In 1971, a man found the scattered remains of a young woman in the woods near Cave Junction in Southern Oregon. She was wearing a pink coat. Today, that woman is one of more than 100 unidentified bodies in the state.
One woman in Josephine County is determined to send that body home.
Kari Lee is an evidence specialist for the Josephine County Sheriff. Lee’s job is to collect guns, drugs, and other crime scene evidence.
But her passion is trying to solve a cold case. She opens up the heavy door to one of the county’s evidence rooms.
Ambi “So this was where she was when I first found her. This is the homicide room”
Shortly after she was hired, Lee decided to organize the homicide evidence.
“And I came across this box marked 71, and I discovered I had these full skeletal remains in this box.
Immediately, the situation felt wrong.
“I do remember being somewhat appalled that there was a human being in an evidence warehouse. That didn’t seem right.”
The skeleton belonged to a woman in her late teens or early twenties. The sheriff never determined who she was or if she was murdered.
Lee calls the woman Annie Doe. Above her desk, she hung newspaper clippings and photos related to the case. Over the years, Lee has chased many leads to find out who Annie Doe was.
“I’ve called the Oregon Caves and said, hey do you have a guest book from the seventies. There’s always something in the back of my head going, is there something else I can do.
Eventually, she got help from a key person.
“My name is Dr. Nici Vance”
Dr. Vance is a Forensic Anthropologist with the Oregon State Medical Examiner.
The Medical Examiner is supposed to keep track of unidentified bodies. But for years, the agency didn’t have the room to store them.
“The freezer could hold five bodies, and that’s it.”
So unclaimed bodies sat boxed up in sheriff’s evidence rooms across the state.
In 2003 the Medical Examiner moved into a larger office. And Vance started collecting the unidentified bodies.
She created a profile for each one in a database called the National Missing and Unidentified Persons Data System, or NamUs.
She entered Annie Doe into the NamUs database in 2013.
“We have a full DNA profile on her from her skeletal remains.’
Annie’s entry includes photos and details that could help a detective or family member identify her.
"She’s got a pink and beige houndstooth coat with her, that’s a very distinctive garment. She’s got these shiny brown shoes with a big brass buckle.”
Anyone can go online and search the NamUs website. Vance is optimistic someone will recognize those shoes.
“She’s so terribly identifiable,” Vance says. “Now we need someone who is missing a loved one to come forward and say, I think that might be my sister.”
NamUs also contains profiles of missing people, and Vance has searched for women who match Annie Doe’s description.
But she says there’s a problem. Detectives aren’t required to enter missing persons cases into the database. So lots of missing person cases are missing from the system.
“Our detectives throughout the nation have to know that this website exists, and that when they begin to populate it with their missing persons, we will start getting hits.”
Kari Lee, the Josephine County evidence specialist, is worried that time is marching on.
Annie Doe would be in her fifties or sixties today.
“The longer it goes on, the less likely we’re going to find someone who knew her or knew of her. I know I really want to meet her family, and hopefully that will happen.”
For her part, Dr. Vance says she is at peace with the possibility that Annie Doe might never be identified. For now, her body is in a safe place and Vance and Lee will never give up the search.
