Latest / The Path Went Chilly / St. Louis Jane Doe/Hope Pt. One

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St. Louis Jane Doe/Hope Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:29
Speaker 1: So welcome back to the Path Went Chili. I'm Robin. Unfortunately,
0:33
Speaker 1: Ashley is quite busy tonight, so she is unable to
0:35
Speaker 1: join us for this series of episodes. It'll just be
0:38
Speaker 1: Jewels and I. So what I'll be doing is I'll
0:40
Speaker 1: be sharing the details from original script about the case,
0:43
Speaker 1: and then Jewels will give off her reactions. So I
0:46
Speaker 1: guess take it away with the intro Jules.
0:49
Speaker 2: February twenty eighth, nineteen eighty three, Saint Louis, Missouri, the
0:55
Speaker 2: body of an African American girl is found in the
0:57
Speaker 2: basement of an abandoned apartment building. She's believed to be
1:01
Speaker 2: between eight and eleven years old and has her hands
1:04
Speaker 2: tied behind her back, and it turns out she was
1:07
Speaker 2: sexually assaulted and strangled to death before she was beheaded.
1:11
Speaker 2: Since the victim's head is never recovered and she cannot
1:14
Speaker 2: be identified, she becomes known as the Saint Louis Jane Doe.
1:19
Speaker 2: Over the years, investigators explore a number of different leads,
1:22
Speaker 2: but they are unable to figure out the girl's identity
1:25
Speaker 2: or who was responsible for killing her.
1:28
Speaker 1: After that, the Path went chilly, So today we're going
1:32
Speaker 1: to be covering the unsolved nineteen eighty three murder of
1:35
Speaker 1: a young girl who has never been identified, the Saint
1:38
Speaker 1: Louis Jane Doe. There are so many tragic cases out
1:41
Speaker 1: there involving John or Jane does, but this might be
1:44
Speaker 1: the most horrifying because of the circumstances of how the
1:47
Speaker 1: victim was murdered. The Saint Louis Jane Doe is an
1:50
Speaker 1: African American girl estimated to be between eight and eleven
1:53
Speaker 1: years old, who was discovered inside the dark basement of
1:56
Speaker 1: a vacant apartment building. Not only was the victim's sexual
2:00
Speaker 1: assaulted and strangled to death, but the killer went to
2:02
Speaker 1: the trouble of decapitating her and disposing of her head.
2:06
Speaker 1: As a result, there have been no facial reconstructions or
2:09
Speaker 1: composite sketches created for this girl in order to showcase
2:12
Speaker 1: what she may have looked like. Even though the story
2:15
Speaker 1: has gotten extensive publicity over the years, no one has
2:18
Speaker 1: ever come forward to claim or identify the Saint Louis
2:21
Speaker 1: Jane Doe, which has led to speculation that a killer
2:24
Speaker 1: may have been a parent or a caregiver. I covered
2:27
Speaker 1: this case on the Trail Went Cold just over two
2:29
Speaker 1: years ago shortly after the release of a documentary titled
2:33
Speaker 1: Our Precious Hope Revisited Saint Louis's Little Jane Doe, directed
2:37
Speaker 1: by Edrar byrd Sosa. The film is currently available for
2:41
Speaker 1: streaming on a number of platforms, and not only does
2:43
Speaker 1: it reveal new details about the case which many people
2:46
Speaker 1: did not know before, but it has also offered some
2:49
Speaker 1: clarification on misinformation which has spread over the years. The
2:53
Speaker 1: documentary did confirm that an active effort is underway to
2:57
Speaker 1: identify this victim by DNA profiling and Janet genealogy, but
3:01
Speaker 1: it looks like it's going to be a challenging task,
3:04
Speaker 1: and following the release of My Trail and Cold episode,
3:06
Speaker 1: I actually received a complimentary email from ed Rar Bird Sosa,
3:10
Speaker 1: who is a very nice guy and genuinely passionate about
3:14
Speaker 1: giving this girl her name back. I should also mention
3:17
Speaker 1: that the Saint Louis Jane Doe has been referred to
3:19
Speaker 1: by a number of different names over the years, including
3:21
Speaker 1: Little Jane Doe, Hope, and Precious Hope, and for the
3:25
Speaker 1: purpose of humanizing the victim, we're going to be referring
3:28
Speaker 1: to her as Hope throughout this episode, So Jules were
3:31
Speaker 1: you familiar with this case before we sat down to
3:34
Speaker 1: record this episode.
3:35
Speaker 2: No, I wasn't familiar with the case, And what really
3:39
Speaker 2: got me is her age. There's something so heartbreaking about
3:44
Speaker 2: this tiny little girl who's went between the ages of
3:46
Speaker 2: like eight and eleven, and there's nobody there to claim her.
3:50
Speaker 2: Surely somebody has to be missing her, So I can
3:53
Speaker 2: understand why the authorities were leaning towards this has to
3:56
Speaker 2: be a caregiver, because how does a child go missing
4:00
Speaker 2: and not get reported to authorities? And the manner in
4:03
Speaker 2: which this person chose to kill her is horrendous. And
4:08
Speaker 2: maybe it was because they wanted to avoid identification by
4:11
Speaker 2: beheading her, but it is so horrific, and I can
4:14
Speaker 2: understand Sosa's need or birds need to give her back
4:20
Speaker 2: her identity and give her that dignity and potentially some
4:24
Speaker 2: justice in the process.
4:26
Speaker 1: Yeah. Out of all the cases involving John or Jane,
4:28
Speaker 1: does that have been heavily discussed over the years on
4:31
Speaker 1: the internet, I'd say this is definitely one of the
4:33
Speaker 1: top ones. And we've seen so many of them get
4:36
Speaker 1: identified to get their names back these past several years.
4:39
Speaker 1: But somehow the Saint Louis Jane Doe is still unidentified,
4:43
Speaker 1: even though there is an effort to try to use
4:45
Speaker 1: genetic genealogy to figure out who she came from. And
4:47
Speaker 1: of course what's heartbreaking is because they never found her head.
4:51
Speaker 1: They've never even been able to create a composite sketch
4:54
Speaker 1: or a face to show what she might have looked like.
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Speaker 1: So she's pretty much just this nameless girl, and that's
4:59
Speaker 1: just a horrible way to remember her. So our story
5:03
Speaker 1: begins in Saint Louis, Missouri, in nineteen eighty three, at
5:06
Speaker 1: around noon on February the twenty eighth, two men in
5:09
Speaker 1: their late teens from the neighborhood broke into a boarded up,
5:12
Speaker 1: three story Victorian apartment building located at fifty six thirty
5:16
Speaker 1: five Clemens Avenue, which had been vacant for just under
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Speaker 1: five years. When they went into a dark furnace room
5:22
Speaker 1: in the basement and lit up a cigarette, the illumination
5:24
Speaker 1: from their lighter caused them to notice the body of
5:27
Speaker 1: a young African American girl on the floor. Now, the
5:30
Speaker 1: official story, which has been spread over the years, is
5:32
Speaker 1: that these two teens broke into the building in order
5:34
Speaker 1: to search for a metal pipe to fix their broken
5:37
Speaker 1: down car, but according to the afore mentioned Our Precious
5:41
Speaker 1: Hope Revisited documentary, this account is probably inaccurate, as neither
5:45
Speaker 1: of them owned a car, and they may have actually
5:47
Speaker 1: been looking for copper and scrap metal. One part of
5:51
Speaker 1: the story which doesn't often get shared, is that these
5:53
Speaker 1: two teens lived nearby in the same neighborhood, and a
5:56
Speaker 1: barbecue is being held at one of the residences that
5:58
Speaker 1: day with friends and family. The teens did not immediately
6:02
Speaker 1: report their discovery to police, and actually went back to
6:05
Speaker 1: the barbecue and told some other kids there about what
6:07
Speaker 1: they had found. This prompted the kids to head to
6:10
Speaker 1: the building to take a closer look at the girl's body,
6:13
Speaker 1: and that's when they discovered that she was missing her head.
6:16
Speaker 1: Even though some of these kids didn't want to get involved,
6:19
Speaker 1: at least one of them felt compelled to contact the
6:21
Speaker 1: Saint Louis Metropolitan Police Department aka the SLMPD. When the
6:26
Speaker 1: authorities arrived at the scene, they discovered that the victim
6:29
Speaker 1: was lying on her stomach with her hands bound behind
6:31
Speaker 1: her back with a red and white nylon rope. She
6:35
Speaker 1: was nude from the waist down and the only item
6:37
Speaker 1: of clothing that she was wearing was a yellow, long
6:40
Speaker 1: sleeved V neck sweater which appeared to be newly purchased.
6:44
Speaker 1: The sweater had blood on it, and the tag had
6:46
Speaker 1: also been removed. Since the area was rampant with drugs
6:49
Speaker 1: and prostitution at that time, the police were initially under
6:52
Speaker 1: the impression that the victim might be an adult sex worker,
6:56
Speaker 1: but when they turned the body over and noticed that
6:58
Speaker 1: she did not have breasts, they realized that she was
7:01
Speaker 1: a pre pubescent girl. It was believed that she was
7:04
Speaker 1: between eight to eleven years old, and even though her
7:06
Speaker 1: head was missing, the initial estimates of her height were
7:09
Speaker 1: between four foot ten and five foot four.
7:12
Speaker 2: She was just a baby like that is so young.
7:16
Speaker 2: To think of what this little girl had to endure
7:18
Speaker 2: at the hands of somebody who is clearly some type
7:22
Speaker 2: of predator or if it's a family member. To do
7:25
Speaker 2: this to a young child, you're a monster. It's absolutely
7:30
Speaker 2: egregious and disgusting. I can't imagine to steal someone's innocence
7:35
Speaker 2: like that and to just dump them like their trash
7:38
Speaker 2: in this abandoned building, which I would assume would be
7:41
Speaker 2: in an economically depressed area. Given the fact that these
7:45
Speaker 2: teenagers were trying to break in looking for like copper
7:48
Speaker 2: wire or whatever it was.
7:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was not the best neighborhood, and it's actually
7:54
Speaker 1: kind of blind luck that they were able to find
7:55
Speaker 1: her body when they did, because this door was like locked,
7:59
Speaker 1: this building was locked from the front, and it was
8:01
Speaker 1: very dark inside, so it was ordinarily not the type
8:03
Speaker 1: of place where people broke into. So for all we know,
8:06
Speaker 1: it could have been a long time, perhaps even years
8:09
Speaker 1: before someone found her body potentially, and by then it
8:12
Speaker 1: could have been heavily deposed. It would have been even
8:15
Speaker 1: more difficult to identify her. But I think it was
8:17
Speaker 1: just luck that these two teens happened to go in there.
8:20
Speaker 1: But I guess it gives you an impression about what
8:21
Speaker 1: a bad neighborhood it was that they find a beheaded
8:25
Speaker 1: body in there, and their initial impression was, we're not
8:27
Speaker 1: going to tell the police. We're just going to tell
8:29
Speaker 1: our friends about it because we don't want to get
8:31
Speaker 1: them involved.
8:32
Speaker 2: And this is Baltimore that I'm thinking of. But it
8:35
Speaker 2: reminds me of The Wire. Do you remember that season
8:38
Speaker 2: where there was all those bodies in those row houses
8:41
Speaker 2: and the one cop was like, oh, no, we're not
8:44
Speaker 2: going to We don't want the stats on this, We
8:46
Speaker 2: don't want all these murders. Close them back up.
8:49
Speaker 3: Do you remember that?
8:50
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there was an entire season about that. It
8:52
Speaker 1: was such a dilapidated neighborhood that the drug dealers realized,
8:55
Speaker 1: if we kill our victims and put them inside this house,
8:58
Speaker 1: then they will remain there forever because no one wants
9:00
Speaker 1: to take the responsibility and nobody's going to go looking
9:04
Speaker 1: for them. And I think there was even a scene
9:05
Speaker 1: later on where these neighborhood kids like went in there
9:09
Speaker 1: on a dare and said, there's a rumor there's a
9:10
Speaker 1: body in there, let's go look at it. Because it
9:12
Speaker 1: was just a way of life for them, and it
9:14
Speaker 1: sounds like this was kind of a similar neighborhood. So
9:17
Speaker 1: the autopsy would reveal that the victim had likely been
9:20
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted and her exact cause of death was strangulation.
9:24
Speaker 1: Her head had been removed with a large blade, possibly
9:26
Speaker 1: a serrated knife, and green paint was found on the
9:29
Speaker 1: cop marks on her neck. It was suspected that the
9:32
Speaker 1: killer had decapitated the girl at another location before placing
9:35
Speaker 1: her body in the basement. As very little blood was
9:38
Speaker 1: found at the scene. In fact, there were little streaks
9:41
Speaker 1: of blood on the wall, which were likely left there
9:44
Speaker 1: when the perpetrator brushed the body against it while walking
9:47
Speaker 1: through the basement. Even though the police performed an extensive
9:50
Speaker 1: search for the girl's head, which included checking through the
9:53
Speaker 1: local sewer system, it was never recovered. When the Missouri
9:57
Speaker 1: Botanical Garden performed mold tests on the girl's out daman
10:00
Speaker 1: and neck and thigh, the estimated that she was killed
10:03
Speaker 1: approximately forty five days before she was discovered. In spite
10:07
Speaker 1: of the brutal nature of her murder, there were no
10:09
Speaker 1: distinct marks or deformities on her body to indicate that
10:13
Speaker 1: she had suffered long term abuse, and she also had
10:15
Speaker 1: two coats of crimson red nail polish on each of
10:18
Speaker 1: her fingers. A pubic hair belonging to a Caucasian male
10:22
Speaker 1: was found on the victim's right thigh, but it did
10:24
Speaker 1: not contain enough useful DNA to have evidentiary value. Investigators
10:29
Speaker 1: have theorized that the hair may not have actually belonged
10:31
Speaker 1: to the killer, but rather one of the police officers
10:34
Speaker 1: of the scene, and it wound up on the girl's
10:36
Speaker 1: body by a cross contamination. Even though we've pointed out
10:40
Speaker 1: some inconsistencies in the official story about the discovery of
10:43
Speaker 1: the body, the two teens who found the girl were
10:45
Speaker 1: extensively questioned and investigated by the authorities and were never
10:49
Speaker 1: considered to be suspects in her murder. At the time,
10:53
Speaker 1: the slnpd's homicide unit was led by Captain Leroy Adkins,
10:57
Speaker 1: who was the first African American head of that unit
11:00
Speaker 1: in the history of the city, so he took a
11:02
Speaker 1: special interest in identifying the girl and solving the case.
11:06
Speaker 2: Okay, let me ask you a question. How likely is
11:09
Speaker 2: it that the pubicare of one of the police officers
11:12
Speaker 2: on the scene is just going to randomly appear on
11:15
Speaker 2: the body through cross contamination.
11:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll talk more about that later on. But one
11:20
Speaker 1: theory is that it's not like the guy took his
11:22
Speaker 1: pants off at the scene or something like that and
11:24
Speaker 1: the hair came off. It's a possible. An alternate explanation
11:27
Speaker 1: is that he could have gone to the bathroom a
11:29
Speaker 1: short time before he arrived and a pubic care just
11:32
Speaker 1: happened to go on the outside of his pants and
11:34
Speaker 1: then fell off onto the body or something like that.
11:37
Speaker 1: That's an explanation I've seen pushed forward. I mean, I
11:39
Speaker 1: don't know how likely it is, but I guess that
11:42
Speaker 1: could be. And there's also another one about it possibly
11:46
Speaker 1: coming off a body bag from a previous descendant or
11:48
Speaker 1: something like that. So there are some alternate explanations for
11:52
Speaker 1: a pubic haare winding up there that didn't belong to
11:54
Speaker 1: the killer.
11:55
Speaker 2: I suppose that could be true if one doesn't wash
11:58
Speaker 2: one's hands after using it restroom. But still to think that, like,
12:03
Speaker 2: you're at this abandoned building, so unless you're peeing outside,
12:06
Speaker 2: you likely use some type of facility and then got
12:09
Speaker 2: in your car and drove there. What are the chances
12:12
Speaker 2: that that puba care is going to linger on your
12:14
Speaker 2: hand for all of that time and not get deposited
12:17
Speaker 2: somewhere along the way and then just somehow miraculously make
12:20
Speaker 2: it onto the victim's body. It just seems like the
12:24
Speaker 2: probability is so low.
12:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I don't know why they're so like
12:28
Speaker 1: willing to discount the possibility that it belongs to the killer.
12:32
Speaker 1: I mean, even if it does, it might not matter because,
12:34
Speaker 1: like I said, there isn't enough DNA on it, so
12:37
Speaker 1: it's never had much evideniry value, but it just seems
12:40
Speaker 1: weird that they're just willing to discount it and come
12:42
Speaker 1: up with this alternate explanation about it belonging to a
12:45
Speaker 1: police officer.
12:46
Speaker 2: They don't have any evidence to dismiss it or to
12:50
Speaker 2: include it, but I would think that until you had
12:53
Speaker 2: something that would be like, Okay, we know for a
12:55
Speaker 2: fact that this is the killer and this pubacare. Now
12:58
Speaker 2: that we've tested the DNA and twenty twenty five say
13:01
Speaker 2: that they did, we know that it doesn't match the killer,
13:04
Speaker 2: so it likely got there through cross contamination. I understand
13:07
Speaker 2: eliminating it at that point, but at this point we
13:10
Speaker 2: just don't know what we don't know about that Pubicare exactly.
13:14
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the odds are low because she
13:16
Speaker 1: was already dead beforehand that I don't think anyone sexually
13:19
Speaker 1: assaulted her inside the building unless they were in a
13:23
Speaker 1: necrophilia or something like that. But I guess they have
13:26
Speaker 1: run every avenue they can, and I guess the Pubicare
13:29
Speaker 1: has just not led them to any promising leads. So
13:32
Speaker 1: even though the crime garnered extensive publicity, no one ever
13:36
Speaker 1: came forward to claim or identify the girl over the
13:39
Speaker 1: course of the next several months, ads about it were
13:42
Speaker 1: run in every African American newspaper and magazine in the country,
13:46
Speaker 1: such as the Saint Louis American, as well as Ebony
13:48
Speaker 1: and Jet magazines. Investigators checked school records for Saint Louis
13:53
Speaker 1: and the rest of Missouri, but all black girls between
13:55
Speaker 1: the ages of eight and eleven who fit the criteria
13:58
Speaker 1: of the victim could be account for. This led to
14:01
Speaker 1: speculation that the girl was from out of state, but
14:04
Speaker 1: even though the SLMPD corresponded with every state police agency,
14:08
Speaker 1: they did not uncover any missing persons reports for young
14:11
Speaker 1: girls who are promising match to the Jane Doe. However,
14:15
Speaker 1: even if the victim was not from Saint Louis, investigator
14:18
Speaker 1: suspected that a killer may have been familiar with the area,
14:21
Speaker 1: as the apartment building where her body was dumped was
14:24
Speaker 1: not close to any major road or thoroughfares. The building
14:28
Speaker 1: was also not easy to access, as the front entrance
14:30
Speaker 1: was boarded up, so the perpetrator would have needed to
14:33
Speaker 1: enter the basement through a door located at the back.
14:36
Speaker 1: The girl remained in the city Morgue for nine months,
14:39
Speaker 1: but on December the second a decision was made to
14:41
Speaker 1: Burrier in a pauper's grave at Washington Park Cemetery, an
14:45
Speaker 1: historic African American cemetery located in the Berkeley suburb. Since
14:50
Speaker 1: she could not be identified, the girl became known as
14:53
Speaker 1: the Saint Louis Jane Doe. She would later earn the
14:56
Speaker 1: nickname Precious Hope, and even though that's likely not her
14:59
Speaker 1: real name, we'll be referring to her as Hopes throughout
15:01
Speaker 1: the rest of this episode rather than Jane Doe, the
15:04
Speaker 1: girl or the victim. Shortly after hopes burial, a couple
15:08
Speaker 1: who owned a local business called Schaefer's Monument Company offered
15:11
Speaker 1: to donate a small headstone for Hope's grave, but the
15:14
Speaker 1: Saint Louis Medical Examiner's Office thought it might be inappropriate.
15:19
Speaker 1: When Livingston Community High School, located just over the state
15:22
Speaker 1: line in Livingston, Illinois, learned about this, they organized a
15:26
Speaker 1: letter writing campaign to city officials, so the Medical Examiner's
15:30
Speaker 1: Office finally relented and allowed the headstone to be placed
15:33
Speaker 1: in the cemetery. It featured the day when Hope's body
15:36
Speaker 1: was found, as well as the inscription quote the saddened
15:40
Speaker 1: hearts were healed. Knowing the pain of life is over
15:42
Speaker 1: and the beauty of the soul revealed. End quote.
15:46
Speaker 2: That's really sad, but it's also really beautiful. I love
15:49
Speaker 2: that she got that proper creditscend off and recognition that
15:55
Speaker 2: this is Hope buried here. She doesn't need to be
15:58
Speaker 2: buried in a pauper's grave. And what does the medical
16:01
Speaker 2: examiner care? Why did they think that it would be
16:04
Speaker 2: so inappropriate? And like why did it take high school
16:06
Speaker 2: students to change their minds? You know?
16:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I never understand the logic in that. It does
16:12
Speaker 1: kind of sound like the Saint Louis police and law
16:14
Speaker 1: enforcement in general was kind of a mess at this time,
16:17
Speaker 1: and as we're going to talk about later on this episode,
16:19
Speaker 1: the cemetery where she was buried was also something of
16:23
Speaker 1: a mess as well, so recovering her body at a
16:25
Speaker 1: later time would be difficult. But like you said, it
16:28
Speaker 1: was really nice that she got the inscription on there.
16:31
Speaker 1: I have seen so many of these stories about unidentified
16:33
Speaker 1: decedents where the community rallies and like really cares about
16:37
Speaker 1: these victims and they go out of their way to
16:39
Speaker 1: give them a proper burial and a headstone, and feel well,
16:42
Speaker 1: if there's no one else out there who cares for them.
16:44
Speaker 1: We're going to care for them, and we're at least
16:46
Speaker 1: going to make sure that she gets the proper respect
16:49
Speaker 1: in death. And I've actually seen other cases where these
16:52
Speaker 1: John and Jane does are identified years later and their
16:55
Speaker 1: family members, once they find out, decide it's okay, we're
16:58
Speaker 1: not going to take them home where we're from to
17:00
Speaker 1: bury them. We're going to leave them buried here because
17:03
Speaker 1: this town or this city took good care of them
17:06
Speaker 1: and paid them the proper respect by giving them a
17:08
Speaker 1: grave and a headstone, that we're going to make this
17:10
Speaker 1: their home and allow them to continue to be buried there.
17:13
Speaker 2: I love that the community just embrace little Hope and
17:17
Speaker 2: wrapped their arms around her little soul and said, you
17:21
Speaker 2: know what, no one's coming forward, no parents, but this
17:24
Speaker 2: little girl won't be parentless like we will all be
17:26
Speaker 2: her parents. We will all step in, will be her siblings,
17:29
Speaker 2: will be her friends, will be all of those things
17:32
Speaker 2: that it clearly seems like she didn't have, or that
17:36
Speaker 2: they weren't permitted to come forward. Say, if it was
17:38
Speaker 2: siblings and it was a caregiver that did it, maybe
17:42
Speaker 2: they were told a story about what happened to their sister,
17:44
Speaker 2: if she was somebody's sister, and maybe if there was
17:47
Speaker 2: two parents and one did it, that one was able
17:51
Speaker 2: to silence the other and it was some kind of
17:54
Speaker 2: conspiracy at that point of silence. There's just so many
17:57
Speaker 2: different possibilities about who could have done this. But I
18:01
Speaker 2: love to see a community step up and say that, like,
18:04
Speaker 2: this person isn't a stranger, this person is now the
18:08
Speaker 2: US as a collective, our family.
18:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've seen this in a lot of these cases
18:13
Speaker 1: involving decenans, where a lot of people will go to
18:16
Speaker 1: their funerals. They just have the mentality, we don't know
18:18
Speaker 1: who this victim is, but we're going to show that
18:20
Speaker 1: we care. And it's always kind of moving when they're
18:23
Speaker 1: actually like people around when they're buried and they have
18:26
Speaker 1: their funeral, when you realize that no one cared enough
18:29
Speaker 1: about her in her personal life to come forward and
18:31
Speaker 1: claim her. Well. Within the next few years, a potential
18:35
Speaker 1: suspect in Hope's murder would pop up on the radar.
18:38
Speaker 1: On March the seventh, nineteen eighty five, nineteen year old
18:41
Speaker 1: Sennetta Ford was stabbed in her chest and throat with
18:44
Speaker 1: a butcher knife inside her Saint Louis basement apartment before
18:47
Speaker 1: she was strangled to death. The investigation soon led to
18:51
Speaker 1: the building's maintenance man, who went by the name Thomas Turner.
18:55
Speaker 1: The authorities did not yet realize that his real name
18:57
Speaker 1: was Vernon Brown, and he had previously he served four
19:00
Speaker 1: years in prison for sexually assaulting a twelve year old
19:03
Speaker 1: girl in Indianapolis. Brown also had an active arrest warran
19:07
Speaker 1: in Indiana for robbery and six counts of child molestation,
19:11
Speaker 1: which is why relocated to Saint Louis and changed his
19:14
Speaker 1: name to Thomas Turner. While Brown denied any involvement in
19:18
Speaker 1: Seneta Ford's murder, his wife, Kathy Moore, later told police
19:22
Speaker 1: that he confessed to the crime and revealed details which
19:24
Speaker 1: had not been released publicly, such is the fact that
19:27
Speaker 1: Seneta had been strangled with an electrical cord from a
19:30
Speaker 1: curling iron. Even though a warrant was issued to arrest
19:33
Speaker 1: Brown for murder, the charges were soon dropped after Kathy
19:37
Speaker 1: Moore recanted her story about her husband's confession. In addition,
19:41
Speaker 1: Missouri law had a statute at that time which prevented
19:44
Speaker 1: a defended spouse from testifying against them in court. Unfortunately,
19:49
Speaker 1: over the course of the next year, Brown would commit
19:51
Speaker 1: habitual sexual assault on his wife's three sons from a
19:54
Speaker 1: previous marriage, who were aged eleven, nine, and seven. On
19:58
Speaker 1: October the twenty fourth, nineteen eighty six, Brown was sitting
20:02
Speaker 1: on his residence's front porch when he noticed a nine
20:04
Speaker 1: year old African American girl named Janet Perkins walking home
20:08
Speaker 1: from school. Brown proceeded to lure Janet into his residence,
20:12
Speaker 1: and even though his three step sons were home, he
20:15
Speaker 1: ordered them to lock themselves into the rooms while he
20:17
Speaker 1: took Janet down to the basement. He then proceeded to
20:21
Speaker 1: strangle Janet to death with a rope, and the three
20:23
Speaker 1: boys would later claim that they could hear her screaming
20:26
Speaker 1: through the vents. After Brown placed the girl's body in
20:29
Speaker 1: two trash bags, he disposed of it inside a dumpster
20:33
Speaker 1: in an alley behind his house. Well. It wasn't long
20:36
Speaker 1: before Janet's body was found, and since a witness had
20:39
Speaker 1: seen her going into Brown's residence, he was immediately questioned
20:42
Speaker 1: by police. Brown soon made a full confession of the
20:45
Speaker 1: crime and was charged with first degree murder. After going
20:49
Speaker 1: on trial on October of nineteen eighty eight, Brown was
20:52
Speaker 1: convicted of Janet's murder and sentenced to death. Almost immediately thereafter,
20:57
Speaker 1: he was indicted with Sennetta Ford's murder, and he would
20:59
Speaker 1: be try, convicted and sens to death for that crime
21:02
Speaker 1: as well. At one point, Brown was also charged with
21:06
Speaker 1: the murder of nine year old Kimberly Campbell, who was bound,
21:09
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted, beaten, and strangled to death in Indianapolis in
21:13
Speaker 1: August of nineteen eighty, but since the crime took place
21:16
Speaker 1: in a different state and Brown was facing execution in Missouri,
21:20
Speaker 1: it was ultimately decided not to take him to trial
21:23
Speaker 1: for killing Kimberly. During his time living in Saint Louis,
21:26
Speaker 1: Brown resided only a few miles away from the apartment
21:29
Speaker 1: building where Precious Hope's body was found, and given the
21:32
Speaker 1: similarities between that crime and the other murders that Brown committed,
21:36
Speaker 1: he was looked at as a potential suspect. A Saint
21:40
Speaker 1: Louis police detective named Tom Carroll theorized that Hope might
21:43
Speaker 1: have been the daughter of one of Brown's previous girlfriends,
21:46
Speaker 1: and she was too frightened to report the murder to police.
21:49
Speaker 1: Prior to Brown's execution, Carol attempted to question him about
21:53
Speaker 1: Hope's murder, but Brown simply replied, quote, I've got nothing
21:57
Speaker 1: to say to you. When Carroll told Brown that confessed
22:00
Speaker 1: to Hope's murder could bring closure to her family, Brown
22:03
Speaker 1: said he did not care about them. Maybe eighteenth, two
22:06
Speaker 1: thousand and five, Brown was executed by a lethal inchection
22:10
Speaker 1: at the age of fifty one.
22:13
Speaker 2: Wow, that was a lot of information, and that was
22:17
Speaker 2: absolutely vile. I am not a proponent of the death
22:21
Speaker 2: penalty just because they typically there's so many not typically,
22:26
Speaker 2: there's many instances where we know they've got it wrong,
22:29
Speaker 2: or people who are sitting on death row and they're
22:32
Speaker 2: wrongfully convicted. But if I were to make an exception
22:36
Speaker 2: for a human being to be executed that goes against
22:40
Speaker 2: my beliefs, it would be Brown, because this man is
22:44
Speaker 2: a scourge on humor, was a scourge on humanity to
22:48
Speaker 2: be able to do those types of vile acts to
22:52
Speaker 2: children and women and young boys. He truly didn't seem
22:58
Speaker 2: to discriminate, and he would pre date on anybody that
23:01
Speaker 2: he saw was vulnerable and that he was able to
23:04
Speaker 2: isolate them. The fact that he did that to little
23:08
Speaker 2: Janet Perkins is so horrible, and the trauma that those
23:13
Speaker 2: three boys who also had been assaulted by Brown that
23:17
Speaker 2: had been ongoing, that they had to hear her screaming
23:21
Speaker 2: through the vents, and then to know that her little
23:24
Speaker 2: body was disposed of in garbage bags and thrown in
23:28
Speaker 2: a dumpster and then found later. I cannot imagine what
23:32
Speaker 2: those poor children went through at the hands of Brown,
23:36
Speaker 2: but it checks out to me that it is possible
23:39
Speaker 2: that it could have been one of his former partners,
23:41
Speaker 2: because can you imagine being with a person like that
23:44
Speaker 2: who's capable of doing things like that that you would
23:48
Speaker 2: truly be scared for your life, and if you had
23:51
Speaker 2: other children, you'd be scared for them as well.
23:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we saw that with Kathy Moore, where she
23:57
Speaker 1: could have had him go to prison for his original murder,
24:00
Speaker 1: but then she recanted her statement because she was so
24:02
Speaker 1: terrified of him, and then he went on to assault
24:05
Speaker 1: her boys and murder another girl as well. And yeah,
24:09
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I'm more nearly not a proponent
24:11
Speaker 1: of the death penalty, but I definitely did not shed
24:13
Speaker 1: any tears when Brown was executed, because he was an
24:16
Speaker 1: absolute monster, and even if he had nothing to do
24:19
Speaker 1: with Hope's murder, Like, I think he's narcissistic enough that
24:22
Speaker 1: instead of just simply saying before execution, no, i'dn't harmor
24:26
Speaker 1: he just decides to say, I've got nothing to say
24:28
Speaker 1: to you. And that's what a lot of these murderers
24:30
Speaker 1: are like, where if they're at the point where they've
24:33
Speaker 1: got nothing left to lose, they still get off on
24:35
Speaker 1: toying with people. So he couldn't even just deny it
24:38
Speaker 1: even if he didn't do it. And if he did
24:40
Speaker 1: murder Hope, of course he's going to take that secret
24:42
Speaker 1: to his great even though he's already been implicated in
24:45
Speaker 1: these other murders. So I mean, it's definitely reasonable to
24:49
Speaker 1: assume he's capable of such an horrific crime like that,
24:51
Speaker 1: but they just have not found any evidence against him.
24:54
Speaker 2: Think what a way to make your name live on
24:57
Speaker 2: not admitting to this murder, refuting it, not saying yeah,
25:02
Speaker 2: I indeed did this. That way, you know, is attached
25:06
Speaker 2: to an unsolved case, and until they solve that, you're
25:09
Speaker 2: always going to be mentioned in connection with little Hope.
25:14
Speaker 2: And I'm sure that he knew that. So it's like,
25:16
Speaker 2: you know, what these other ones that I've been charged with,
25:18
Speaker 2: and even the murder that he was charged or he
25:21
Speaker 2: was going to be charged with, but they figured he'd
25:23
Speaker 2: already got the death penalty twice and it was in
25:25
Speaker 2: a different state, So why do that he's going to
25:29
Speaker 2: be put to death Anyways, we know that he's committed
25:31
Speaker 2: all these murders, it's not a question. But with her
25:34
Speaker 2: there is a big question mark, And so what a
25:37
Speaker 2: way to live on kind of inm perpetuity because people
25:40
Speaker 2: like us are going to be talking about him.
25:43
Speaker 1: It's true, it'd be nice when we were able to
25:44
Speaker 1: forget talking about someone like this, but because he's associated
25:48
Speaker 1: very loosely with an unsolved cold case, we still have
25:51
Speaker 1: to debate him and talk about a horrific acts on
25:53
Speaker 1: this podcast, and unfortunately we'll still have to unless they
25:56
Speaker 1: actually solve Hope's murder at some point.
26:00
Speaker 2: Do you know at the time what the population of
26:02
Speaker 2: Saint Louis was.
26:04
Speaker 1: I'm just going to look that up out of curiosity
26:06
Speaker 1: and thinking it was probably at least in the millions
26:08
Speaker 1: or so, because it is a fairly large city. Oh,
26:12
Speaker 1: actually today it's only two hundred and seventy nine thousand,
26:14
Speaker 1: So back in the eighties it was around four hundred
26:16
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand.
26:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of people left when I
26:20
Speaker 2: went to rehab. One of the guys who's he was
26:23
Speaker 2: from a very affluent family and he lived in like
26:26
Speaker 2: the suburban part because he said that it used to
26:29
Speaker 2: be safer in like downtown Saint Louis and stuff, but
26:32
Speaker 2: he said it was a very, very dangerous. And I
26:35
Speaker 2: really knew nothing about Saint Louis, but from what he said,
26:38
Speaker 2: it was just like not somewhere that you wanted to go,
26:41
Speaker 2: maybe somewhere that at times, you know, people would talk
26:44
Speaker 2: about Chicago the same way, where there was a lot
26:46
Speaker 2: of gang violence, or Baltimore, those cities where you go, okay,
26:52
Speaker 2: like if I'm not familiar with this area and I
26:53
Speaker 2: don't really know it, like probably don't want to go
26:56
Speaker 2: walking through random neighborhoods because something could happen.
26:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I could see it a good comparison
27:02
Speaker 1: with Baltimore because I went there thirty years ago just
27:04
Speaker 1: because I wanted to visit their ballpark and see the
27:06
Speaker 1: Orioles play. It would probably be the same thing if
27:09
Speaker 1: I ever went to Saint Louis, I'd want to see
27:10
Speaker 1: some of their sports teams, but I wouldn't just go
27:12
Speaker 1: there to visit the city itself because there are some
27:15
Speaker 1: dangerous parts. So desperate for new leads in this case,
27:20
Speaker 1: Captain Leroy Adkins, as well as a detective who worked
27:23
Speaker 1: on the case named Joe Bragoon, agreed to appear on
27:25
Speaker 1: an episode of the TV show Sightings, which focused on
27:28
Speaker 1: the paranormal. The episode aired in November of nineteen ninety
27:32
Speaker 1: four and featured Atkins and Burgoon having a phone conversation
27:36
Speaker 1: with a Florida based psychic named Noreen Rainier. Reneer claimed
27:40
Speaker 1: that she specialized in psychometry, where she would hold onto
27:43
Speaker 1: an item that once belonged to a missing or murdered
27:46
Speaker 1: victim and quote unquote become that person, allowing her to
27:50
Speaker 1: have visions from the victim's point of view during the
27:52
Speaker 1: last moments of their lives. Believe it or not, Adkins
27:56
Speaker 1: and Bergoon agreed to mail two key pieces of evidence
27:58
Speaker 1: to Raneer, hope It's yellow sweater, as well as the
28:01
Speaker 1: nylon rope used to bind her. The Sightings episode then
28:05
Speaker 1: showed Reneer touching these items and supposedly having visions of
28:08
Speaker 1: Hope's murder. She expressed her belief that the killer was
28:12
Speaker 1: a teacher who had once been dishonorably discharged from the military,
28:16
Speaker 1: and based on Rhineer's description, a composite sketch was created
28:19
Speaker 1: for him, but unfortunately, the sweater and the rope would
28:23
Speaker 1: go missing, and this has often been cited as one
28:25
Speaker 1: of the worst blunders ever committed in a police investigation.
28:29
Speaker 1: The makers of the Are Precious Hope Revisited documentary reached
28:33
Speaker 1: out to Narene Rnier, and while she declined to do
28:35
Speaker 1: an interview, she maintained that she did send the items
28:38
Speaker 1: back to the SLMPD after the episode was filmed. While
28:43
Speaker 1: during the documentary, Sergeant Brian McGlynn, a homicide investigator who
28:47
Speaker 1: is currently working on this case, was interviewed and he
28:51
Speaker 1: confirmed that the police department did receive the items from
28:54
Speaker 1: Renier and claimed that there was even a signed postal
28:57
Speaker 1: evidence slip to prove it, but for reasons on known,
29:00
Speaker 1: the items somehow went missing from the department's mail room
29:03
Speaker 1: and have not been seen since.
29:06
Speaker 2: How do you know that you're dealing with a case
29:08
Speaker 2: from the nineteen eighties when you have the police go
29:11
Speaker 2: ahead and mail a psychic items of evidence and when
29:15
Speaker 2: they get them back, they don't properly log it into evidence,
29:18
Speaker 2: and the items disappear. I wish that I like, I
29:22
Speaker 2: wish I could say that I was surprised, but we've
29:24
Speaker 2: heard so many different cases that are unsolved that have
29:28
Speaker 2: elements of psychics and things that happen that are similar
29:31
Speaker 2: to this.
29:32
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Like, if you go on Reddit and you
29:34
Speaker 1: look for discussions about the worst mistakes and a police investigation,
29:38
Speaker 1: a lot of people will cite this one. And thankfully
29:41
Speaker 1: when I watched the documentary, because I always used to
29:43
Speaker 1: assume it was just some random psychic who phoned them
29:46
Speaker 1: or something like that, a complete stranger and they mailed
29:48
Speaker 1: the evidence. But say what you will about Narin and Ranier,
29:51
Speaker 1: at least she was an established psychic who had worked
29:54
Speaker 1: on a bunch of police investigations at that point. She
29:56
Speaker 1: had been featured on Unsolved Mysteries, so they at least
29:59
Speaker 1: mailed the items to someone who was familiar with this
30:02
Speaker 1: sort of thing. And everyone just kind of assumed that
30:05
Speaker 1: the psyche just took the items and never sent them back.
30:07
Speaker 1: But now it has been clarified that yes, Rainier did
30:10
Speaker 1: mail them back, but of course, for whatever reason, they
30:13
Speaker 1: still went missing and It's all the more frustrating because
30:15
Speaker 1: back then they wouldn't have been thinking about DNA evidence
30:18
Speaker 1: on the sweater or the rope. But if you were
30:20
Speaker 1: to find those items today and do the testing, they
30:23
Speaker 1: might have DNA that belongs to Hope or her killer.
30:28
Speaker 2: That's a major slip of our oversight. But that is
30:31
Speaker 2: one thing about this that I did take note of
30:34
Speaker 2: is that I recognized the name Noreen Rainier, and it's
30:37
Speaker 2: probably because she was on other episodes of Unsolved Mysteries.
30:41
Speaker 2: I couldn't tell you where I knew it from, if
30:43
Speaker 2: it was from another case, from a TV program, what
30:46
Speaker 2: it was from, but that definitely stood out to me.
30:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, She's also worked on a very famous missing person's
30:52
Speaker 1: case from Canada, the nineteen eighty nine disappearance of Kimberly mccandrew,
30:56
Speaker 1: which took place in Halifax, Nova Scotia. But that's another
30:59
Speaker 1: one where the investigators have been criticized because they put
31:02
Speaker 1: too much focus on her and pretty much took all
31:05
Speaker 1: her so called visions as gospel and like pretty much
31:08
Speaker 1: used that as their number one source of information. But
31:10
Speaker 1: of course it didn't lead anywhere and the case is
31:12
Speaker 1: still unsolved to this day anyway, the information Reynier provided
31:17
Speaker 1: during the Sightings episode did not seem to be of
31:19
Speaker 1: much use, and there has been no shortage of false
31:21
Speaker 1: leads provided by psychics and amateur sluice over the years.
31:25
Speaker 1: One of the most unusual leads was provided by a
31:27
Speaker 1: woman named Sharon Nolty, who spent seven years and twenty
31:31
Speaker 1: three thousand dollars of her own money conducting her own
31:34
Speaker 1: independent investigation into the case. Nolty came to believe that
31:38
Speaker 1: Precious Hope was a Chippewa Native American named Shannon Johnson,
31:42
Speaker 1: and that the killer was a drifter living in southern Texas.
31:46
Speaker 1: In fact, she even went so far as to collect
31:48
Speaker 1: DNA samples from this man, as well as a woman
31:51
Speaker 1: whom she believed was related to Shannon Johnson. Well, DNA
31:55
Speaker 1: testing showed no genetic connection between the woman and Hope,
31:58
Speaker 1: so this lead was dismissed, but Nolty still insisted that
32:02
Speaker 1: she was correct. Here is a quote that Nolty provided
32:05
Speaker 1: for an article about the case in the December first,
32:07
Speaker 1: two thousand and four edition of The Riverfront Times. And
32:10
Speaker 1: I almost cannot believe this is actually real. Quote. I
32:14
Speaker 1: don't give a rat's ass about the police department. I
32:17
Speaker 1: think they stink. I told them who she was and
32:19
Speaker 1: who killed her, and they never did anything with it.
32:22
Speaker 1: I had a bag full of the killer's pubic care.
32:24
Speaker 1: Do you know how difficult it is to collect a
32:26
Speaker 1: bag full of pubycare? End quote?
32:30
Speaker 2: I knew you were like, oh lord, okay, well yeah,
32:35
Speaker 2: I would assume to create to actually gather a bag
32:39
Speaker 2: full one? Does it require a whole bagfull? I don't
32:42
Speaker 2: know that was her motivation there, And like, what is
32:45
Speaker 2: your excuse? Like is this a fetish that you're saying
32:47
Speaker 2: that you have. Did you sleep with this person over
32:51
Speaker 2: time and just slowly collected those puber cares one at
32:54
Speaker 2: a time. I really want to know.
32:56
Speaker 1: Yeah. Unfortunately you don't have any further contexts on that quote,
32:59
Speaker 1: but once you heard it, you instantly knew that this
33:02
Speaker 1: woman's credibility was out the window because they have DNA
33:05
Speaker 1: showing that it doesn't match this person that you think
33:08
Speaker 1: is Hope. And you're still saying, Nope, the police is wrong,
33:11
Speaker 1: science is wrong, and I'm right the woman with a
33:13
Speaker 1: bag full of pubicare So you should definitely listen to me.
33:16
Speaker 2: Wow, Yeah, you get people with a really fixed mindset
33:19
Speaker 2: where they seem to have such tunnel vision. And we
33:22
Speaker 2: see this with law enforcement all the time too. They
33:25
Speaker 2: get held bend that this is the suspect, even when
33:28
Speaker 2: there's evidence to the contrary, and they just push forward
33:31
Speaker 2: that narrative. And I think it can happen to regular
33:33
Speaker 2: people too, where you get in your mind that this
33:36
Speaker 2: is the guy that did it. I'm going to gather
33:38
Speaker 2: all this pubicare and they are going to see the truth.
33:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is such a sad, tragic case. But I
33:44
Speaker 1: had to include that line to give a little levity
33:46
Speaker 1: to this story because of how ridiculous it was. So
33:50
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, a decision was made to
33:52
Speaker 1: exume Hope's body for more advanced forensic testing, but when
33:56
Speaker 1: the grave was dug up, it turned out that three
33:58
Speaker 1: different bodies were buried there, and none of them belonged
34:01
Speaker 1: to her. It seemed apparent that the headstone, which had
34:04
Speaker 1: been donated for Hope was placed in the wrong spot.
34:07
Speaker 1: For the past few decades, Washington Park Cemetery had not
34:11
Speaker 1: been properly maintained, and by this point it was pretty
34:14
Speaker 1: much in complete disarray thanks to botched burials and sloppy
34:18
Speaker 1: record keeping. The Saint Louis Medical Examiner's Office stated that
34:22
Speaker 1: no new exhumations would be authorized for Hope unless someone
34:25
Speaker 1: could determine the exact spot she was buried. Well. In
34:29
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, aerial images from the US Geological Survey were
34:34
Speaker 1: used to determine the location of Hope's remains. This was
34:37
Speaker 1: made possible by examining old photographs which had been taken
34:40
Speaker 1: of Hope's funeral on the day she was buried, as
34:43
Speaker 1: the photos featured trees and headstones which were still in
34:46
Speaker 1: the same spot after thirty years. Once Hope's burial location
34:50
Speaker 1: was pinpointed and a body was exhumed, the medical examiner
34:54
Speaker 1: was able to determine that it belonged to her, since
34:56
Speaker 1: there was decapitation at the shoulder level. DNA samples were
35:00
Speaker 1: extracted from Hope's remains, and some of her bones were
35:03
Speaker 1: sent to the Smithsonian Institute, the National Center for Missing
35:07
Speaker 1: and Exploited Children NamUs, and the University of North Texas
35:11
Speaker 1: for stable isotope analysis, which could possibly help determine where
35:15
Speaker 1: Hope had lived prior to her murder. Well, it seems
35:18
Speaker 1: like the different tests yielded different results, as One of
35:21
Speaker 1: them concluded that Hope may have lived in one of
35:24
Speaker 1: ten Southeastern states Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee,
35:32
Speaker 1: North Carolina, or South Carolina. However, another test seemed to
35:36
Speaker 1: point towards Hope hailing from one of these Midwestern or
35:39
Speaker 1: mid Atlantic states Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, or
35:46
Speaker 1: West Virginia. Regardless, the one conclusion all these tests seemed
35:50
Speaker 1: to reach is that Hope did not live in the
35:52
Speaker 1: Saint Louis area and was unlikely to be from Missouri
35:55
Speaker 1: or Illinois. In February of twenty fourteen, after the testing
35:59
Speaker 1: was completed, Hope's remains were reinterred in a new casket
36:03
Speaker 1: with angels on the corners, and she was redressed in
36:06
Speaker 1: a pek and white checker dress. A ceremony was held
36:10
Speaker 1: in which she was laid to rest in Saint Louis's
36:12
Speaker 1: Cavalry Cemetery in a section called the Garden of Innocence,
36:16
Speaker 1: where unidentified decedents are buried.
36:20
Speaker 2: That's really interesting that like the radiocarbon dating or whatever
36:24
Speaker 2: or whatever type of isotope tests they did brought about
36:27
Speaker 2: all of these different states, Like, there's so many different possibilities.
36:31
Speaker 2: And I'm not American, neither you, but you might be
36:35
Speaker 2: more familiar with American geography than I am. How far
36:39
Speaker 2: is Saint Louis from like the Midwestern or mid Atlantic states?
36:43
Speaker 1: Uh, they've been fairly close to Indiana at the very least,
36:46
Speaker 1: Like I think it would just be a little bit
36:48
Speaker 1: west from the places like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and what
36:52
Speaker 1: not in Wisconsin, like those border like Illinois and Missouri.
36:56
Speaker 1: So I do find it interesting that they picked out
36:58
Speaker 1: those specific states, but none of them said Illinois or Missouri,
37:02
Speaker 1: so it kind of indicated that she could be from
37:04
Speaker 1: that region, just not from where the spot where she
37:07
Speaker 1: was found.
37:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, which means that potentially if she was born in
37:12
Speaker 2: one of those places, but what if she'd only lived
37:15
Speaker 2: in Missouri or Illinois for the last you know, six
37:19
Speaker 2: months or something, they wouldn't be able to tell. So
37:22
Speaker 2: there's certain elements there. And also how close that they
37:26
Speaker 2: are to those different states. It's like, well, do we
37:30
Speaker 2: know how accurate they are there? Because we've got two
37:33
Speaker 2: different tests, two different tests bringing up these different results.
37:37
Speaker 2: So I don't know. It just brings up more questions
37:40
Speaker 2: than answers.
37:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just seems pretty broad. And I don't know
37:44
Speaker 1: if you remember a Patreon mini So we did a
37:46
Speaker 1: while back about an unidentified murder victim named little Miss
37:49
Speaker 1: Panasafki who was found in Lake Panasafki in Florida, and
37:53
Speaker 1: they did some stable isotope analysis of the fillings in
37:56
Speaker 1: her teeth and they were able to like estimate that
37:59
Speaker 1: she not only hailed from Europe, but they picked out
38:02
Speaker 1: a specific fishing village in Greece, like a very out
38:05
Speaker 1: of the way village, and said there's a good chance
38:07
Speaker 1: she was a residence there at some point before she
38:10
Speaker 1: relocated to the United States and was murdered. And I'm
38:13
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, if you're able to be that specific
38:15
Speaker 1: with your testing, it's kind of weird that this testing
38:17
Speaker 1: is so broad and is naming all these different states.
38:21
Speaker 2: So do you know, like I'm guessing, So this was
38:25
Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen where they did the tests
38:28
Speaker 2: in this case on Little Hope and do you know
38:33
Speaker 2: on little Miss Panasovki what the time period was that
38:36
Speaker 2: they did those tests.
38:37
Speaker 1: Same time period around twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, because I
38:41
Speaker 1: think they were just starting to use it in investigations,
38:44
Speaker 1: and I guess it's more maybe specific in little miss
38:47
Speaker 1: Panasovski's case, because they were using fillings in her teeth,
38:50
Speaker 1: whereas we don't have teeth in this particular case. So
38:53
Speaker 1: I guess maybe if you have teeth or enamels or
38:55
Speaker 1: something like that, you can get more specific, and they
38:58
Speaker 1: were more limited with Hope. But I still find it
39:00
Speaker 1: interesting that we have all these different states, yet there's
39:03
Speaker 1: certain Missouri. The spot she was found is not where
39:06
Speaker 1: she was from. So in September of twenty twenty two,
39:11
Speaker 1: the aforementioned documentary Our Precious Hope Revisited Saint Louis's Little
39:15
Speaker 1: Jane Doe was finally released. The film's director, ed Arar
39:19
Speaker 1: Bird Soso, was living in Saint Louis and ten years
39:22
Speaker 1: old when Hope's body was found, and he vividly remembered
39:25
Speaker 1: his mother telling him to come inside because little kids'
39:28
Speaker 1: heads were being cut off. Well near the end of
39:31
Speaker 1: the documentary, Sergeant Brian McGlenn publicly revealed for the first
39:35
Speaker 1: time that C. C. Moore, a renowned genetic genealogist who
39:39
Speaker 1: works for Parabond nonolobs was working on this case, and
39:42
Speaker 1: he gave the filmmaker's permission to interviewer. Parabon has used
39:46
Speaker 1: genetic genealogy to resolve dozens of cold cases over the
39:50
Speaker 1: past few years, and more confirmed. When Hopes DNA was
39:53
Speaker 1: entered in the database jed Match, they immediately wound up
39:56
Speaker 1: getting two promising matches. However, both these matches were for
40:00
Speaker 1: individuals who were born around one hundred years ago and
40:03
Speaker 1: had passed away. They also happened to be descendants from
40:07
Speaker 1: former slaves, which can present a challenge for constructing family
40:10
Speaker 1: trees for African American individuals since records for them were
40:14
Speaker 1: often not kept during the era of slavery, making documentation
40:18
Speaker 1: about ancestral lineage difficult to find. Moore did confirm that
40:23
Speaker 1: she tracked down and spoke to the granddaughter of one
40:25
Speaker 1: of the two individuals who was a match, but when
40:28
Speaker 1: this person learned that Moore was working on a law
40:30
Speaker 1: enforcement investigation involving an unidentified deceited, she told Moore never
40:35
Speaker 1: to contact her again and immediately removed her relatives DNA
40:39
Speaker 1: from the ged match database. Moore also spoke to the
40:42
Speaker 1: daughter of the second individual who was a DNA match
40:45
Speaker 1: and While she initially agreed to help, the woman soon
40:48
Speaker 1: broke off all contact with Moore and ghosted her. Regardless,
40:53
Speaker 1: even though the process will be challenging, Parabond nanolabs will
40:56
Speaker 1: still continue to work on attempting to find genetic relatives
40:59
Speaker 1: of Precious Hope and hopes of figuring out her true identity.
41:03
Speaker 1: But after more than forty years, the identity of the
41:06
Speaker 1: Saint Louis Jane Doe, as well as the identity of
41:08
Speaker 1: her killer, continued to remain unsolved mysteries. So I guess
41:12
Speaker 1: you could say the path went chili.
41:15
Speaker 2: That is really interesting that they got those matches for
41:18
Speaker 2: the two people that had passed away one hundred years
41:21
Speaker 2: ago and then two living relatives. One of them chose
41:25
Speaker 2: to put their relatives DNA on JED match, Like that's
41:27
Speaker 2: a choice and you know that it can be used
41:30
Speaker 2: to help solve the case. So I find it really
41:33
Speaker 2: interesting that when they found out that it was for
41:35
Speaker 2: this unsolved case with the decedent who's a child, and
41:39
Speaker 2: little Hope is currently like a quote unquote Jane Doe
41:42
Speaker 2: and they don't know who she is. So the fact
41:46
Speaker 2: that she recoiled it that and went radio silent and
41:51
Speaker 2: then the other family member who share the genetic material
41:56
Speaker 2: also first agreed to help and then decided not to.
41:59
Speaker 2: I wonder if there's like an inherent trust distrust of
42:02
Speaker 2: law enforcement at that point in time, or if there's
42:06
Speaker 2: some relatives who are potentially involved in criminality and they
42:09
Speaker 2: didn't want to be seen as like a quote unquote snitch,
42:12
Speaker 2: or if maybe they knew who this little Hope was
42:16
Speaker 2: and they didn't want somebody who they might have suspected
42:19
Speaker 2: to be responsible to get in trouble.
42:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, there's so many different possibilities, and just because
42:25
Speaker 1: they wanted to break off all contact with law enforcement
42:27
Speaker 1: does not necessarily mean that they know what exactly happened
42:31
Speaker 1: to Hope or who she is, because, like you said,
42:33
Speaker 1: it could just be an inherent distrust in law enforcement.
42:36
Speaker 1: Because it's possible that they originally entered this DNA into
42:40
Speaker 1: these databases before they started being used in law enforcement investigations,
42:45
Speaker 1: because that really did become a big thing until around
42:48
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen or so, and this person may not have
42:51
Speaker 1: even realized that, oh, they're going into our DNA to
42:53
Speaker 1: try to solve cold cases. I really want to value
42:56
Speaker 1: my privacy. I'm going to remove it, and it could
42:59
Speaker 1: just be someone who who has a very very loose
43:01
Speaker 1: connection to Hope, who really has no knowledge of her case.
43:05
Speaker 1: Because I personally know someone one of my listeners who
43:08
Speaker 1: actually wound up helping solve a cold case because she
43:11
Speaker 1: had entered her DNA into gen match and was contacted
43:14
Speaker 1: by law enforcement saying, we're trying to solve this old
43:17
Speaker 1: homicide from Colorado during the nineteen eighties, and we've got
43:20
Speaker 1: a genetic match to you. And it turned out that
43:23
Speaker 1: the killer was some distant cousin of hers who lived
43:26
Speaker 1: in another state who was very very far removed, like
43:29
Speaker 1: she had never actually met this cousin, didn't even know
43:31
Speaker 1: he existed, but because they had a genetic lineage, they
43:34
Speaker 1: were able to use her DNA to track him down
43:37
Speaker 1: and solve the case. So you just never know if
43:39
Speaker 1: your DNA is going to match someone you're related to,
43:42
Speaker 1: even if they might be very far removed.
43:45
Speaker 2: Wow, genetic genealogy is so wild and it's solving so
43:49
Speaker 2: many cases. It's just amazing what they do, like building
43:53
Speaker 2: out that family tree and then finally finding out who
43:56
Speaker 2: that person is, who either who they are if they're
44:00
Speaker 2: John R. Jane Doe or either who they are if
44:02
Speaker 2: they are the killer. So it's just such a fascinating field,
44:05
Speaker 2: and I think it's just going to become more and
44:07
Speaker 2: more commonplace as we move forward and the technology improves.
44:12
Speaker 1: Exactly, And I know that this case is in good
44:14
Speaker 1: hands because CC Moore is pretty much the best of
44:17
Speaker 1: the best when it comes to genetic genealogy and building
44:20
Speaker 1: family trees. So even though this sounds like more challenging
44:23
Speaker 1: than your average case, I have the confidence that if
44:26
Speaker 1: anyone could identify Hope, she can. So getting back to
44:31
Speaker 1: the subject of DNA profiling and genetic genealogy, I'm sure
44:35
Speaker 1: you're well aware that this process has led to the
44:37
Speaker 1: resolution of a lot of unsolved cold cases and the
44:40
Speaker 1: identification of a few hundred John and Jane does these
44:44
Speaker 1: past several years, thanks to the work of organizations such
44:47
Speaker 1: as the DNA Doe Project, Authorham Incorporated, and Pairabond Anolops.
44:52
Speaker 1: I had constantly seen people ask when one of these
44:55
Speaker 1: organizations was going to tackle the Saint Louis Jane Doe case,
44:58
Speaker 1: and it was not until the release of the Our
45:00
Speaker 1: Precious Hope Revisited documentary when it was officially confirmed that yes,
45:05
Speaker 1: C C. Moore is working on this case, so we
45:07
Speaker 1: do know that it's in good hands. We've seen identifications
45:11
Speaker 1: get made in some pretty high profile cases involving decendents,
45:15
Speaker 1: and I'd wag sure that Precious Hope is currently one
45:17
Speaker 1: of the most heavily discussed ones in which the victim
45:20
Speaker 1: has not yet gotten her name back. It's really not
45:23
Speaker 1: hard to imagine why the true crime community has such
45:25
Speaker 1: an attachment to this story, because it's one of the
45:28
Speaker 1: saddest and most horrific cold cases you'll ever hear about.
45:32
Speaker 1: At one point, the FBI referred to this crime as
45:35
Speaker 1: the quote unquote only decapitation in the nation involving someone
45:39
Speaker 1: so young. It's hard enough to imagine someone being sadistic
45:43
Speaker 1: enough to behead a little girl, but the fact that
45:45
Speaker 1: this has also prevented her from being identified these past
45:48
Speaker 1: four decades makes the whole story even more tragic. There's
45:52
Speaker 1: not only a vested interest in getting this child her
45:55
Speaker 1: name back, but also finding out the identity of the
45:58
Speaker 1: evil monster who did this and ensuring they faced justice
46:01
Speaker 1: if they are still alive after all this time. Around
46:05
Speaker 1: the same time our Precious Hope Revisited was released, we
46:08
Speaker 1: finally saw the identification of what was arguably the most
46:11
Speaker 1: famous child decended of all time, The Boy and the Box.
46:16
Speaker 1: As many of you probably know, the Boy in the
46:18
Speaker 1: Box was a child who was found murdered in Philadelphia
46:21
Speaker 1: in February of nineteen fifty seven and cannot be identified
46:25
Speaker 1: for over sixty five years, But in December of twenty
46:28
Speaker 1: twenty two, it was publicly announced that genetic genealogy had
46:32
Speaker 1: helped identify the boy as Joseph Augustus Cirelli, who was
46:36
Speaker 1: four years old at the time of his death. At
46:39
Speaker 1: this particular point, the authorities know who Joseph's biological family was,
46:43
Speaker 1: but they're still putting the pieces of the puzzle together
46:46
Speaker 1: to try and figure out the circumstances of his murder.
46:49
Speaker 1: For decades, it was theorized that Joseph was killed by
46:52
Speaker 1: a parent or a caregiver, as that seemed to be
46:55
Speaker 1: the only explanation for why he was never reported missing
46:58
Speaker 1: and no one came forward to claim him. However, that
47:01
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean that Joseph's biological relatives were responsible for
47:05
Speaker 1: his debt. As hypothetical examples of alternate scenarios, Joseph could
47:10
Speaker 1: have been conceived during an extra marital affair or adopted
47:13
Speaker 1: out or given away following his birth, and for all
47:16
Speaker 1: we know, the same type of situation could have occurred
47:19
Speaker 1: with Precious Hope.
47:21
Speaker 2: Wow, it's so wild. I just can barely wrap my
47:25
Speaker 2: head around how many cases have been solved. But also
47:29
Speaker 2: the Boy in the Box such a fascinating case. When
47:33
Speaker 2: they're solved, it's like, WHOA. It just seems like the
47:37
Speaker 2: true crime community it's constant, like we're having this constant
47:40
Speaker 2: influx of these cases, and so I can understand why
47:43
Speaker 2: so many people are really attached to what will hopefully
47:47
Speaker 2: be a positive outcome with Hope, where she'll get her
47:51
Speaker 2: name back, she'll have her identity back, and then hopefully
47:55
Speaker 2: law enforcement will be able to focus on who the
47:58
Speaker 2: killer is, because I I think it just seems likely
48:01
Speaker 2: that she has to be either from somehere far away,
48:05
Speaker 2: like if she was indeed from somewhere like Florida and
48:08
Speaker 2: that person drove all the way to Saint Louis to
48:10
Speaker 2: dispose of her body, which would seem like a very
48:13
Speaker 2: long drive, then it would be a lot harder to
48:16
Speaker 2: tie her to an individual. And if there's a missing
48:19
Speaker 2: child in Florida, they're not looking in Saint Louis, especially
48:22
Speaker 2: not in nineteen eighty three exactly.
48:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, then that's why they've tried to match up Hope
48:28
Speaker 1: with a lot of other missing children's cases from that
48:30
Speaker 1: time period, but they've never found a likely candidate to
48:33
Speaker 1: be her. But yeah, the Boy in the Box, the
48:36
Speaker 1: timing of it was so good that they identified him
48:38
Speaker 1: right around the time that this documentary was released, because
48:41
Speaker 1: if you're in the true crime world, you grew up
48:43
Speaker 1: hearing about the Boy in the Box for years, and
48:46
Speaker 1: unlike Precious Hope, they had photographs of this boy put
48:49
Speaker 1: out in newspapers and on posters all the way back
48:52
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty seven, and it just seemed astonishing that
48:55
Speaker 1: no one came forward to recognize him or identify him,
48:58
Speaker 1: which is why people speculated that he could would have
49:00
Speaker 1: been an abuse victim who was a shut in who
49:02
Speaker 1: was kept from the outside world and then was murdered
49:05
Speaker 1: by his caregiver. And even though they're still trying to
49:08
Speaker 1: solve his murder, and I think there's a good chance
49:11
Speaker 1: that even if they do figure it out, that person
49:13
Speaker 1: is probably already dead by this point, whereas with Hope's case,
49:17
Speaker 1: you think that well, at least there's a chance maybe
49:19
Speaker 1: that if they can find the monster who did this,
49:21
Speaker 1: you can still see them brought to justice. But considering
49:25
Speaker 1: how old the boy in the box was, if they
49:26
Speaker 1: were able to identify him and solve that case, then
49:29
Speaker 1: there's always there's always a chance that it can happen
49:32
Speaker 1: to someone like precious Hope.
49:34
Speaker 2: Well. I think that there is a lot of hope
49:37
Speaker 2: based on other cases, and knowing that there are family
49:40
Speaker 2: members out there who were a genetic match means that
49:44
Speaker 2: there could potentially be more and maybe with the genetic genealogy,
49:49
Speaker 2: they will be able to build out that family tree
49:52
Speaker 2: and they will be able to potentially find out who
49:55
Speaker 2: Hope truly is, give her identity back, and also see
49:59
Speaker 2: who were her pay parents and where were they from,
50:02
Speaker 2: and did they report her missing or is it likely
50:05
Speaker 2: that it was somebody in the family unit that did this.
50:08
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of questions to be answered here,
50:11
Speaker 2: and she is not by the typical standards of what
50:15
Speaker 2: people call a quote unquote valuable victim, but everybody has
50:19
Speaker 2: embraced her and everybody has made her the most valuable
50:23
Speaker 2: victim because little Hope matters. She was a little innocent child,
50:29
Speaker 2: and she didn't deserve what happened to her. No murder
50:32
Speaker 2: victim deserves what happened to her. But everyone has come
50:35
Speaker 2: to embrace her, be it the true crime community or
50:38
Speaker 2: Saint Louis. For them to just embrace her and to
50:41
Speaker 2: make her one of their own is such a bright
50:44
Speaker 2: spot here. And if one believes in the afterlife or
50:49
Speaker 2: anything like that, then we can hope that she's looking
50:51
Speaker 2: down and thinking.
50:53
Speaker 3: Wow, I mattered.
50:54
Speaker 2: Those people care and no one is going to stop
50:58
Speaker 2: until they find out who I am and who did
51:00
Speaker 2: this to me.
51:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, that does give comfort the idea that in the
51:04
Speaker 1: afterlife she's seeing people care for even if there was
51:06
Speaker 1: no one who cared for during the time period she
51:09
Speaker 1: was alive. So this would be a good time to
51:12
Speaker 1: bring an end to Part one. Join us next week
51:14
Speaker 1: as we present part two of our series about the
51:16
Speaker 1: Saint Louis. Jane Doe Robin, do you.
51:19
Speaker 3: Want to tell us a little bit about the Trail
51:21
Speaker 3: Went Cold Patreon?
51:23
Speaker 1: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
51:25
Speaker 1: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
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51:35
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51:45
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52:02
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52:12
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
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Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
52:18
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52:47
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Speaker 3: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy