ruined soft tissue samples but surely they could have obtained DNA from deeper in a skull/jaw bone or from teeth? It seems absurd given what you can get DNA from now that they were presented with an entire head and somehow failed.

You could from the teeth or deeply inside the jawbone. They find useable DNA this way in Neanderthal skeletons. Yes, embalming liquid is aggressive but it wont penetrate dental enamel

 

[Melquiades]

You could from the teeth or deeply inside the jawbone. They find useable DNA this way in Neanderthal skeletons. Yes, embalming liquid is aggressive but it wont penetrate dental enamel

Yeah, this would be my understanding as well.

I don’t like speculating without full information but it *feels* like they took tissue samples, buried the head, and then were surprised to find the tissue samples were no good and now nobody really wants to deal with the cost/embarrassment of exhuming the head for further/better samples.

The fact that there wasn’t an actual serious crime here and that nobody is likely looking for this woman would further mean that funds for an exhumation are probably unlikely.

 

[Susikatze]

Yeah, this would be my understanding as well.

I don’t like speculating without full information but it *feels* like they took tissue samples, buried the head, and then were surprised to find the tissue samples were no good and now nobody really wants to deal with the cost/embarrassment of exhuming the head for further/better samples.

The fact that there wasn’t an actual serious crime here and that nobody is likely looking for this woman would further mean that funds for an exhumation are probably unlikely.

Which is sad, this is someines head that deserves to get a respectful burial together with the rest of the body. It is also someones loved one.
She needs her name back.

 

[imstilla.grandma]

What about DNA?​

It was too degraded by embalming fluid. Multiple entities have tried to get a proper reading from samples submitted by investigators, including renowned private labs nationwide.

One of those labs, Astrea Forensics, a company headquartered in California, is trying a different method.

“It’s somewhat risky ... in that we’re unsure whether it’ll actually work and the deterioration of the same that we have if it didn’t work,” Chief O’Brien said. “But at this point, you know what? We don’t have much else to lose. We can’t go anywhere else. We’ve pretty well, I think, exhausted just about every other option out there.”

10 years later, 'Jane Doe' remains unidentified in Beaver County

For years, Andy Gall took care of the modest grave himself. The marker isn’t much bigger than a brick, and it’s tucked against the back wall...

www.post-gazette.com

 

[imstilla.grandma]

Who was the Beaver County Jane Doe?​

When police first responded to the 911 call reporting the discovery, they observed that the severed head appeared to belong to a gray-haired woman possibly between the ages of 60 and 80. It appeared to have been professionally embalmed, complete with eye caps, which are prosthetic shields used to preserve uniformity and shape to the eyes of a deceased person. But the autopsy technician uncovered a bizarre detail once they removed the pair in this case: The woman’s eyeballs had been removed and replaced with small red rubber balls. This perplexing detail — unheard of in the mortuary community, both locally and beyond — spurred an international investigation as police tried to trace the Chinese provenance of the toy rubber balls.

In order to identify the woman, the authorities sent DNA samples to several institutions. A partial match might have allowed them to track down a relative of the deceased, but each attempt failed to produce a profile. The embalming fluid had deteriorated the DNA to the point that investigators weren’t able to glean anything.

https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/unsolved-mysteries-volume-4-episode-3-the-severed-head

 

[Magnum P.E.]

Bumping for what is IMHO Websleuths’ strangest case.

 

[FromGermany1]

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www.reuters.com

If you can buy a head for $300, I would ask, in which form it is usually sent and delivered to the buyer. Maybe, the mail carrier (company/person) from 2014 (?) could still be traced, who knows. Maybe, there would be an answer to the question, how/why the head ended up at the side of a road and what the circumstances were around this delivery. MOO

ETA and PS: To me, the head looks like a head of a man with female hairstyle. MOO