Warning: this is a particularly horrific murder of a child. Skip this article if cases involving children
The St. Louis Jane Doe is an unidentified girl who was found murdered on February 28, 1983 in St. Louis, Missouri. She has also been nicknamed "Hope" and the "Little Jane Doe." The victim was estimated to be between eight and eleven when she was murdered, and is believed to have been killed by strangulation. She had also been raped before her murder, with her body then decapitated. The brutality of the crime has led to national attention. The head of the Jane Doe has never been located, preventing dental examination and the possibility of a traditional facial reconstruction.
• Discovery •
The headless body of an African-American child was found on the afternoon of February 28, 1983 in St. Louis, Missouri. She was believed to have been strangled three to five days earlier before her decapitated body was disposed of in the basement of an abandoned house. Her remains were found by two looters after one lit a cigarette that created enough light to expose the body. Her body was naked save for a yellow sweater, and was left on her stomach, with her hands bound behind her back with red and white nylon rope.
The victim was initially believed to have been a prostitute until police had moved her body and discovered she did not have developed breasts, indicating she had not gone through puberty. Further examination was conducted within the next week.
• Examination •
It was concluded that the victim was not killed at the location where she was discovered, as no traces of blood were found by the body. The girl was also bound at the wrists with a red nylon cord and lying face down. Her head had been severed cleanly by a large blade, possibly a carving knife. She was between eight and eleven and was prepubescent, but had been raped. She wore only a yellow, long sleeved V-Neck sweater and two layers of pink and purple nail polish. Her head has never been found, but the fingerprints, footprints and DNA information have been collected. Because there were no distinct marks or deformities on her body, except for spina bifida occulta, it is unlikely that she would be identified. Four missing girls have been ruled out as the victim, as well as the Northampton County Jane Doe from North Carolina, who was ruled out to be the remaining parts of the body. She was approximately 4'10" to 5'6" tall when she was alive, which is considered tall for that age. After ten months her burial took place in December 1983.
• Investigation •
Authorities decided to exhume the body in 2013 in order to gather more forensic information about the victim. The remains had been misplaced, along with many other bodies in the Washington Park Cemetery, due to the negligence of cemetery records and were not found until mid June. The remains were located by using camera calibration techniques to determine precisely where a photograph of the casket had been taken on the day of the burial. After tests on samples of her bones were concluded, the victim is believed to have spent a large portion of her life in the Midwestern and Northeastern states, or perhaps West Virginia.
Her sweater had previously been sent to a psychic in Florida but was never returned, presumably lost in the mail. She was also presumed to have been a victim of Vernon Brown, who had murdered young girls in a similar manner. Brown was executed in 2005 and never confessed to murdering the Jane Doe, despite efforts made by investigators.
