Jane "Little Caldonia" Doe. 1979 (Mourge Photo)

[CSA FD]

mourge photo


sketch of victim

Unidentified White Female

Located on November 9, 1979 in Caledonia, Livingston County, New York.
Estimated Date of Death is November 8, 1979
Died as a result of severe brain hemorrhage caused by a gunshot wound to the head.


Estimated age: 13 - 19 years old. Her estimated date of birth is 1958-1967.
Approximate Height and Weight: 5'3; 120 lbs.
Distinguishing Characteristics: She had curly brown, shoulder length hair which had been frosted about four months before her death. The frosted hair was in the process of growing out. She had brown eyes. She was tanned and had visible bikini lines. She had no distinguishing marks. The victim had had no broken bones that would have been in a hospital's records. It didn't look as though she had received much medical attention of any kind.
Dentals: Available. She has some serious decay and tooth #14 was decayed to the extent that only three roots of the tooth were left. She did have some dental work to suggest that the dentist was not trained in the US.
Clothing: She was wearing a a boy's multi-plaid, but­ton-down shirt, tan corduroy pants, blue knee socks, light blue panties; white exquisite bra; brown laceup, ripple-sole shoes and a red nylon-lined man's windbreaker with black stripes down the arms, marked with the inside label Auto Sports Products, Inc..

Case History
The victim was discovered by a passing motorist at 10am in a Caledonia, NY cornfield on November 9, 1979. She was found about 20 ft. from the south side of Route 20, about ½ mile from the intersection of Route 5.
She was fully clothed and there was no evidence that she had been sexu­ally molested. Her pockets had been turned inside out, possibly to remove any identification.
An examination of the girl's stomach contents turned up pieces of meat, corn and potatoes. A waitress from a small dinner in Lima, New York, remembered seeing the girl the night before the murder, but she couldn't remember anything more.
She died of two gunshot wounds; one to the back and one to the right temple. The coroner estimated that she was killed the previous night, (November 8) and that the gunshot wound to her back was inflicted prior to the head wound. The victim was apparently shot by the road where a blood spot marked the earth. Then she was dragged into the cornfield and shot again.
Police speculated that the murder weapon used was a .38-caliber handgun. Ballistics experts dug up a slug buried in the dirt underneath the victim. The slug was tested against liter­ally hundreds of other bullets fired from guns seized by police. Over the years, the Livingston County probers traced weapons to as far away as Canada, Europe, and Mexico, but they were never able to match the slug to a murder weapon.
Several truckers called in with information about a young girl who was traveling and catching rides where she could. One trucker swore he saw the girl the night before she was murdered trying to hitch a ride to Boston from a nearby truck stop.
Police have followed up over 10,000 leads, all to no avail.
The girl's fingerprints were sent to FBI headquarters, but her prints weren't on file.
Jane Doe rests in Dansville, New York. The inscription says, "Lest we forget an unidentified girl. November 9. 1979. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."

Pollen samples taken from the victim's clothing were determined to have come from only four places: Arizona, California, South Florida, or Mexico.

Jewlery
The victim was wearing the following necklace, made with silver beads and three small turquoise stones, one resembling a bird. The necklace was probably homemade-possibly native American- but the best detectives could figure was that it was made somewhere in the Southwest.

The victim was also wearing two key chains that were attached to the front belt loops of her jeans. One key chain, in the shape of a heart, was inscribed, "He who holds the Key can open my heart." The other key chain held the key that fit the small silver heart. The key chains could have been bought in almost any roadside gift shop.
The inscription on the heart-shaped portion of the above locket reads:
He who holds the Key can open my heart.

Additional Case Information
Locale of Region
Caledonia, NY is located in the Finger Lakes region of the state and is close in proximity to the Canadian border. Some theories about the victim's identity include the possibility that she was not American, but Canadian. Searches of the Canadian missing persons' databases have not provided any information on a possible ID match for this victim. Route 20 runs parallel to Interstate 90. The crime scene was just past the bifur­cation of Routes 5 and 20 on the south side of the road. On the north side, a small pull-off for truckers and motorists offered a rest area for travelers.

Tanned Complexion of the Victim
She had tan lines, suggesting that she had recently lain in the sun in a halter top. Tanning salons were not common in 1979, it is believed that she had recently vacationed somewhere tropical or was from a region more conducive to tanning in November. Furthermore, the victim's hair was lightly frosted in the front, a hairstyle popular on the beach.

Clothing Manufacturer
Auto Sports Products. The jackets were a one-shot promotional gimmick. There was no way to track where they had gone after they were distributed.
One caller told investigators that she thought the victim's shoes were popular in the Venjiont area during the late 1970s.

Investigators
If you have any information on this case, please contact:
Livingston County Sheriff's Office
585-243-7120
or
E-Mail

All information can be given on an anonymous basis.

NCMEC #: NCMU400008

NCIC Number: U-157617149
Please refer to this number when contacting any agency with information regarding this case.

[CSA FD]

31st Anniversary of Unsolved Homicide in Livingston County

11/09/10

Caledonia, N.Y.- November 9 is the anniversary of an unsolved homicide of a young girl in Livingston County.

In 1979, a girl between 13 and 19 years old was shot, and then dumped along the side of Route 20 in Caledonia.

The Sheriff's Office continues to investigate the case, and the FBI and New York State Police are working with them, in the hope of identifying "Jane Doe" and finding her killer.

Investigators say "Jane Doe" was small, and weighed approximately 120 pounds.

She had wavy brown hair and brown eyes.

She was wearing tan corduroy pants with a plaid shirt and a red jacket.

Investigators hope to use today's advanced forensic technology on the red jacket.

The Sheriff's Office remains optimistic that publicizing this case can generate new leads, and the murder of "Jane Doe" can finally be solved.

www.13wham.com/news/local/story/31st-Anniversary-of-Unsolved-Homicide-in/wf7w4yNmUUSSd0QD6zcA6g.cspx

[CSA FD]

Breakthrough in cold case after three decades as police say POLLEN could be key to identifying mystery teenage girl shot twice in the head and dumped in fieldNew forensics revealed girl found in a New York field had pollen in her pants from southwest region
Teen wearing replica American Indian jewelry typically sold in New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Arizona


1 May 2012

Traces of pollen could hold the key to identifying a woman whose body was found in 1979 on an upstate New York farm.
A type of pollen only found in the American Southwest was discovered on the murder victim's trousers using new technology, according to the Livingston County Sheriff's Office in Geneseo, New York.
Authorities have since enlisted Albuquerque police in trying to identify the woman who also wore replica American Indian jewelry typically sold in New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Arizona.

Investigator Tom Dougherty, whose rural department rarely has to investigate even one homicide a year, said: 'We're not any closer to solving this crime than we were when it happened years ago, but we think this new information might help.
'We'd love to just identify the girl then maybe find her killer.'
Palynologists, or pollen experts, now have the ability to compare microscopic pollen samples to determine where the material originated.

Among other things, they have identified pollen grains trapped in illegal drug shipments to help federal authorities against drug traffickers.
The victim found in New York was believed to be 13 to 19 years old when she was shot, pulled into a cornfield, shot again, and stripped of any identification.

A farmer discovered her body in November 1979 while checking his fields off Route 20 in Caledonia, about 20 miles south of Rochester.
The woman was described as 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighing about 120 pounds with brown eyes and brown frosted hair. She also had a bikini tan line and was wearing a red nylon-lined wind breaker made by Auto Sports Inc.
Authorities have received hundreds of tips and tracked more than 10,000 leads across the U.S., Europe, Mexico and elsewhere. But no arrests have ever been made.
John York, the first investigator on the scene in 1979 who is now the Livingston County sheriff, reopened the case and believes the new discovery might yield clues to help solve the case.

Dougherty said the body was recently exhumed to pull DNA evidence and send the information to a new national database. That's when the pollen was discovered during a forensic study by Texas A&M University, he said.
Soon after the pollen discovery, authorities contacted Rich Lewis, a detective with the cold case unit of the Albuquerque Police Department.

Lewis visited American Indian jewelers who told him that, according to photos, the jewelry found on the woman was likely replicas of Native American turquoise and silver jewelry.
Detective Lewis said: 'So this stuff could have been purchased anywhere, even made from a kit.
'Or it could have been made by hippies in northern New Mexico, which was very common at the time. We just don't know.'

Still, Lewis said investigators have an obligation to re-examine the case, especially because of the new evidence that points to the Southwest.
Lewis said he doesn't believe the woman was homeless or forgotten based on the new evidence.
'She was somebody who had a life,' he said. 'And someone is missing her.'

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2137698/Pollen-key-identifying-murdered-teenage-girl-1979-New-York-State-cold-case.html?ito=feeds-newsxml