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On July 11, 1995, a fisherman
found the dismembered body of woman described to have been between the
ages of 25 and 30 stuffed in a suitcase in a
remote area of Chester County, Pennsylvania, along the bank of the
Brandywine Creek. Inside the maroon suitcase, was a garment bag,
which contained a trash bag sealed with plastic packing tape. The
trash bag contained the woman’s head and torso
but did not contain her legs. An immediate alert went out in the area and 20 to 30 troopers were
assigned to search for the woman’s killer and her identity. But, no
one claimed to have known her.
Forensic experts described her to have been
between 4-foot-11 and 5-foot-4 and weighing between 125 and 140 pounds.
Believing that she was most likely to have been of European/Caucasian or
Hispanic descent, she had fair skin, with short brown hair and brown eyes.
At the time of her death she was wearing a
light blue denim shirt with thin blue vertical stripes and copper-colored
buttons. Discovered within three to seven days of her death, her
fingerprints did not yield a match, so she was obviously never arrested in
the United States.
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Computer Enhanced Photo of unidentified
woman, courtesy Pennsylvania State Police
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A little more than six months later, in late January of
1996, a hiker found two leg bones and
another green plastic trash bag containing items of clothing
in a remote area of Bucks County, a
site roughly 50 miles away. Although mutilation and
decomposition made it impossible to get a conclusive DNA match, other
evidence convinced investigators that both sets of remains were those
of the same woman - and that her legs had been amputated after death.
This new development
added new information for the investigators, but they were still
unable to find her identity or her killer.
In 1997, police commissioned Frank Bender,
a top forensic artist, to reconstruct a replica of the woman's head
from the facial bones found in the suitcase. The woman’s facial
bust was then broadcasted throughout the
local and national media, but still no avail.
Since
the body was found in 1995, the details of the case have been shown on
America's Most Wanted through two broadcasts: one in June of
2001 and one in March of 2002, dubbing the
case the "Pennsylvania Suitcase Jane Doe." Over the
years, there have been hundreds of tips - including the "vision" of a
psychic on The Montel Williams Show
All these years later, despite an
intensive and continuing investigation and the publicity, her identity
and her killer remain undiscovered.
If you have information about this
case, please contact the
Pennsylvania State Police
at 717-783-5524 or their website at
http://www.psp.state.pa.us/
or
Call
Pennsylvania Crime Stoppers Toll Free at
1-800-4PA-TIPS. Callers could be eligible for cash rewards up
to $ 1,000.00 and you may remain anonymous. Website:
http://www.pacrimestoppers.org/index.htm
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