|
|
|
More than 20 years after her bones were discovered down a lonely McDonald County Road, “Grace Doe,” may soon be identified.
Along with her suspected killer.
McDonald County sheriff's detective Lorie Howard says she may have a name for Grace, and is hoping that DNA evidence will soon confirm it. She may also know who could have killed Grace and why.
Meanwhile, Howard plans to search for clues in three unsolved murder cases originating from Benton County, Ark. to see if any of them link to the unidentified dead woman that she calls Grace.
Grace Doe's skeletal remains were found on Dec. 2, 1990, near an abandoned farmhouse on Oscar Talley Road, east of Lanagan, in McDonald County. She had apparently been hogtied with six different types of binding, including a military issue parachute cord. There were no bullet or knife wound marks or signs of blunt force trauma on the skull or other bones, which indicates she may have been strangled. She was never identified and there has never been a suspect in the case.
However, a confidential informant has now come forward with names of both victim and murderer, including a story about what happened to Grace, according to Howard.
The possible suspect is local, she said, and is still alive. She wouldn’t publicly divulge the supposed motive at this time.
“I’ve got a lot going on and yet I have nothing tangible other than a couple of names,” Howard said.
Still, there is hope.
Howard initially sent three of Grace’s teeth to the University of North Texas to extract DNA from dental pulps. She later sent other teeth specified by forensic experts at the university in order to get the required number of points to enter Grace’s DNA profile into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, databank. The university recently called Howard and said that doesn’t look like it’s going to be a problem. However, the center is in the process of moving into another facility and won’t have the DNA profile until mid-February, Howard said she was told.
“There is nothing we can do until then as far as doing any verifying,” Howard said. “But these are pretty powerful things to have. I’m really trying hard not to say anything or do anything until I can get the DNA back to compare it to a potential name I have in my file.”
More than 20 years after her bones were discovered down a lonely McDonald County Road, “Grace Doe,” may soon be identified.
Along with her suspected killer.
McDonald County sheriff's detective Lorie Howard says she may have a name for Grace, and is hoping that DNA evidence will soon confirm it. She may also know who could have killed Grace and why.
Meanwhile, Howard plans to search for clues in three unsolved murder cases originating from Benton County, Ark. to see if any of them link to the unidentified dead woman that she calls Grace.
Grace Doe's skeletal remains were found on Dec. 2, 1990, near an abandoned farmhouse on Oscar Talley Road, east of Lanagan, in McDonald County. She had apparently been hogtied with six different types of binding, including a military issue parachute cord. There were no bullet or knife wound marks or signs of blunt force trauma on the skull or other bones, which indicates she may have been strangled. She was never identified and there has never been a suspect in the case.
However, a confidential informant has now come forward with names of both victim and murderer, including a story about what happened to Grace, according to Howard.
The possible suspect is local, she said, and is still alive. She wouldn’t publicly divulge the supposed motive at this time.
“I’ve got a lot going on and yet I have nothing tangible other than a couple of names,” Howard said.
Still, there is hope.
Howard initially sent three of Grace’s teeth to the University of North Texas to extract DNA from dental pulps. She later sent other teeth specified by forensic experts at the university in order to get the required number of points to enter Grace’s DNA profile into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, databank. The university recently called Howard and said that doesn’t look like it’s going to be a problem. However, the center is in the process of moving into another facility and won’t have the DNA profile until mid-February, Howard said she was told.
“There is nothing we can do until then as far as doing any verifying,” Howard said. “But these are pretty powerful things to have. I’m really trying hard not to say anything or do anything until I can get the DNA back to compare it to a potential name I have in my file.”
If a DNA profile for Grace is established, it can be compared with that of the missing woman whose name Howard now has in her file, thanks to the secret informer. At the very least it can be matched up to DNA from a close female family member of the missing woman, whom Howard has not yet named.
Even should the two women turn out not to be one and the same, having Grace’s DNA in the CODIS database means it will automatically be compared each month to every DNA profile in the system, which as of July 2010 stored more than 328,000 forensic profiles alone. That doesn’t include the more than 8.6 million criminal offenders whose DNA is also in the system. Incidentally, that same year there were more than 20,000 forensic hits within the CODIS databank.
“This is huge,” Howard said. “We will have a positive nuclear DNA so I am not singly submitting one sample at a time for comparisons.”
As to the potential suspect, Howard believes that a single blond hair found on Grace’s jacket belongs to her murderer. That hair still exists and will be examined for DNA. If enough DNA can in fact be extracted, Howard said she will move forward with getting a DNA sample from the person who was named by the confidential informant as Grace’s killer. If there is even a partial match, Howard said it should be enough for an arrest.
“I’m going to try and get a good profile on the blond hair at the lab and then go after my suspect with the DNA,” Howard said.
Meanwhile, she has been contacted by a detective from the Benton County Arkansas Sheriff’s Department who is reinvestigating the unsolved homicide cases of three different women who were all murdered around the same time as Grace and who were all estimated to be between the ages of 18 and 26. Grace is believed to have been in her mid-to-late 20s when she died.
Of the three murdered women, two are still Jane Does. The other was identified as Dana Stidham, whose partial skeletal remains were found just south of the McDonald County line by a squirrel hunter in September 1989, about a month and a half after she went missing.
Howard said the Stidham case in particular looks like it may be promising in regard to her investigation.
“I’m not going to exclude anything,” Howard said. “The potential for the Dana Stidham case to hook up in my scenario with Grace is a possibility. At least it does have the potential to flow with my story. There is a sync between her and what I’ve got going on.”
Howard reopened the cold case almost four years ago. She named her unidentified victim “Grace” after people told her it would only be by the grace of God that she ever finds out who the dead woman was.
“I’ve got a hope now,” Howard said. “When the DNA comes back I really hope things go forward. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed. Every day is a new day. But I’m getting closer.”
