[Wet back' Finds
Body of Woman
United Press International
ALPINE, Tex., July 30.— State
highway patrolman Jean Pate
said today that the badly burned
body of a 20-34 year-old white
woman found near the Rio
Grande 90 miles south of here
apparently had been there about
a month.
Pate saide that a Mexican
laborer had come across the body
yesterday afternoon in desolate
brush country about 1 1/2 miles
east of Ranch Road 170 and about
3 miles from the hamlet of
Lajitas, just west of Big Bend
National Park.Pate said there was some
indication the woman had been in
a sleeping bag and that someone
had thrown gasoline over the bag
and set it afire.
Alpine Avalanche
August 5, 1965
Skeleton of Woman Found Near Lajitas Unidentified
Skeletal remains of a young woman found 3 miles east of Lajitas
last Thursday, July 29, are still unidentified, Sheriff Carl
Williams said yesterday.
The remains were taken to Austin Monday by Texas Ranger Arthur
Hill for examination by experts in the Department of Public
Safety.
Sheriff Williams said yesterday that authorities in Austin are
waiting for a bne expert to examine the skeleton.
A report carried by a San Anjelo newspaper yesterday that the
body might be that of a missing San Angelo girl has provided no
new lead, the sheriff said. The San Angelo girl was last
reported in Fort Stockton.
The remains of the body, which had been attacked by animals,
was found by a Mexiacan laborer who reported it to Ben English
at Lajitas store. The body apparently had been put in a
zippered bag and burned.
Peace Officers and members of the Brewster County Rescue Squad
made another search near Lajitas Sunday and found a hand and
more bones.
Doctor Lockhart said it was apparent that the woman had been
shot although there was no bullet wound in the skeleton with
the possible exception of a hole in the left scapula, and the
body had been carried to this remote site for disposal for
burning.
"The bones were those of a young woman, age 25 to 35, the skin
was fair, and the hair was finely textured and light brown," he
said. "The teeth showed one cavity in the upper right seventh
molar, and this was not repaired. The upper left fifth tooth
was small and deformed, the teeth were regular, and from the
substructures it was probable that the woman had nice features.
There were no wisdom teeth, either upper or lower jaw, as an
hereditary variation."
"Her sitting height was 32 1/2 inches therefore she stood about
5 feet and 4 inches. I was impressed by the competence of our
peace officers investigating this case.
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San Angelo Standard Times
April 13, 1969
"Lady in Chartreuse" Still Is A Mystery
Lajitas / The burning greasewood fire made a small orange glow against the night sky.
The briefly flickering flame was the funeral pyre of a woman whose bones were later found scattered on a rocky hillside 3 1/2 miles from the trading post town of Lajitas on the Rio Grande in the Big Bend.
If there were any mourners, no one knows, because no one knows even today who the woman was.
To sheriff Carl Williams of sprawling Brewster County, the woman is known only as "The Lady in Chartreuse."
The mystery of her death is one of the most puzzling in West Texas.
It was July 29, 1965, a scorching summer day, when two men found human skeletal remains near an old Candellia Wax vat.
Ramon and Chon Amendariz told officers they had stumbled across the bones by accident. They said, however, they had seen unusual buzzard activity in the area some three weeks earlier.
Sheriff Williams and Texas Ranger Arthur Hill reached the scene late in the day. The following day, lawmen began a three-day search of the scene.
They didn't find much to go on.
The remains were sent to Austin for analysis in Department of Public Safety Labs. The report indicated the bones were those of a wman between 30 and 40 years of age, 5 feet, 5 five inches
tall, with light brown and partially gray hair.
She apparently had been wearing a light chartreuse shirt-type blouse, a light reversible jacket and green knit skirt or stretch pants.
A dental expert reported the woman had never had any work done on her teeth. All of the woman's left ribs were broken or cracked.
It appeared the woman's body had been placed in a plastic bag, soaked with a flamable liquid and burned.
A lubloid slug, either .32 or .38 caliber was found in the 150-foot area where the woman's bones had been scattered.
But there was no positive evidence the bullet had been the cause of death. here were no signs indicating she might have been shot.
There were tracks from a pickup truck, which possibly carried a
camper that led a mile and a half off Texas 170 to the hill where the body was burned. The desolate area was searched by air but nothing else turned up.
Allmissing persons reports were checked, but in each case something prevented a name from being matched with the remains.
Williams files are full of reports of women who have disappeared but none f them accurately fit the description of "the Lady in Chartreuse."
About two months after the discovery of the skeleton, another mystery turned up. A cruse wooden cross on the site f the cremation. On it was lettered by nails driven into the wood these words:
Cadeb Encontro Este Julio 29 de 1965 se." (Corpse found here, July 29, 1965.)
"The cross appeared on the hill sometime during the span of two months," Williams said. "I'd go back down there from time to time, thinking whoever put the body there might return. There was a span of about two months that I didn't go down there, I guess it was put there about that time."
Though nearly four years old, the case is not cnsidered closed.
"I go over the file every once in a while," Williams said "Last September we reopened the investigation and reinterviewed and researched the area. But we came up with nothing.
Ranger Hill purchased a small doll and had a local seamstress sew some doll clothes patterned after the garments found near Lajitas. Pictures of the doll, which even has brown hair, have been circulated to area law enforcement agencies.
"If we could ever find anyone who could make positive identification of the remains we'd have a lot more to go on. It's pretty hard to solve a slaying when you don't even know who was killed," Sheriff Williams said.
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