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| KYF110815 August 15, 2011; Barren Co | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 30 2012, 09:45 PM (565 Views) | |
| PorchlightUSA | Aug 30 2012, 09:45 PM Post #1 |
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http://www.kcby.com/news/national/Police-f...-168021296.html Police find woman scalped, but other clues scant By BRETT BARROUQUERE, Associated Press Published: Aug 30, 2012 at 11:18 AM PDT Police find woman scalped, but other clues scant In an Aug. 15, 2011, photo, Kentucky State Police Lt. Shannon West inspects skeletal remains found near the Beaver Creek bridge on Louis B. Nunn Parkway in Barren County, Ky. LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Using the forensic science mimicked on television crime dramas, investigators in Kentucky revealed evidence of a gruesome crime: A woman shot to death and scalped, the only evidence the telltale markings on what remained of her skull. Detectives in a lab determined she was a tall woman, likely of Native American descent. And she was killed in modern times - her teeth showed evidence of fillings and other dental work far too advanced for this to be a pioneer-era killing. But that's where the trail runs cold. Kentucky State Police Detective Chad Winn isn't even sure where the woman is from or how she got to a remote area of Barren County, about 95 miles south of Louisville. He speculates she was dumped there. Such an unusual killing has authorities wondering if the woman was the victim of a hate crime, Winn said. Mexican drug cartels are also known for beheading and scalping people in turf wars south of the border, though that kind of brutality has yet to be seen in rural Kentucky. Without more evidence, those theories remain pure speculation. "I'm not saying there's no connection tying violence here to the cartels," said Jim Balcom, the Drug Enforcement Administration agent overseeing Kentucky, who is not involved in the investigation. "I'm just saying we can't do it at this point." The mystery began about a year ago when a group of students, searching the woods for a rare tree, found the top of a skull in a drainage ditch near the Cumberland Parkway about eight miles east of Interstate 65. Investigators then found bones scattered across a 100-foot area - Winn guessed that was because of animals and water runoff moving them. Since then, Winn and a team of investigators have been trying to identify the woman, where she came from and how she ended up on the side of a road. What little they do know was determined by forensic anthropologists who helped gather and examine the bones. The woman was unusually tall, standing at least 5 feet 9 inches and perhaps as tall as 6 feet 1 inch, said Dr. Emily Craig of Georgetown, Ky., who works with NamUs, the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Craig said enough bones were found to determine that the woman was of Native American descent, between 20 and 50 years old, and was killed and exposed to the elements sometime between 1999 and 2010. However, that doesn't necessarily mean the woman identified herself as Native American. And she may have been from outside of Kentucky, Winn said. The state has no federally recognized tribes, and only 0.3 percent of the population - about 12,000 of the state's 4 million residents - identify as Native American, according to U.S. Census figures. "There are features in the bones that have racial characteristics," Craig said. "We're pretty sure of her ancestry. How she self-identified, we don't know." The practice of cutting off someone's scalp dates back centuries and is known in the U.S. for its role in warfare between some Native American tribes and settlers. Modern scalping cases are rare in the U.S. but not unheard of: In 1997, a man was convicted of killing and scalping a mentally disabled friend in Massachusetts. And in 2005, a woman in Idaho was sentenced to 10 years in prison for scalping a teenage friend. The victim in that case survived. In this case, markings on the skull led to the determination that the woman was scalped. Craig wouldn't talk specifically about what led to the conclusion, but she said a team of anthropologists agreed on the result. And there was no doubt this was a modern killing because the woman had root canals and two alloy fillings in her teeth, Craig said. "Not everybody has that kind of dental work," she said. Details of the remains have been entered into NamUs, which compiles information about missing persons as well as unidentified remains. Kentucky - which is more aggressive about reporting cases than many other states - has 49 open unidentified remains cases in NamUs and 131 missing persons in the NamUs system. Nationally, there are about 8,600 sets of unidentified remains and missing persons in the system, said Todd Matthews of Livingston, Tenn., a spokesman for NamUs who has spent much of his life investigating cases of unidentified remains. So far, investigators have ruled out that the bones were those of a Michigan woman missing since 2004. Dental X-rays of the woman found in Kentucky are still being checked against records of missing persons. "Often you find out who someone is by eliminating who they are not," Matthews said. Investigators also have tapped the National Crime Information Computer; the FBI's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, known as VICAP; multiple tribal police departments; and the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. All those wells ran dry, Winn said. "We're at a dead end," he said. The remains have been sent to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification in Fort Worth. The center is a project of the National Institute of Justice, which helps law enforcement officials with missing persons and unidentified remains cases. Dixie Peters, the technical leader for the missing persons unit at the center, said technicians will try to pull DNA from any remains sent by law enforcement. Peters couldn't speak directly about the Kentucky case, but she said once a DNA profile is available, it will be compared to all other cases in the system. But getting a match requires a family member or friend to come forward with a sample to put in the database, Peters said. "The only way we're going to make a comparison is if we actually have something to compare it to," Peters said. How long such a search will take is "the million dollar question," Peters said. While the center has no backlog for testing in cases of unidentified remains, it could take up to three months to extract DNA and run the results through the various databases, Peters said. Winn, who works out of the state police Bowling Green post, is hoping someone remembers seeing or meeting the woman or that a relative comes forward. Winn is speaking in some detail about the case now, saying investigators have run out of leads and hoping that something about the woman or the circumstances brings in tips. A DNA match may be the only way to solve the mystery. "We're at a crossroads," Winn said. "We've had no luck." |
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| PorchlightUSA | Aug 30 2012, 09:45 PM Post #2 |
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https://identifyus.org/en/cases/full_report/9284 Exclusions The following people have been ruled out as being this decedent: First Name Last Name Year of Birth State LKA Yvonne Scott 1972 Michigan |
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| PorchlightUSA | Aug 30 2012, 09:45 PM Post #3 |
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Case number ME-11-914 Barren Cnty Coroners Ofc Phone 270-651-5122 Estimated age Adult - Pre 50 Minimum age 20 years Maximum age 50 years Race Native American Ethnicity Sex Female Weight (pounds) , Cannot Estimate Height (inches) 70, Estimated Not recognizable - Partial skeletal parts only Probable year of death 1999 to 2010 8 mile marker westbound Address 2 Louis B Nunn (Cumberland)Parkway City State Kentucky Zip code County Barren Circumstances of death Skeletal remains found alongside 4-lane highway. Although some found by the road, most had apparenly washed down along a concrete culvert into the woods. 13 has two different alloy fillings. broken retained roots in # 11 and #12 dentals dna available Location University of North Texas Describe location Reference # 11-2472.1-.2 Lab ORI TX220035Y Comments Complete mitochondrial DNA profile uploaded to NDIS. Partial (10/14) LOW COPY STR profile available for comparison at UNT. CL |
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| PorchlightUSA | Aug 30 2012, 09:46 PM Post #4 |
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http://z10.invisionfree.com/usedtobedoe/in...pic=71578&st=0& |
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| ELL | Sep 1 2012, 05:49 AM Post #5 |
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BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) - Human remains found about a year ago in Kentucky belonged to a woman of Native American descent who appears to have been scalped, state police said Tuesday. Detective Chad Winn told The Associated Press that the case is being investigated as a possible hate crime. Forensic examiners found markings on the skull consistent with a scalping, he said. By examining the structure of bones and teeth, investigators determined the woman was likely of Native American descent. College students searching an area of Barren County near the Cumberland Parkway for a rare tree stumbled across the remains in August 2011. A search by investigators turned up bones scattered in a culvert over a 100-foot area around mile marker 8. Winn said forensic examiners determined that the woman was about 6 feet tall, was between 20 and 50 years old, and had been killed by a shotgun blast between one and 15 years ago. Winn said it appears someone dumped the woman's body near where it was found. Winn said there's little evidence to help authorities identify the woman. "We're grasping at straws," Winn said. "We hit a dead end." http://www.noco5.com/story/19400348/ky-pol...who-was-scalped |
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| tatertot | Jan 29 2014, 11:04 AM Post #6 |
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http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/...old-case-153107 Scalped Mystery Woman Native, Police Seek Help in Cold Case Stephanie Woodard 1/17/14 “She’s someone’s daughter, mother, sister, auntie,” said Thomas Pearce, who is co-chair of the American Indian Movement of Indiana and Kentucky. The as-yet-unidentified woman he was speaking of was shot and scalped in rural Kentucky in 2011. Forensic science has determined she was Native American and tall, but not a lot more. “It was a hate crime,” said Guy Jones, who is Hunkpapa Lakota and co-founder of the Miami Valley Council for Native Americans, in Dayton, Ohio. “And the person who did it is still out there.” He said he hoped going to the media again would shake loose information the police can use to solve what they now consider a cold case. “When we read about the case in a local newspaper in 2011, we were shocked,” said Pearce, who has Ojibway ancestry. “What happened to her was ferocious and gruesome. We were also surprised by where she was found—a place where few Native people live. We wondered if she died elsewhere and was taken there.” Kentucky State Police Detective Chad Winn agreed. “She could have been killed anywhere, perhaps not even in Kentucky. We know very little about her or how she ended up in that area.” Winn was part of the team that investigated the site where the woman’s scattered bones were first spotted—by students searching for a rare tree, according to a 2012 Associated Press story. “She could have been a missing person, a runaway, the victim of someone she knew. We just don’t know. We have to get her identified. Then we can figure out what happened.” Winn encouraged anyone who can think of a loved one they haven’t heard from in awhile to contact him at his state police post (270-728-2010). The remains were found off the Cumberland Parkway and I-65 in Barren County, Kentucky, as many as 15 years ago. The woman’s bones had been scattered by animals and water runoff, so the police used forensics, including DNA testing, to determine that she was American Indian, between 5 feet 9 inches and 6 feet tall and between 20 and 50 years old, according to Winn. She had had a root canal and other modern dental work. Marks on her skull fragments showed she'd been scalped. The information that does exist about the woman was placed in numerous national missing persons and crime databases, including the FBI’s National Crime Information Center and Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and the Justice Department’s National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. “I also contacted the [Bureau of Indian Affairs],” Winn said. Nothing has come back. But then, without relatives to match her DNA to or a relevant missing persons report, the investigation is at a standstill. “We have no complaints about how the police handled this,” said Pearce. “We just want to help them.” Said Detective Winn: “Please assist us in identifying her and finding the person who did this.” |
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