The “Lady in the Dunes”: A Cold Case Reopened

Here’s a great example of an appropriate use of leading-edge technology with significant relevance to Provincetown and outer Cape Cod.

On July 26, 1974 the body of an unidentified white female was found in the dunes approximately one mile east of Race Point Beach.  Her head was nearly severed, and both her hands were amputated and have never been recovered.  Police at the time estimated that she had been dead anywhere from five days to three weeks, and the cause of death was determined to be from blunt force injuries to the head.  They said that she was between 25 and 40 years old, with long red hair.  She weighed about 145 pounds, was a little over 5 feet 6 inches tall, and had thousands of dollar’s worth of dental work done, but still they could not identify her.

As reported in the Cape Cod Times last week, the unsolved murder, dubbed the “Lady in the Dunes” case, has stumped investigators since the discovery was first made 35 years ago.  Since then, local and state police investigators — and even a 2006 episode of Court TV’s “Haunting Evidence” — have tried to identify the woman.  But, even with the help of clay head sculpting, DNA testing, age-regression renderings, computerized photographs, artists sketches and psychic profiles, investigators are no closer to figuring out the woman’s identity.  According to an article in the Provincetown Banner, it is Provincetown’s only unsolved murder case, and the state’s oldest cold case.

Age Regression of the “Lady in the Dunes”, from the Provincetown Police Dep’t.

Provincetown Police Chief Jeff Jaran hopes a new computerized likeness of the victim will help identify her.  He and Provincetown Detective Monica Himes met last week in Washington D.C. with Dr. David Hunt, a renowned forensic anthropologist with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and with representatives from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Likeness created from the skull in 2006, from the Provincetown Police Dep’t.

The Museum has a special three-dimensional CAT scan machine where the skull will be rotated and mapped by a computer.  Scientists will then attempt to assess the victim’s ethnicity, which will help them reconstruct her face and create a new, hopefully more accurate computer rendition of what the young woman looked like at the time of her death.

“‘The Lady in the Dunes’, that’s always figured into one of the top unsolved mysteries in the country,” said Gerald Nance, the Center’s forensic services unit supervisor.  “She was one [case] that caught on.  We’re pretty confident we’ll be able to help.”

The Center has been successful in locating 96 percent of the missing children reported to it.  For older cases in which Nance’s forensics unit is involved, the success ratio is lower; however, some 400 cases have been resolved over the last 10 years.  Many of the tools used to solve these kind of difficult cases are new, including imaging computer technology that rebuilds faces from skeletal remains.

Traditional facial reconstruction w/ offset markers & clay.

The likeness of the Lady in the Dunes depicted above was created in 2006 using a traditional approach to facial reconstruction.  That approach, as illustrated to the right, relies on placing spacing offsets on the skull, and then adding clay and sculpting it directly onto the skull.  The process is time-consuming, to say the least.  Making even a minor change requires a major effort, perhaps starting from scratch.  With today’s computer-based techniques, the computer model can be updated down the road, as new information becomes available.  If the age, ethnicity or even gender are changed, a new likeness can be generated nearly instantaneously after making a few simple changes in the database.

Let’s hope this new model sheds some new light and finally brings this 35-year-old case closer to closure.