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COF940707; July 7 1994 MONTROSE
Topic Started: Jan 4 2009, 07:39 AM (564 Views)
monkalup
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
[ *  *  * ]
http://www.montrosepress.com/articles/2008...26559416934.txt
By Katharhynn Heidelberg
Daily Press Senior Writer
Published/Last Modified on Saturday, December 27, 2008 5:59 PM MST

MONTROSE — For close to 15 years, she's rested in a cardboard box poignantly marked "keep forever!" — but the woman called Windy Point Jane Doe has yet to rest in peace.

Dr. Thomas Canfield, Montrose County coroner, wants to change that. He wants her remains positively identified because, he said, somewhere a family is waiting.

"My goal is, there's a mother out there with a missing daughter. There's a family out there unaware of what happened," he said.
The photograph of a reconstructed skull have yielded no identification to the woman found back in 1994. (Photo courtesy the Montrose County Coroner office)



(Use arrows above to view more photos)

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"My goal in cold cases is to try and help the family, who is unknown at this time, to come to a conclusion as to whether their daughter is alive or dead."

He has little to go on — ironically, he has enough forensic evidence to make an ID, but not the corresponding information to link the woman's bones to a known individual.

Her intact skull still contained teeth when hikers discovered it near the Smokehouse Campground on U.S. Forest Service Road 402 (Divide Road) on July 7, 1994. The area is commonly called "Windy Point," giving the remains a label, but not a true name.

The skull was delivered to authorities in a plastic spring water bucket. It showed "marked mummification with adherence of tissue to both the internal and external portions of the skull and about the base and face," Canfield's report stated.

Some of the teeth were missing because they'd been pulled by a dentist, while others fell out after death. Canfield, a forensic pathologist at the time he examined Windy Doe, noted a gold molar and full-cast gold crown, as well as "multiple dental artifacts."

He took X-rays of the woman's remaining teeth, which are kept on file, along with an X-Ray of the skull, which was then sent out for forensic reconstruction.

Windy Doe was a Caucasian female, with, as best can be determined, light hair and light eyes. Other bones found later pointed to her sex, as well as her height — at least 5 feet, 4 inches and up to 5 feet, 7 inches.

A forensic anthropologist in Denver found signs Windy Doe suffered from temporomandibular joint syndrome, and that her spine showed signs of scolosis. He determined she was likely between 35 and 40 when she died. One report said that she died up to six months before being discovered; another stated up to 12 months.

No antemortem trauma could be identified based on the existing remains.

The medical examiner whose officer conducted the forensic facial reconstruction from her skull found no useful trace evidence.

The cause and manner of death are forensically undetermined, but some law enforcement officers suspect foul play.

Montrose Police Chief Tom Chinn said that in 1994, the police department was working a missing person case, as was the Delta Police Department.

"We decided to go up after the Montrose County Sheriff's Office finished their investigation. We looked the area over and we found a lot of bones," he said.

They summoned Necro Search, a specialized forensic unit that seeks out human remains. A intensive search ensued.

"We found the location of where the body was actually placed. We also found they had placed tree limbs over top of the body. But that body had been up there for a long period of time. The only remains of the body were bones, and not all of the bones were found."

Chinn said that from an investigatory standpoint, it appeared foul play was involved because the body was concealed. "Someone was attempting to hide the body and they did," he said.

Canfield said he can't be certain of even that much. "Were they (branches) really covering the body, or were they just windblown over the body?"

The MCSO referred questions to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Canfield said he recently submitted bone, dry tissue and hair fragments to CBI, for DNA profiles.

Canfield's report also said searchers recovered an intact humerus and intact scapula, with mummified tissues. There were also portions of spinal cord and the right pelvis, and multiple bone fragments.

The remains sustained carnivore damage; animals more than likely dragged away other portions of the body, diminishing investigators' chances at identifying her, or determining what happened to her.

Chinn said there simply wasn't enough evidence at the scene to determine how or why Windy Doe came to her uneasy rest in a remote campground. No one is sure where the woman died.

"Probably, she didn't die there," he said. "Anything's possible. That body was probably up there several years prior to it being found, but she probably did not die there."

Canfield is placing Windy Doe's information in national databases.

Though more than 14 years have passed, it's not impossible she will be identified. Just two weeks ago, Mesa County was able to ID a homicide victim from 1986, due to advances in technology, including a nationwide fingerprint registry.

The man, 55-year-old Billy Ray Adkins, died due to trauma from a fight, the Mesa County Sheriff's Office said in a Dec. 16 news release. His fingerprints were on file from another state, where he had been arrested.

The homicide remains unsolved.

For Windy Point Jane Doe, identification hinges on someone coming forward. DNA analysis won't help unless there is a match in the CBI's database, spokesman Lance Clem said.

"This could very easily be one of those cases when public assistance is going to provide the key," Clem said.

"It's still bizarre," Chinn said. "There's no clue as to who it might be. I think there's a family member out there who I'm sure would like to know where their daughter, mother, or sister may be.

"I think it's important."

Anyone with information about the Windy Point Jane Doe can contact Canfield at (970) 249-7755 or the MCSO at (970) 252-4023.
Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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monkalup
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
[ *  *  * ]
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/jun/14/local/me-59742
Hikers’ Chilling Discovery Touches Off Windy Point Murder Mystery
By Scott Schwebke
June 14, 1998 in print edition B-1

Barbara Pletcher had been looking forward to the camping trip.

Two weeks on the rugged Uncompahgre Plateau would do her a world of good, she thought.

There would be plenty of time to renew acquaintances with relatives she hadn’t seen for a while. And there would be ample opportunity to explore the plateau’s picturesque aspen-shrouded meadows and winding trails.

But the trip didn’t turn out the way Pletcher planned. Along the way she stumbled upon a murder mystery.

It was hot, dry and windy on the Uncompahgre Plateau on July 7, 1994.

Pletcher, along with her brother, Kenneth Smith, nephew, Jerry Smith, and their wives, was camping off an isolated road.

They had spent the morning combing several paths near the campsite for rare rocks and unusually shaped wood.

By late afternoon they were ready for a new adventure. They decided to drive about six miles to Windy Point, which is one of the highest spots on the plateau.

Pletcher had been to Windy Point several days before. She knew the sinking afternoon sun and the view from the steep 200-foot cliffs would make for spectacular photographs.

“It’s a beautiful overlook,” she said. “On a clear day, you can probably see into New Mexico.”

The group marveled at the view for more than an hour, then started the 50-yard hike back to their truck.

Pletcher suggested that they take a different path than the one they used to get there.

Her whim proved fateful.

Pletcher, who was in the lead, had only walked a short distance when she made a gruesome discovery.

Half of a jawbone, containing several teeth with gold fillings, was lying on the ground underneath several thick aspen branches.

“I picked up the bottom part of the jawbone,” she recalled. “I knew it was human because of the teeth.”

Pletcher and the group made another startling discovery nearby: A human skull was lying in the dirt.

“It was scary,” Pletcher recalled. “I have found a lot of things on the ground, but never a skull.”

Pletcher often wonders about the victim’s identity, which to this day hasn’t been determined.

“Someone must be missing that person,” she said.

The group placed the jawbone and skull in a plastic bag and carried them back to the campsite so the bones wouldn’t be further disturbed by wild animals.

Pletcher attached a note to a post near the campsite that fronted the road in hopes of alerting a forest ranger.

“Rangers. Need help!” it said, and included an arrow pointing to the campsite.

The next day, a ranger and a Montrose County Sheriff’s Office detective accompanied Pletcher’s group back to Windy Point.

More bones were found at the site, including part of a spinal column, a scapula and a humerus.

A team of scientists and investigators–volunteers for Necrosearch International–also combed the spot, finding other bone fragments and strands of reddish-brown hair that had been scattered over a 40-yard area, probably by wild animals.

And there was more: part of a woman’s black vinyl belt.

It was the only clothing found, indicating that the victim may have been dumped at the site–and dumped nude. No identification papers were discovered.

The sheriff’s office had a homicide on its hands.

Lt. Greg Hiler, 37, who joined the force as chief investigator in 1995, has been involved in five murder cases during his 15-year law-enforcement career.

None has been more frustrating than the Windy Point case.

“It gives me a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach,” Hiler said. “Sometimes I wonder what I could do that hasn’t been done.”

Roy Taylor, an agent with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation in Montrose, calls the Windy Point case unusual.

Typically, when human remains are found, someone comes forward or information becomes available to identify the victim, he said. When that doesn’t happen, law officers have no choice but to wait.

“It comes to the point where you have to put it on the shelf and hope,” Taylor said.

The key to solving the Windy Point case may lie with a forensic examination of the remains performed by Dr. Thomas Canfield, Montrose County medical examiner.

The examination provided a few clues to the victim’s identity but yielded nothing about the cause of death.

The victim is believed to be a white woman between the ages of 35 and 45, who had reddish-brown hair and stood 5 feet 4 to 5 feet 7 inches tall.

Hiler calls the woman “Jane Doe of Windy Point.”

He believes that she was murdered at another location, brought to Windy Point, possibly in the fall of 1993, and hidden with tree limbs.

The recovery of the belt and the absence of other clothing indicates that the woman may have been nude when she was dumped, he said.

Gold teeth recovered from the jawbone may help yield the woman’s identity if they can be matched with dental records, he said.

DNA testing, which is often used in murder investigations, can’t be used to help identify the woman because her remains are too decomposed, Canfield said.

In 1995, Canfield shipped the skull to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, which did a a forensic facial reconstruction. A sketch of it has been widely circulated but has not produced any substantial leads.

Canfield said his inability to identify the woman is frustrating. “It’s a hard case, and I haven’t solved it. It goes against my style.”

He keeps the woman’s skull and bones in an evidence locker just in case information about her identity turns up.

Hiler tried but failed to match the woman’s physical description with other missing women from the Western Slope of the Rockies.

He also sifted through records to determine who was hunting near Windy Point in the fall of 1993. He interviewed many of the hunters, but none of them reported seeing anything suspicious.

He has also entered the woman’s description into several national law enforcement data bases, including one maintained by the FBI.

The last lead Hiler received on the woman’s possible identity came two years ago, and it didn’t pan out.

Since then, the investigation has gone stone cold.

Hiler can’t help but wonder if the murderer may have been someone who lived in the area and has killed before.

He considers convicted killers David Middleton and Eugene Smith possible suspects.

Middleton, a former Miami cop, is on Nevada’s death row for the slaying of two Reno-area women. He is also suspected of murdering 18-year-old Buffy Rice Donohue of Montrose, police say.

She was reported missing Nov. 21, 1993, which is thought to be around the same time that the body of the Windy Point victim was dumped. Donohue’s body was found bound and gagged in 1995 in San Miguel County, about 60 miles southwest of Montrose.

The fact that the bodies of Donohue and the Windy Point victim were left in remote areas leads Hiler to believe that Middleton may be responsible for both.

“One was dumped in a wooded area and one [Donohue] was dumped off a wooded road,” he said.

Then there’s Eugene Smith, who was convicted last September of second-degree murder and sentenced to 48 years in prison for the 1993 killing of 14-year-old Cindy Booth of Delta, Colo.

Police contend that Smith killed Booth at his home and disposed of her body at an unknown location. Her remains haven’t been found.

“Eugene Smith can’t be eliminated in the Windy Point case,” Hiler said.

Hiler hopes to jump-start the investigation with the help of several law enforcement agencies.

In July he will make a presentation at the annual meeting of the Colorado Homicide Investigation Assn. He hopes members can offer some insight that will help him catch the Windy Point killer.

“Up to this point,” he said, “someone has literally gotten away with murder.”

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Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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monkalup
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
[ *  *  * ]
http://z13.invisionfree.com/PorchlightUSA/...pic=15439&st=0&
Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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monkalup
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
[ *  *  * ]
Unidentified White Female


•The victim was discovered on July 7, 1994 in Montrose County, Colorado
•Estimated Date of Death: 6-12 months prior
•Windy Point Jane Doe


•Estimated age: 35-40 years old
•Approximate Height and Weight: 5'4-5'7"
•Distinguishing Characteristics: Strands of reddish brown hair were located. She suffered from temporomandibular joint syndrome, and her spine showed signs of scoliosis.
•Clothing: Part of a woman's black vinyl belt was discovered near the bones. It was the only clothing item found.
•Dentals: Available. Some of the teeth were missing because they'd been pulled by a dentist, while others fell out after death. She had a gold molar and full-cast gold crown, as well as multiple dental artifacts.
•DNA: Pending

The victim was located by hikers near the Smokehouse Campground on U.S. Forest Service Road 402 (Divide Road) on July 7, 1994. The area is commonly called "Windy Point".
The skull was delivered to authorities in a plastic spring water bucket. It showed marked mummification with adherence of tissue to both the internal and external portions of the skull and about the base and face. Searchers recovered an intact humerus and intact scapula, with mummified tissues. There were also portions of spinal cord and the right pelvis, and multiple bone fragments.
No antemortem trauma could be identified based on the existing remains. The remains sustained carnivore damage.
No identification was found near the remains.
The medical examiner whose officer conducted the forensic facial reconstruction from her skull found no useful trace evidence. The cause and manner of death are forensically undetermined, but some law enforcement officers suspect foul play. Investigators believe the woman was slain at another location, brought to Windy Point possibly in the fall of 1993 and then covered with tree limbs to conceal her whereabouts.

Montrose County Sheriff's Office
970-252-4023
Or
Montrose County Coroner
Dr. Thomas Canfield
970-249-7755

http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/642ufco.html
Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
monkalup
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
[ *  *  * ]
sketch
Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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Ell
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Heart of Gold
[ *  *  * ]
MONTROSE, Colorado — The FBI has created a new facial reconstruction on the skull of an unidentified woman whose remains were found in western Colorado 19 years ago.

The Montrose Daily Press reported Friday (http://tinyurl.com/mswqlhu ) Montrose County sheriff's investigators asked for the reconstruction using updated technology.

An initial reconstruction was done earlier in the investigation.

PHOTO: This photo released by the Montrose County Sheriff's Office on July 11, 2013 shows the FBI's new facial reconstruction of Windy Point Jane Doe could help generate new leads in her death. Some of the unidentified woman's bones were found in 1994 in western Montrose County. She was between 35 and 45 when she died. She had reddish-brown hair, and stood between 5-foot-4 and 5-foot-7. (AP Photo/Monstrose Sheriff)
This photo released by the Montrose County Sheriff's Office on July 11, 2013 shows the FBI's new facial reconstruction of Windy Point Jane Doe could help generate new leads in her death. Some of the unidentified woman's bones were found in 1994 in western Montrose County. She was between 35 and 45 when she died. She had reddish-brown hair, and stood between 5-foot-4 and 5-foot-7. (AP Photo/Monstrose Sheriff)

Hikers found the remains in July 1994 on U.S. Forest Service land. Investigators say the remains could have been in that spot for up to 18 months.

Montrose County Coroner Thomas Canfield says the woman was Caucasian and between 35 and 45 when she died.
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/f7cd...-Reconstruction
Ell

Only after the last tree has been
cut down;
Only after the last fish has been
caught;
Only after the last river has been
poisoned;
Only then will you realize
that money cannot be eaten.
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