Positive Identification of Victim in 1954 "Jane Doe" Homicide case

TO:  Boulder County Area Media

FROM: Cmdr. Rick Brough, #303-441-3631

RE: Positive Identification of 1954 “Jane Doe” Homicide Victim

        Case #04-2822

Sheriff Joe Pelle announced today that a positive identification has been made of the victim in a decades old homicide investigation.

In 2004, the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, prompted by local Boulder historian Silvia Pettem, resurrected the investigation. With funds contributed by the community, the donated expertise of several forensic authorities, and Pettem’s able assistance as a researcher, Sheriff’s detectives made significant progress in furthering the investigation, utilizing modern investigative methods. Notably, an exhumation in 2004 and an artist’s recreation of “Jane Doe’s” face from her re-constructed skull provided a DNA profile and an image that caught the public’s attention, respectively. The case received extensive regional publicity and was featured in an episode of “America’s Most Wanted” television program. Still, “Jane Doe’s” identity eluded Sheriff’s investigators and a cadre of private volunteer researchers coordinated by Ms. Pettem.

However, late last week that all changed. The Sheriff’s Office was notified by Dr. Terry Melton, president and CEO of Mitotyping Technologies, LLC, of State College, Pennsylvania, that her lab had made a match between “Jane Doe’s” DNA profile and that of a woman who thought the unidentified murder victim might be her long-lost sister.

“Jane Doe” was positively identified as Dorothy Gay Howard, who was reported as missing from Phoenix, Arizona, in March 1954. She was 18 years old at the time of her disappearance. A photograph accompanies this media release.          

Ms. Howard’s great-niece, whose identity is not being released at this time at her request, had been following “Jane Doe’s” saga on-line via Ms. Pettem’s “Jane Doe” web-site, www.boulderjanedoe.com, but did not pursue her suspicions that “Jane Doe” might be her great-aunt “Dot” as investigators had focused on another likely candidate, Katharine Farrand Dyer. However, when Ms. Dyer was discovered alive and well and living in an assisted living center in Australia last month, Dot’s great-niece came forward and proposed her great aunt as a possible candidate for a match for “Jane Doe”. She provided information about another aunt, a younger sibling of Ms. Howard’s, who in turn provided a DNA sample that was then compared against “Jane Doe’s” profile, establishing a matrilineal family match. 

Ms. Pettem, who recently authored the book, “Someone’s Daughter: In Search of Justice for Jane Doe” which chronicles her quest to identify the young woman, commented, “In recent years, the search for Jane Doe’s identity has spread around the world, touching the lives of thousands of people, including me. I feel sadness for her tragic death, but relief that her family now has closure. I look forward to Dorothy’s real name on a new gravestone, and I’m proud to have played in solving this mystery”.

Sheriff Joe Pelle commended Ms. Pettem’s skills as a researcher and her persistence in pushing the investigation forward, while complimenting Sheriff’s Detective Steve Ainsworth, who has diligently pursued and documented every lead in the case. Together, they built a compelling circumstantial case for naming serial-killer Harvey Glatman (executed in California in 1959 for the murder of three other women) as Ms. Howard’s murderer. Detective Ainsworth said, “With her identification, a major piece of the puzzle has been added. I’m confident now that we will be able to find the missing links that will tie this all together”.

Ms. Howard’s surviving family members have expressed their preference that she remain interred in Boulder’s Columbia Cemetery. Ms. Pettem, with Sheriff Pelle’s cooperation, has announced a fund drive to purchase a new headstone for Ms. Howard. Donations may be made to the “Jane Doe Fund”, c/o the Boulder History Museum, 1206 Euclid Avenue, Boulder, CO 80302