Technology Turns Up the Heat on Cold Cases

It all started for me 30 years ago....before I was even born. Georgetown, Kentucky May 17, 1968. My future father-in-law, Wilbur Riddle, was looking for glass insulators along the side of the road. He spotted a large object wrapped in a canvas tent tube. It was the body of a young woman. The woman had suffered a blow to the head; her nude body was crammed into the canvas tent tube and left like garbage on the side of the road. An autopsy was performed, but failed to identify the woman. She was simply identified as "Tent Girl."

"The Master Detective," a popular crime magazine of the time, ran a story in 1969 which provided the details of my father-in-law's grisly discovery. When I met Riddle (and, more importantly, my bride-to-be) in October 1987, he had been carrying around his dog-eared copy of "The Master Detective" for nearly twenty years. The Tent Girl was still unidentified. The technology of 1968 was a dim glimmer compared to today's cutting edge resources. Today there are DNA tests and advanced Forensic Sciences and even the Internet.

When my father-in-law told me about the Tent Girl story, the Internet was not quite the presence it is today. I began collecting as much information about the Tent Girl as possible, still not sure what I would do with all of it. In 1997, after seeing an interview with Vice President Al Gore wherein the Internet was discussed at length, I decided to use the Internet as a tool for solving the Tent Girl mystery. Though I did not have a DNA lab at my disposal, I did have a PC and Internet access.

I began combing the Internet, clicking through missing persons databases and sending e-mails to potential "Tent Girl" connections. I found a web-site called Anomalies. It profiled the strange and unusual. I was new online and had no idea on how to create a web-site. So I contacted the web-master, Garth Haslam, and after telling him the story he too was curious. Garth went to work on one of the first Tent Girl web-page http://anomalyinfo.com/articles/sa00020.shtml

Now I just had to get people to look at the site. The first thing I did was to go to the WhoWhere e-mail directory. I wanted to get the message to the people in Georgetown. I then decided to start a spiral pattern and contact the surrounding area. So every evening I would pick a new community and send the e-mails. One of the e-mails I sent went to the Lexington TV station. This caught the eye of reporter John Brett. John saw the potential in this story�s newsworthiness. He contacted the Georgetown Newspaper and told them about the web-site.

They ran the story with the question...."Can technology solve 30 year old mystery??" But, the local attention was not yet enough. I decided to extend the e-mailing pattern beyond Kentucky. It just made sense to me that anyone in Kentucky would already have recognized the Tent Girl if she were family. So...each day I added a new community to my e-mails. I continued to search missing persons sites. They are very easy to find. Just by typing in "Missing Persons" in my search engine I found a vast and growing resource. I began searching the pages, reading thousands of missing persons reports.

One day I was doing my daily ritual of sending e-mails and searching the missing persons listings. I went to the Crane & Hibbs missing persons page, where I came across a listing posted by a woman, Rosemary Westbrook, looking for her sister, Barbara Taylor. Oddly, the names sounded familiar. I e-mailed Rosemary and we exchanged information about her missing sister and the Tent Girl. My heart pounded and the weight lifted from me. I had a strong feeling that Barbara Taylor was the Tent Girl. I called my sister-in-law in Georgetown, Kentucky. She called the sheriff and told him what I had discovered on the Internet. I waited several days for the sheriff to return my call. Meanwhile, I continued exchanging e-mails with Rosemary and her family. Rosemary also had a strong
feeling that the Tent Girl was her sister. But there was only one way to find out: Science.

Photographs of Rosemary's sister were sent to the Kentucky Medical Examiner's Office. Dr. Emily Craig, a Forensic Anthropologist, used a photograph of Rosemary's sister and compared it to a post-mortem photograph of Tent Girl. There were obvious similarities, so many in fact, that Dr. Craig ordered the Tent Girl's body exhumed. After examining the bones Dr. Craig determined an approximate age that differed from original reports. Whereas investigators in 1968
reported that the Tent Girl was in her teens, Dr. Craig confirmed, through scientific tools unavailable in 1968, that the Tent Girl was in fact in her mid-twenties, the same age as Rosemary's sister when she disappeared. There was only one way to determine if the Tent Girl was in fact Rosemary's sister: DNA. The Tent Girl's remains had always been available for the DNA, but until now there was no one to compare the DNA against. Dr. Craig compared it to "trying to shake
hands with only one hand." It was decided to compare the Tent Girl's DNA with Rosemary's DNA.

By this point the local story had spread across the country. We were contacted by the television programs 48 Hours and 20/20. Since the producers at 48 Hours
contacted me first, they were allowed to follow Dr. Craig and I as we set out to solve the Tent Girl mystery. The cameras were rolling when a hospital in Arkansas drew blood and took a tissue sample from Rosemary. The samples from both Rosemary and the Tent Girl were soon on their way to Dr. Marsha Eisenburg at LabCorp, a DNA testing facility in North Carolina. The decision was made to use Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) Sequencing � as it is a powerful tool used to identify human remains. The Mitochondrial genome is 16,569 base pairs in length, circular, and of known sequence. An analysis of the mtDNA is possible by examination of the exact sequence. There are three characteristics of mtDNA that are forensically significant:

1. mtDNA is present in high copy number. When DNA is highly degraded or when the amount of DNA is very limiting, as is often the case in missing person cases, analysis of mtDNA may be possible when nuclear DNA testing is not. Such were the circumstances with the Tent Girl.

2. Because mtDNA is maternally inherited, every individual in the same maternal lineage should have the identical mtDNA sequence. Therefore, when close family relatives are not available, there are additional resources that could be used for reference samples. Fortunately the Tent Girl had several living sisters.

3. mtDNA appears to be evolving 5-10 times faster than Nuclear DNA. While LabCorp spent several weeks testing the samples provided by the Tent Girl and her sister, public interest in the case grew almost exponentially. It was now a full time job dealing with reporters. When the test results were finally available the Taylor family and myself were summoned to the Scott County, Kentucky courthouse. We were all very certain at this point that we had a match. Dr. Craig would not have called us from our separate corners of the country unless the results were positive. When we arrived at the courthouse there were reporters everywhere, including the now-familiar faces of the 48 Hours crew. I met up with Dr. Craig inside where she took me aside before the conference and fill me in on the details. I remained in the hall with her until the conference began. Although I knew the results my heart still leapt when Dr. Craig made the announcement: "The Tent Girl is indeed Barbara Taylor." I sat next to Rosemary during the announcement. It was such an emotional moment for us all. Relief,
sadness, success.

Though technology had indeed turned up the heat on the Tent Girl case one mystery remained: Who killed Barbara Taylor? Rosemary's family believed that the killer was Taylor's husband, Earl Taylor who was an abusive man. Unfortunately, Taylor passed away in 1987. The events of 1968 are buried forever and the mystery remains.

SIDEBARS
Technology is indeed turning up the heat on cold
cases. Here are a few tools used to solve cases similar to the
Tent Girl mystery:

1. THE LOST & THE FOUND WEBSITE: www.LFGRC.org With the help of Lynn John-son, I created this web-site in 1998 in dedication to Barbara Taylor. A database of unknown deceased throughout the country. Mainly intended for some of the older cases that, like Taylor, did not have the benefit of today's technology. Hopefully people viewing the site will be able to supply the needed information to identify some of the unknowns listed. I work together with
Rosemary Westbrook and Bonnie Carpenter, the sister and step-daughter of Barbara Taylor. It is our hope that our experiences will assist others in their own searches.

Rosemary's page (links to missing persons resources):
www.geocities.com/Heartland/Ridge/1096/index.html; http://

2. The now extinct - CENTER FOR MISSING AND EX-
PLOITED WOMEN:. At the time a young orga-
nization. I recently joined this group on their board of
directors. I met with the director of this Indiana based
organization, Brenda Vantlin, after seeing their web-site. I
contacted them and to my great surprise they had been trying
to get in touch with me as well. We were able to share a lot of
information and decided to join forces. CMEW lists cases
involving crimes against women. Their goal is to aid law
enforcement by listing their cases where input from the
general public would be helpful.

3. FACIAL RECONSTRUCTION & PC EN-
HANCEMENT: The Lost & The Found: Pulaski County
Kentucky Jane Doe Reconstruction and description by D. Emily Craig,
Kentucky State medical Examiner.

Not many of the unknowns in Kentucky have the
benefit of photographs or facial reconstruction. One of the
very first cases that Dr. Craig worked on in Kentucky was in
1995. On July 2, 1995, human skeletal remains were found in
a wooded area about 5 miles off Route 80 near Nancy,
Kentucky. Dr. Craig skillfully recreated the face of a woman
directly on the skull of her skeletal remains. Facial contours
and feature placement correspond to accepted cranio-facial
data. It is not possible to create an exact portrait in a
reconstruction, only an estimation. Actual hair style and eye
color are not known in such cases. Caption material for photo
Race: White; Sex: Female; Estimated Age: 30-40 within a
range of 25-45; Stature: Approximately 5'1" to 5'2"; Hair:
Short, brown; Dentition: Evidence of previous dental care;
Bone features: Evidence of synovial joint pathology; Time since
death: 10 month to 3 years (within a range of 6 months to 5
years); Clothing found with the remains include a red spandex
top, a short blue skirt, and white tennis shoes. A systemic joint
disease most likely affected the movement and strength in both
wrists.

4. JENNIFER'S LAW: Jennifer's law was first pro-
posed by Susan Wilmer. Susan's daughter, Jennifer Wilmer,
has been missing since September 13, 1993. I have spoken to
Susan on several occasions. The implementation of this law
could literally identify hundreds of unknown deceased with the
information that is already on record. Just by cross referencing
the missing persons and unknown deceased files.
Currently law enforcement officials are not required to
report missing persons and unknown deceased to the NCIC
(National Crime Information Computer).
The system is designed to cross-reference and match
cases that are possibly related. Jennifer's Law proposes that all
law enforcement agencies be required to file the required
descriptive information into the NCIC anytime an unidentified
person is recovered. It is vital that people report missing
relatives to their local law enforcement officials. The NCIC is
not effective unless it contains the necessary information. You
can help promote this law by writing to your congressman.