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Neosho, Mo. —
“Grace Doe” is about to have a face.
Her bones are already here.
Just after publication of a March 9 Neosho Daily News article detailing McDonald County detective Lorie Howard’s search for the identity of a woman murdered in 1990, Howard took two phone calls that will likely lead to the facial reconstruction of the woman Howard calls “Grace.” People have told her it is only by the grace of God that she will ever succeed in her solving the cold case.
As reported in the March 9 story, Grace’s badly decomposed body was discovered on December 2, 1990 in some weeds beside an abandoned house on Oscar Talley Road, about midway between Lanagan and Pineville.
She had apparently been hogtied and with six different types of binding: Nylon rope, lead rope, coaxial cable, telephone cable, parachute cord and clothesline. Because of the way she was bound, both hands behind the back and tied to one leg and a shoelace, Howard feels that Grace was also raped before she died.
Howard believes Grace was killed more than a month before her remains were discovered and that it had probably happened on Halloween night. A witness reported nearly 20 years after the fact that on the evening of Oct. 31, 1990, she and some other youths at the time were just up the road from where Grace’s body was eventually found when they heard a woman scream and then a noisy pickup truck drive off.
There were never any suspects in the case and Grace has never been identified. What’s more, when Howard reopened the cold case about three years ago, she discovered that Grace’s skull and other skeletal remains had somehow been lost. Their last known location was the medical examiner’s office in Columbia, Mo.
One thing Howard did have was a cast of Grace’s teeth, along with the anthropologist report which stated the murder victim was probably in her mid-to-late 20s when she died, stood between 5’1” and 5’4” and was of a slender build. She also had auburn hair.
Only one day after the Daily News article, Howard received a phone call from forensic artist Victoria Lywood, who lives in Montreal, Canada. Lywood told her she had read the article online after getting a Google alert, and offered her services pro bono.
“I would usually be skeptical of someone who normally gets upwards of $3,000 to reconstruct but says they’re willing to just do it for you,” Howard said. “However, I have talked with people who have done work with her in the past and they are very happy with her work. She has been instrumental in their cases. They say she is highly qualified.”
“Grace Doe” is about to have a face.
Her bones are already here.
Just after publication of a March 9 Neosho Daily News article detailing McDonald County detective Lorie Howard’s search for the identity of a woman murdered in 1990, Howard took two phone calls that will likely lead to the facial reconstruction of the woman Howard calls “Grace.” People have told her it is only by the grace of God that she will ever succeed in her solving the cold case.
As reported in the March 9 story, Grace’s badly decomposed body was discovered on December 2, 1990 in some weeds beside an abandoned house on Oscar Talley Road, about midway between Lanagan and Pineville.
She had apparently been hogtied and with six different types of binding: Nylon rope, lead rope, coaxial cable, telephone cable, parachute cord and clothesline. Because of the way she was bound, both hands behind the back and tied to one leg and a shoelace, Howard feels that Grace was also raped before she died.
Howard believes Grace was killed more than a month before her remains were discovered and that it had probably happened on Halloween night. A witness reported nearly 20 years after the fact that on the evening of Oct. 31, 1990, she and some other youths at the time were just up the road from where Grace’s body was eventually found when they heard a woman scream and then a noisy pickup truck drive off.
There were never any suspects in the case and Grace has never been identified. What’s more, when Howard reopened the cold case about three years ago, she discovered that Grace’s skull and other skeletal remains had somehow been lost. Their last known location was the medical examiner’s office in Columbia, Mo.
One thing Howard did have was a cast of Grace’s teeth, along with the anthropologist report which stated the murder victim was probably in her mid-to-late 20s when she died, stood between 5’1” and 5’4” and was of a slender build. She also had auburn hair.
Only one day after the Daily News article, Howard received a phone call from forensic artist Victoria Lywood, who lives in Montreal, Canada. Lywood told her she had read the article online after getting a Google alert, and offered her services pro bono.
“I would usually be skeptical of someone who normally gets upwards of $3,000 to reconstruct but says they’re willing to just do it for you,” Howard said. “However, I have talked with people who have done work with her in the past and they are very happy with her work. She has been instrumental in their cases. They say she is highly qualified.”
Howard told her that all she had was the teeth cast. Lywood said that was fine, just send that and she would start from there.
Then last Wednesday, Howard received another phone call. It was from the assistant at the Columbia medical examiner’s office.
“She told me ‘I’m about to make your day — I have Grace,’” Howard said.
The skull and other skeletal remains had been at the University of Missouri the whole time. They had been sent to an anthropologist there. Howard had actually spoken with him before and received his file, though he said didn’t personally recall the case. When the periodontist Howard contacted as a result of her correspondence with Lywood went to the medical examiner’s office to look for Grace’s x-rays in her file, he learned the bones had been sent to the Fayetteville anthropologist. The medical examiner’s assistant contacted the anthropologist who gave the name of the person who had replaced him. It was with the help of that person that the skull and bones were found in a locked humidified storage facility at U of A.
“She was stored among the other Jane Does all this time,” Howard said. “She has been a lot closer than I thought.”
The remains, which includes the skull and about 60 percent of the skeleton, were sent back to Columbia where Howard will drive on Tuesday to pick them up. She is now trying to find a doctor who will perform a CAT scan on the skull. After that, it is just a matter of sending the CT file to Lywood in Montreal, who told her it should only take a couple of weeks to forensically reconstruct Grace’s face.
Howard has already called America’s Most Wanted television program, with whom she has long been in contact, who told her that as soon as she has a face for Grace they will televise the story.
“I’m thrilled about all of this,” Howard said. “I know this is going to sound a little bizarre, but I just can’t wait to see what she looks like. And I hope when it is aired on America’s Most Wanted, somebody immediately says, ‘I know that girl.’”
Anyone with any information about this case is encouraged to please call Detective Lorie Howard at 223-7430.
Correction: This article originally stated Grace Doe's bones were rediscovered at the University of Arkansas. This is incorrect. Her bones were found at the University of Missouri.
