December 4, 2024.
It's been over a year now.
During my shows for most of the last year since it happened last October, I've been sharing the story of the "Jane Doe" murder victim who had been buried in the historic African-American cemetery just a few feet from my back yard. A young African-American woman found in 1973, shot to death on the side of a local gravel road; a spot that I pass on my near-daily walks, until now blissfully ignorant of her tragic story. The local Baptist church graciously accepted her to rest among their honored departed in an unmarked grave, and for a half century she was all but forgotten. When forensic experts exhumed her last autumn, I assumed they had an idea that they would identify her using modern DNA testing and resources, and perhaps even identify a suspect in her murder.
Alas, she remains “Jane Doe”. Even with genetic genealogy tools like those that help bring the infamous Golden State Killer to justice, they've only identified distant cousins, along with a few surnames and places that may or may not have some connection. Detectives have resorted to a 3-D sculpture and old-style forensic clues being distributed widely through the regional DMV (DC-Maryland Virginia) media, like this gift article from the Washington Post, “DNA didn’t solve a 50-year-old cold case. Police turned to a sculpture. Loudoun County detectives hope a 3D model of an unidentified shooting victim will spark recognition.”
Our Sheriff's Office recently posted this slide show to share more details of the case with the public:
And here's a twist I hadn't imagined; until she is identified, she can't be legally reburied. Her remains sit in a State Police forensic lab, as our county's leaders work to get the law changed or special exception granted. I suppose if she's identified, she may end up in a final resting place near to family and thus perhaps never reinterred at Mt. Olive.
What I am sure of is that she must have deserved far better from this life than she got. And certainly deserves better than to be left in a lab locker.
One of Lincoln's most famous natives was Henry Taylor, the acclaimed poet who won a Pulitzer in 1985 for his exquisite collection The Flying Change, largely about rural life here. The collection includes “Landscape With Tractor,” about finding a woman’s body while mowing a field:
“She was someone,
and now is no one, buried or burned
or dissected; but gone.”
Ironically, Henry Taylor passed away just a few days before all this new forensic evidence and effort went public.
I remain hopeful that my quiet and unknown neighbor of these last many years will finally find her way back to someplace where someone has held her memory close for the last half-century, and that she might rest among those who knew, loved and mourned her.