Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two
Speaker 1: of our series about the murder of an unidentified girl
Speaker 1: known only as the Saint Louis Jane Doe. Robin, do
Speaker 1: you want to catch everyone up on what we talked
Speaker 1: about in our previous episode?
Speaker 2: Well, if you haven't heard, Ashley has to miss these
Speaker 2: series of episodes because she's busy, So I will be
Speaker 2: sharing all the details about the case with Jules and
Speaker 2: she will be giving off her reaction. The Saint Louis
Speaker 2: Jane Doe is one of the more infamous unidentified decedents
Speaker 2: who has yet to get their name back because of
Speaker 2: the horrific nature of this crime. She was an African
Speaker 2: American girl who was found inside an abandoned building in
Speaker 2: Saint Louis in nineteen eighty three February of nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 2: and what was particularly horrific about it is that she
Speaker 2: had been beheaded and an extensive search failed to turn
Speaker 2: up her head. So they've never been able to make
Speaker 2: a composite sketch or a facial reconstruction to show what
Speaker 2: she might have looked like. She even sexually abused. The
Speaker 2: only thing that she was wearing was a yellow sweater,
Speaker 2: and try as they might, they were unable to determine
Speaker 2: her identity, but they suspected that she was not murdered
Speaker 2: in that building and may have been from another location
Speaker 2: outside Saint Louis before the killer beheaded her and disposed
Speaker 2: of her body. At that location. She was buried under
Speaker 2: the name Precious Hope, which is how we're going to
Speaker 2: be referring to here. We looked at a number of
Speaker 2: different leads. They looked at a child murderer named Vernon Brown,
Speaker 2: who killed at least three people and was living in
Speaker 2: Saint Louis around the time period that Hope was murdered,
Speaker 2: but they never found any evidence to link him to
Speaker 2: the crime. There was a frustrating incident where they enlisted
Speaker 2: the help of a police psychic named Noreen Rainier, and
Speaker 2: the police decided to mail her some of the key
Speaker 2: pieces of evidence, like the sweater and the nylon rope
Speaker 2: which was used to bind Hope, but after a year
Speaker 2: sent it back, it somehow went missing, so this evidence
Speaker 2: has not been found, even though it can contain potential
Speaker 2: DNA evidence on there. They were able to extract new
Speaker 2: samples of her DNA and they did some stable ipotope
Speaker 2: analysis to determine that she likely was not from Missouri
Speaker 2: or Illinois and listed a whole bunch of different states
Speaker 2: that were alternate candidates. And they have entered her DNA
Speaker 2: into the genealogical database get match and found some matches
Speaker 2: from some individuals were born about one hundred years ago.
Speaker 2: And the genetic genealogist C. C. Moore actually spoke with
Speaker 2: descendants of these two people who were the DNA match,
Speaker 2: but they decided not to cooperate and instead elected to
Speaker 2: remove the relatives DNA from geed match. So it's still
Speaker 2: up for debate whether these people might know some thing
Speaker 2: about Hope's true identity or if they were just paranoid
Speaker 2: about having their DNA being looked at by law enforcement.
Speaker 2: But as at the time of this recording, there was
Speaker 2: still an effort underway to try to figure out Hope's
Speaker 2: identity as well as figure out who killed her, and
Speaker 2: it sounds like it's going to be a long and
Speaker 2: arduous process, but they're still working at it and I'm
Speaker 2: hoping that one day we will finally figure out who
Speaker 2: she was. So right from the outset, it was suspected
Speaker 2: that Hope had been killed by a family member or
Speaker 2: caregiver rather than some random murderer. It seems likely that
Speaker 2: the perpetrator went to the trouble of removing her head
Speaker 2: to prevent identification via dental records, though they obviously wouldn't
Speaker 2: have been thinking of DNA or genetic genealogy back in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three. In the majority of cases involving deceased
Speaker 2: children who cannot be identified, facial reconstruction is used to
Speaker 2: create a composite sketch of what the victim may have
Speaker 2: looked like. But you're not going to find that on
Speaker 2: Hope's profile pages at websites such as the Dough Network
Speaker 2: or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Instead,
Speaker 2: all they showcase our photographs of Hope's yellow sweater, as
Speaker 2: well as the red and white nylon rope which was
Speaker 2: used to bind her, and the situation is all the
Speaker 2: more sad when you know that those items have since
Speaker 2: gone missing. In the Our Precious Hope Revisited documentary, the
Speaker 2: police confirmed that they were working with Paarabond nano Labs
Speaker 2: in hopes of using DNA phenotyping to create an image
Speaker 2: of what Hope might have looked like, but apparently they
Speaker 2: cannot guarantee that this process will create reliable composites for
Speaker 2: victims under the age of fourteen. I know that investigators
Speaker 2: cross checked Hope with a number of missing children's reports
Speaker 2: involving African American girls, and one of the most promising
Speaker 2: candidates was a twelve year old girl named Sharon Cole,
Speaker 2: who vanished outside her family's residence in Manhattan. Not only
Speaker 2: did Sharon go missing on February to twenty fifth, nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three, three days before Hope's body was found, but
Speaker 2: she was also last seen wearing a gold sweater. However,
Speaker 2: if you search online, Ron is on a list of
Speaker 2: missing children who have been ruled out as being Hope,
Speaker 2: so I'm assuming they've already done a DNA comparison with her.
Speaker 1: If she was twelve years old and went missing, then
Speaker 1: she must have been an extremely small twelve year old,
Speaker 1: because experts had thought that Hope was between the ages
Speaker 1: of eight and eleven, so being one year outside of
Speaker 1: that would make me think that she would likely be
Speaker 1: quite a bit taller and maybe potentially larger than what
Speaker 1: Little Hope would have been. But they obviously got their
Speaker 1: answer if they ruled her out there would have been
Speaker 1: a reason that they ruled her out. I would hope
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be like the pubic care where they're just like, no,
Speaker 1: this has nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think that they've covered all their bases
Speaker 2: as far as looking at promising candidates who can be Hope.
Speaker 2: I know that in a lot of these cases involving
Speaker 2: John or Jane does online sluice will try to connect
Speaker 2: the victim with profile pages they find for missing people,
Speaker 2: But more often than not, it turns out when these
Speaker 2: victims are identified that they were never officially reported missing.
Speaker 2: They're not listed on any of the missing person's websites,
Speaker 2: and there's usually no information available about them anywhere on
Speaker 2: the internet because there was never an official investigation. So
Speaker 2: I'm willing to wager that whoever Hope was, she's not
Speaker 2: out there on any missing person's websites, and it's probably
Speaker 2: someone we've never heard of before.
Speaker 1: It's wild to think of a little girl between the
Speaker 1: ages of eight and eleven being you know, she would
Speaker 1: be in school. One would hope, right, One would hope
Speaker 1: that like she isn't being kept in a home and
Speaker 1: like abused or homeschooled, and so she doesn't have interactions
Speaker 1: with the outside world. But when a child vanishes, one
Speaker 1: typically as neighbors, other family members, you know, school officials, friends,
Speaker 1: people around them would ask those questions. So you've got
Speaker 1: to wonder about what type of environment that little Hope
Speaker 1: was growing up in or was in if nobody reported
Speaker 1: her missing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we talked about on our last episode when we
Speaker 2: made comparisons to the boy in the box who has
Speaker 2: been identified as Joseph Augustus Sorelli, and they're still trying
Speaker 2: to piece together as background. But I have a feeling
Speaker 2: he was like a shut in who never went to school,
Speaker 2: never spent a lot of time interacting with friends or neighbors.
Speaker 2: So nobody missed him when he was gone because maybe
Speaker 2: people did not even know he existed. And they did
Speaker 2: check school records for Hope in Missouri and did not
Speaker 2: find any candidates who seemed like lightly matches to her.
Speaker 2: So she did go to school. I'm willing to bet
Speaker 2: it was in another far away state, and back in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three in the pre internet world, they probably
Speaker 2: maybe if she went missing, just assumed she moved or
Speaker 2: something and did not suspect that she would have been
Speaker 2: a murdered child found in Saint Louis.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: At the time Hope was discovered, the FBI considered the
Speaker 2: decapitation of such a young victim to be unprecedented, but
Speaker 2: another crime of this nature would take place eighteen years later.
Speaker 2: On April the twenty eighth, two thousand and one, the
Speaker 2: decapitated nude body of an African American girl was discovered
Speaker 2: in a wooded area near a park in Kansas City, Missouri,
Speaker 2: and three days later, her head was found nearby and
Speaker 2: was wrapped in a trash bag. Since she could not
Speaker 2: be identified, she was given the nickname Precious Dough, and
Speaker 2: of course, given the similarities between the two crimes and
Speaker 2: the fact that they both took place in Missouri, it
Speaker 2: was speculated that there might be a connection to Precious
Speaker 2: Hope's murder. Well, four years later, Precious Dough was positively
Speaker 2: identified as four year old Erica Green, and her mother,
Speaker 2: Michelle Johnson, and stepfather Heral Johnson were subsequently charged and
Speaker 2: convicted of her murder. After severely beating Erica, Harel used
Speaker 2: a pair of hedge clippers to sever her head from
Speaker 2: her body, and Michelle helped cover up the crime as
Speaker 2: she removed Erica's body from the residence in a stroller
Speaker 2: to give off the false impression that she was sleeping.
Speaker 2: The Johnsons were ruled out as having any involvement in
Speaker 2: Hope's murder, but the whole case demonstrated the people are
Speaker 2: capable of doing unimaginable things to their own children. It's
Speaker 2: possible that a similar situation occurred with Hope, as she
Speaker 2: may have been murdered by an abusive stepfather or boyfriend
Speaker 2: and her mother helped cover the whole thing up, which
Speaker 2: is why she was never reported missing. This is a
Speaker 2: scenario which was presented when Vernon Brown became a potential suspect,
Speaker 2: but we'll get back to him later. A few years ago,
Speaker 2: stable isotope analysis was performed on Hope's bones in an
Speaker 2: attempt to figure out where she was from, and while
Speaker 2: no less than seventeen states were listed as potential candidates,
Speaker 2: the one consistent conclusion from these tests is that she
Speaker 2: likely did not hail from Saint Louis or the state
Speaker 2: of Missouri. If Hope was not from the area, this
Speaker 2: would definitely go a long way towards explaining why no
Speaker 2: one was able to figure out her identity.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I just don't feel like we could
Speaker 1: rule out that she is from the area because some
Speaker 1: of the states were so close by, and she could
Speaker 1: have been a recent transplant to Missouri and they wouldn't
Speaker 1: have likely been able to tell that from the testing.
Speaker 1: If it was just the last six months or year
Speaker 1: of her life, they would have known where she grew up.
Speaker 1: And like the foundation of that, I would think not
Speaker 1: maybe the last few months, but it is possible if
Speaker 1: somebody drove across state lines in order to dispose of
Speaker 1: a body. There's just a lot of possibilities here. I
Speaker 1: just don't think that we can discount it likely say
Speaker 1: that she wasn't born there, But to say that she
Speaker 1: didn't live there is difficult because there is a lot
Speaker 1: of scenarios where she may have been from there, like
Speaker 1: the Boy in the box. If the parents were abusive
Speaker 1: and they kept her inside and she wasn't allowed to
Speaker 1: interact with other people, then people may not even know
Speaker 1: that she was there.
Speaker 2: That definitely would make sense. And unlike the boy in
Speaker 2: the box whose face was plastered everywhere, no one knows
Speaker 2: what Hope looked like, so someone could have seen her
Speaker 2: and just not put two and two together. But as
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about, I think there's a decent
Speaker 2: chance that whoever left her body there was familiar enough
Speaker 2: with the neighborhood where it was found, because they knew
Speaker 2: to find this dilapidated apartment building. So it could be
Speaker 2: a scenario where she wasn't born born in Missouri, but
Speaker 2: she was born elsewhere to a mother who was single,
Speaker 2: and maybe she found a boyfriend or something in Saint
Speaker 2: Louis and they moved there a short time before she
Speaker 2: was murdered, and this man turned out to be abusive
Speaker 2: and wound up killing her, And for whatever reason, Hope's
Speaker 2: mother is just too scared to come forward and has
Speaker 2: remained silent all this time, And just because she only
Speaker 2: lived in Saint Louis for a brief period of time
Speaker 2: that they can't pick that up on the stable isotope
Speaker 2: analysis because she was originally born.
Speaker 1: Elsewhere, and even that fact that like, okay, well, this
Speaker 1: person was likely familiar with the area, I think that
Speaker 1: the probability is high that yes, that is true. But
Speaker 1: I also think that there's a possibility that that person
Speaker 1: could have approached somebody in this very economically depressed area,
Speaker 1: like maybe not outside this building and said, hey, I
Speaker 1: need you to list off locations of empty buildings, of
Speaker 1: buildings that are dilapidated here. I'll give you fifty bucks.
Speaker 1: And I bet you there's plenty of people on that
Speaker 1: street who would go, oh, yeah, like there is building
Speaker 1: a building B, building C, building D, and give them
Speaker 1: the geographical locations and collect their fifty bucks. And no
Speaker 1: one's ever going to know that that happened or that
Speaker 1: it was attached to this case exactly.
Speaker 2: And even if that person heard about that a body
Speaker 2: was founded there, I don't think living in that environment,
Speaker 2: they're going to come forward and say, by the way,
Speaker 2: some guy paybe fifty bucks to recommend a building to
Speaker 2: dispose of a body. They're going to stay silent about that.
Speaker 2: And while we're on the topic of similar crimes, there
Speaker 2: was a promising lead on December the twenty sixth, nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three, when hunters discovered the skull and postcranial skeleton
Speaker 2: of an African American girl in the woods behind a
Speaker 2: rest area alongside Interstate ninety five in Northampton County, North Carolina.
Speaker 2: While the victim's cause of death cannot be established, she
Speaker 2: did have signs of trauma to her face to indicate
Speaker 2: possible abuse. There was initial speculation that the skull may
Speaker 2: have been Precious Hopes missing head, but this possibility was
Speaker 2: ruled out. The Northampton County Jane Doe was an entirely
Speaker 2: different victim, and to this day she remains unidentified. Well,
Speaker 2: there's nothing to conclusively prove that the two cases are connected.
Speaker 2: I do find it interesting that North Carolina was listed
Speaker 2: as one of the possible states where Hope had lived, so,
Speaker 2: for all we know, perhaps Hope's murderer was also responsible
Speaker 2: for the death of the Northampton County Jane Doe, though
Speaker 2: that's all just speculation. Even if Hope did not live
Speaker 2: in Saint Louis, there is evidence to suggest that her
Speaker 2: killer was familiar with the area. The abandoned apartment building
Speaker 2: where her body was dumped does not seem to be
Speaker 2: one of those locations which you will find by pure chance.
Speaker 2: Before the Are Precious Hope Revisited documentary was released, many
Speaker 2: people were under the impression that the entire neighborhood was
Speaker 2: a dilapidated area which was filled with vacant buildings, but
Speaker 2: it turns out that it was actually a pretty busy
Speaker 2: and active location with a number of residents living there
Speaker 2: at that time, so I'm not sure if the perpetrator
Speaker 2: would have gone there looking for a place to dispose
Speaker 2: of a body unless they already knew that the building
Speaker 2: at fifty six thirty five Clemens Avenue would be abandoned.
Speaker 2: Since the front entrance was completely boarded up, there's a
Speaker 2: good chance they were aware that they could still enter
Speaker 2: the building's basement through the back entrance. Given how dark
Speaker 2: this basement was, they probably figured it would be a
Speaker 2: long time before Hope's body would be found, if it
Speaker 2: was even found at all, and it may have been
Speaker 2: just pure luck that two teens decided to enter that
Speaker 2: basement and light up a cigarette only a few days
Speaker 2: after Hope was left there. During that time period, it
Speaker 2: was not uncommon for the janitors who worked at these
Speaker 2: apartment buildings to live in the basements, but investigators apparently
Speaker 2: explored that angle and did not find any records of
Speaker 2: former janitors from that particular building who stood out as
Speaker 2: potential suspects.
Speaker 1: It was so lucky that those boys decided to go
Speaker 1: in there and that they found Little Hope's body, because
Speaker 1: otherwise she could have been there forever until that building.
Speaker 1: That building could have been torn down and nobody would
Speaker 1: have ever known she was there. If you're taking down
Speaker 1: a building or rebuilding, a body of a child could
Speaker 1: easily get lost in the shuffle, especially if she decomposed
Speaker 1: fully and is simply just bones at that time. So
Speaker 1: it's scary to think of the thought that they don't
Speaker 1: come in and she just languishes there in this purgatory
Speaker 1: of sorts where nobody knows where she is, or like
Speaker 1: authorities can't find her, nobody's looking for her. It doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like any families put on any missing person's flyers
Speaker 1: or anything like that. So this little girl would just
Speaker 1: be lost to time. But instead she was discovered. So
Speaker 1: I think there's a miracle there.
Speaker 2: It's true, yeah, because this has become one of the
Speaker 2: more famous cases involving unidentified decendents of the past forty years.
Speaker 2: But those teens don't find her and the building is
Speaker 2: torn down, then she is just completely lost to history.
Speaker 2: And I think there's a good chance they miss finding
Speaker 2: her body. I know that in our last episode, we
Speaker 2: made a comparison to that season of The Wire where
Speaker 2: a lot of murder victims are hid into appetated buildings
Speaker 2: because they think no one's going to look for them there,
Speaker 2: And it makes you wonder how often that does happen
Speaker 2: where victims are just put in these abandoned places where
Speaker 2: no one's going to be searching, and maybe some of
Speaker 2: the time they're never found at all. So, getting back
Speaker 2: to our precious Hope revisited, I previously mentioned that the
Speaker 2: documentary shared a lot of new details I didn't know
Speaker 2: before and clarified some misinformation which is spread about the
Speaker 2: case over the years. One false detail which has often
Speaker 2: been shared over the Internet is that Hope had spineapifita oculta,
Speaker 2: which is caused when a gap forms between the vertebrae
Speaker 2: and one spinal cord. This would definitely be an important
Speaker 2: detail to help match Hope to any missing children out there,
Speaker 2: but according to the filmmakers, there is no mention of
Speaker 2: spina biffita oculta in the original autopsy report or any
Speaker 2: documentation related to the case, so they have no idea
Speaker 2: how this false rumor got started in the first place.
Speaker 2: The filmmakers arranged for doctor Joy Carter and independent forensic
Speaker 2: pathology consultant to perform an analysis of Hope's autopsy, and
Speaker 2: she also confirmed some details. It was obviously difficult to
Speaker 2: estimate Hope's exact height since her head was missing, but
Speaker 2: she's always been listed as being between approximately four foot
Speaker 2: ten and five foot four. Five foot four seems pretty
Speaker 2: tall for a girl believed to be between eight and
Speaker 2: eleven years old, but doctor Carter pointed out that it
Speaker 2: wasn't clear if Hope's height was measured from her heel
Speaker 2: or her toes. Measuring from the heel is generally considered
Speaker 2: to be the most accurate method, and if it had
Speaker 2: been done this way, Hope's maximum height would have been
Speaker 2: listed as five feet rather than five foot four, and
Speaker 2: five feet is an average height for some on her age.
Speaker 2: One detail which has been the source of some confusion
Speaker 2: was the discovery of a Caucasian male pubic hair on
Speaker 2: Hope's right thigh, as is unclear whether it actually belonged
Speaker 2: to her killer. If you search online discussions about this case,
Speaker 2: you'll often find WTF reactions to the suggestion that the
Speaker 2: pubic hare may belong to a police office, and Jeweles
Speaker 2: gave one of them as we were recording this and
Speaker 2: mentioned it in Part one, but that doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 2: that a cop removed his pants at the crime scene.
Speaker 2: There are a number of innocent explanations for how a
Speaker 2: pubic hair could have wound up there. For example, if
Speaker 2: a police officer went to the bathroom shortly before he
Speaker 2: arrived at the scene, one of the hairs could have
Speaker 2: transferred to the exterior of his pants before it subsequently
Speaker 2: fell off on the Hope's body. Another potential explanation is
Speaker 2: that the city of Saint Louis apparently reused body bags
Speaker 2: back then, so it's possible that the pubic hair may
Speaker 2: have belonged to a previous occupant of the body bag
Speaker 2: used to transport Hope. Whatever the case, hairs can transfer
Speaker 2: around for a number of different reasons, and since there
Speaker 2: wasn't any usable DNA on the hair to begin with,
Speaker 2: it's not like it's ever going to be used as
Speaker 2: evidence to identify the killer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's obvious that they're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to tie it to the killer if they
Speaker 1: don't have the DNA on that hair. I don't think
Speaker 1: that they can say if they got there innocently or not,
Speaker 1: because they just don't have that information. And we went
Speaker 1: over that in Part one. I think it's a little
Speaker 1: bit weird that they're dismissing it as being tied to
Speaker 1: the case, when truly they just don't know one way
Speaker 1: or the other. But yet they seem to dismiss the evidence,
Speaker 1: and I really want to know why.
Speaker 2: And we've actually seen in recent years where evidence that
Speaker 2: was previously had no traces of DNA on it has
Speaker 2: been given new, more advanced testing at more advanced labs,
Speaker 2: and they've been able to get DNA samples that weren't
Speaker 2: there before and used it to identify people or solve cases.
Speaker 2: So you never know if it might happen in this case.
Speaker 2: If they decided to do more advanced testing on this pubicare,
Speaker 2: maybe they will get a DNA and find out that
Speaker 2: it actually matches a convicted murderer and not a police officer.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would like to know the last date that they
Speaker 1: tested this pubicare for DNA, because if it was twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, or if it was back in the late
Speaker 1: eighties when DNA was first coming to the forefront, it
Speaker 1: would really matter because the technology has improved moved so
Speaker 1: much since then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've actually seen a couple of cold cases
Speaker 2: in recent years get solved because of that. Of course,
Speaker 2: one of the most interesting portions of the documentary was
Speaker 2: getting some clarification on the circumstances of how Hope's sweater
Speaker 2: and the nylon rope used to bind her hands when missing.
Speaker 2: If you go on redditch or any message boards and
Speaker 2: find threads under such titles as what are the all
Speaker 2: time worse mistakes in a police investigation, the slmpd's decision
Speaker 2: to mail these items to a psychic will frequently get mentioned.
Speaker 2: I mean, so many people are skeptical about psychics to
Speaker 2: begin with, and question the value of the police using
Speaker 2: them in investigations, but the idea of mailing key pieces
Speaker 2: of evidence to a psychic that's living in another state
Speaker 2: is pretty mind boggling. This particular psychic, Mariene Vernier, has
Speaker 2: always proclaimed herself to be a psychic detective who has
Speaker 2: assisted with hundreds of police investigations and unsolved mysteries. Actually
Speaker 2: produced a segment about her not too long after she
Speaker 2: appeared on the Sightings episode about Precious Hope. You can
Speaker 2: actually watch this Sighting's episode on YouTube, and it chows
Speaker 2: Rainier having so called psychic visions from touching the sweater
Speaker 2: and the rope. The whole thing comes across as pretty
Speaker 2: silly as Rainier. A middle aged woman starts talking like
Speaker 2: a little girl after Hope's spirit supposedly enters her body.
Speaker 2: I find it telling that even though there is a
Speaker 2: ton of information available about this case, almost none of
Speaker 2: it discusses the so called leads that Rainier provided, such
Speaker 2: as Hope's killer being a teacher who is dishonorably discharged
Speaker 2: from the military. Based on the description Rainier provided, A
Speaker 2: composite sketch of this man was created during the Sightings episode,
Speaker 2: and he appears to be an African American male with
Speaker 2: a mustache. However, I cannot find this composite sketch anywhere
Speaker 2: when I research online, which gives me the impression that
Speaker 2: investigators do not consider any of Varnier's information to be
Speaker 2: biable leads. But no matter what you think of Vernier,
Speaker 2: if our precious Hope Revisited is accurate, then it is
Speaker 2: not her fault that the sweater and the rope went missing,
Speaker 2: as the SLMPD apparently lost the items after she returned them.
Speaker 2: When the filmmakers interviewed Sergeant Brian McGlynn and asked him
Speaker 2: to provide the receipt which proved that the items arrived
Speaker 2: at the police station. He seemed reluctant to do so,
Speaker 2: possibly to avoid implicating the officer who was responsible for
Speaker 2: losing them. I mean, regardless of whether the items were
Speaker 2: lost by Rainier or the police department, the whole situation
Speaker 2: does not reflect well on them. But at least some
Speaker 2: additional context and clarification were provided to explain how something
Speaker 2: like this could have happened to begin with. If the
Speaker 2: items were returned, it would not surprise me at all
Speaker 2: if they were misfiled and are currently sitting in an
Speaker 2: evidence room somewhere inside the wrong box. I don't get
Speaker 2: the impression that any traces of the killer's DNA were
Speaker 2: found on the evidence, but these items went missing in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, and forensics have advanced so much since then,
Speaker 2: so it's possible that new DNA testing could turn up
Speaker 2: something if the sweater or the rope are ever found.
Speaker 1: Such a major oversight in this case, and we can't
Speaker 1: emphasize that enough. The fact that they mailed this evidence
Speaker 1: to Rainier, Okay, like that was clearly something that was
Speaker 1: like a nineteen eighties type of a thing to do
Speaker 1: with a crime to mail it to a psychic for
Speaker 1: some type of program sightings. I get that everything had
Speaker 1: that like paranormal twist with the entertainment of it all,
Speaker 1: but to then blame Rainier when she clearly, it seems,
Speaker 1: if we're to trust the documentary, did send these items back.
Speaker 1: And I think you're right. I think it's possible that
Speaker 1: those items could be sitting in some evidence room somewhere
Speaker 1: and they're improperly filed, or they're filed under something else.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a possibility that they were just lost
Speaker 1: or destroyed, but I think there's definitely a possibility that
Speaker 1: somewhere those items are just waiting to be discovered and
Speaker 1: tied back to this case.
Speaker 2: It would be a nice lucky break if someone is
Speaker 2: searching for evidence from another case and opens the box
Speaker 2: and says, hey, what's the sweater in this rope doing,
Speaker 2: and then by pure chance, they find the missing evidence
Speaker 2: from this case. But I would like that to happen,
Speaker 2: considering that it could hold the key to identifying hope,
Speaker 2: and considering that a miracle almost occurred when the two
Speaker 2: teens founder in that abandoned building, I can kind of
Speaker 2: hold out hope that something like this might happen here.
Speaker 1: I'll be very interested if in time they do solve
Speaker 1: the case, or if Hope gets her identity back to
Speaker 1: see if the composite sketch that Rainier had done with
Speaker 1: the African American male with the mustache and him being
Speaker 1: ex and military would line up with any of her
Speaker 1: family members.
Speaker 2: That is true. I mean, like I said, I've only
Speaker 2: seen it on the Sightings episode. I have not seen
Speaker 2: the composite sketch anywhere onlines, which makes me think that
Speaker 2: law enforcement doesn't put much stock into it. And if
Speaker 2: you watch any of Mariene Rainier's like so called touch
Speaker 2: thing where she's touching items and the spirit of the
Speaker 2: victim is going inside of her, it is pretty silly
Speaker 2: and unintentionally funny. So I don't put much stock into it.
Speaker 2: But if she turns out to be right, that would
Speaker 2: be great.
Speaker 1: Well. I think it's pretty hard to take serious an
Speaker 1: adult woman who's then taking on the persona of a
Speaker 1: little girl and starts talking in that little girl's voice
Speaker 1: like it's a very serious matter. But it's hard not
Speaker 1: to find something like that slightly humorous.
Speaker 2: It is, Yes, it's kind of pretty much a product
Speaker 2: of its time, because those type of things were on
Speaker 2: TV all the time during the nineteen nineties, but in
Speaker 2: today's day and age, they do not pass muster. So
Speaker 2: one curious detail about the sweater is is that it
Speaker 2: appeared to be brand new and it had its tag removed.
Speaker 2: You might assume that the perpetrator went to the trouble
Speaker 2: of removing the tag in order to make it more
Speaker 2: difficult to trace where it was purchased. But why bother
Speaker 2: leaving the sweater on Hope's body to begin with, especially
Speaker 2: since she was not wearing any other clothing. During the documentary,
Speaker 2: the director managed to find a sweater that was pretty
Speaker 2: much identical to the one that Hope wore and confirmed
Speaker 2: that it was being sold in stores in Saint Louis
Speaker 2: back in nineteen eighty three. Of course, that doesn't prove
Speaker 2: the sweater was originally purchased in Saint Louis, but it
Speaker 2: should that it's a possibility. In spite of the brutal
Speaker 2: nature of Hope's murder and the fact that she was
Speaker 2: sexually assaulted, she appeared to have been fairly well cared
Speaker 2: for prior to her death, and there ren signs that
Speaker 2: she was the victim of long term abuse, So if
Speaker 2: she was murdered by a parent or a caregiver, how
Speaker 2: did things reach the point where they decided to do
Speaker 2: this to her. There is no shortage of potential theories,
Speaker 2: such as Hope being a victim of human trafficking. If
Speaker 2: she was given away or sold by her family to
Speaker 2: the person who eventually killed her, that would explain why
Speaker 2: no one has ever come forward to identify her. But
Speaker 2: a couple of deceased serial killers have also been looked
Speaker 2: at as potential suspects. One of the most tomulant cells
Speaker 2: who was executed in Texas in April of twenty fourteen
Speaker 2: for the murder of a thirteen year old girl, but
Speaker 2: the authorities believe he was responsible for killing at least
Speaker 2: twenty two people during his lifetime. Sales committed murders in
Speaker 2: a number of different states, and while he was never
Speaker 2: officially charged with the following crime, he was suspected to
Speaker 2: be responsible for the murders of a woman named Colleen
Speaker 2: Gill and her four year old daughter, Tiffany Gil, who
Speaker 2: are both beaten to death with a blunt object inside
Speaker 2: their home in Saint Louis on July the thirty first
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three. The Gill residence was only a few
Speaker 2: blocks away from the apartment building where Hope's body was found,
Speaker 2: and given the timeframe, investigators looked at Seals as a
Speaker 2: potential suspect in or murder as well. He was interviewed
Speaker 2: by detectives on death Row, but they were ultimately inclined
Speaker 2: to believe that he wasn't involved in Hope's death.
Speaker 1: I mean, those were people close to him, and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't appear as though Hope would have been somebody who
Speaker 1: was close or a relative, because she wasn't reported missing
Speaker 1: by anybody else. So I think there are some differences
Speaker 1: there with the victimology when you've got victims who are
Speaker 1: close to you, rather than him just predating on some
Speaker 1: girl and grabbing her off the street, if that's what
Speaker 1: we're to believe that happened. I think it's an interesting
Speaker 1: thing about the sweater. I don't know necessarily think that,
Speaker 1: like you cut off a tag because you don't want
Speaker 1: that person to be identified. I think in life it's
Speaker 1: very possible that you could have had just sensitivity issues,
Speaker 1: like I have sensitivity issues. If there's like a scratchy
Speaker 1: tag or things that like, aren't the right fabric? It
Speaker 1: will drive me crazy. And I know that is common
Speaker 1: with certain people with sensory processing disorders or autism spectrum disorder,
Speaker 1: or it can be something that just anybody can deal with,
Speaker 1: Right if you've got sensitive skin, you don't like it's
Speaker 1: itchy tag. I get that, And I think, yeah, we
Speaker 1: could think it's like any of those cases where we
Speaker 1: think there's a spy, right, like the Summerton man or
Speaker 1: what they saw a woman, and we then go like,
Speaker 1: there's no tags on their clothes, they must be a spy.
Speaker 1: But I think there's just a likelihood that, like, maybe
Speaker 1: this person didn't enjoy the feeling of scratchy fabric against
Speaker 1: their skin.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I always seen that on online discussions about unidentified
Speaker 2: deceiteds who don't have tags in their clothing. And obviously
Speaker 2: the Summerton man is the most famous example of this,
Speaker 2: and he was also identified in twenty twenty two, and
Speaker 2: it turns out he's just a regular guy who seemed
Speaker 2: to have some mental health issues, but nothing in his
Speaker 2: background to suggest he was a spy. But a lot
Speaker 2: of people in these online discussions say the same thing
Speaker 2: as you, saying that when I buy new clothing. I
Speaker 2: always removed the tags because I just find it uncomfortable
Speaker 2: and itchy. So if I was found dead in a
Speaker 2: public place somewhere, I can only imagine what people would
Speaker 2: speculate about my background. But in actuality, most of the time,
Speaker 2: there's nothing unusual about it at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can see how if you're not somebody who's
Speaker 1: affected by that, how you could look at an individual
Speaker 1: having no tags and think that's like atypical or weird
Speaker 1: in some type of a way. But when you have
Speaker 1: the perspective of being somebody who does that, it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I think there's a myriad of reasons that that could
Speaker 1: happen to a little girl's clothing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like Hope could have just been bought it for
Speaker 2: Christmas or something and just found the tag to be uncomfortable,
Speaker 2: so her parents removed it, And that's there's nothing more
Speaker 2: nefarious than that. That's just the most logical explanation. So
Speaker 2: that now brings us to child murderer Vernon Brown, who
Speaker 2: was definitely a vile individual, and it's not hard to
Speaker 2: believe he would be capable of something like this. Officially,
Speaker 2: Brown has been linked to three murders two of them
Speaker 2: involving victims who are around Hope's age, and much like Hope,
Speaker 2: they were strangled to death. When Brown was charged with
Speaker 2: murder in nineteen eighty six, he was living only a
Speaker 2: few miles away from the building where Hope was discovered.
Speaker 2: But one thing which isn't entirely clear to me are
Speaker 2: Brown's whereabouts in February of nineteen eighty three. We know
Speaker 2: that he moved to Saint Louis and changed his name
Speaker 2: after a wart was issued for his arrest in Indianapolis,
Speaker 2: but I don't know when exactly this took place. It
Speaker 2: was theorized that Hope could have been the daughter of
Speaker 2: one of Brown's girlfriends, and he frightened this woman into
Speaker 2: staying silent after he killed her. We know that Brown
Speaker 2: was living with Kathy Moore and her three sons when
Speaker 2: he murdered Janet Perkins, but I'm not sure if they
Speaker 2: were together in nineteen eighty three. I suppose one of
Speaker 2: the things which might make me suspect Brown is that
Speaker 2: when he was questioned about Hope's murder prior to his
Speaker 2: exit acution, he never actually denied it. He only replied, quote,
Speaker 2: I've got nothing to say to you. But even when
Speaker 2: they reach the point where they have nothing left to lose,
Speaker 2: it is par for the course for condemned murderers to
Speaker 2: be untruthful about their involvement or non involvement in other
Speaker 2: unsolved crimes because they still love to keep using the
Speaker 2: opportunity to toy with people. I would certainly like to
Speaker 2: believe that Brown was Hope's killer, because justice was served
Speaker 2: with him and he is no longer around to harm
Speaker 2: anyone else. However, I should note that our precious Hope
Speaker 2: Revisited does not make any mention of Vernon Brown at all,
Speaker 2: which makes me wonder if investigators no longer consider him
Speaker 2: to be a promising suspect, or if he's been ruled
Speaker 2: out altogether. One reason I'm inclined to believe that Brown
Speaker 2: is not the perpetrator is because of the circumstances of
Speaker 2: how he murdered Janet Perkins. He really did not make
Speaker 2: much effort to conceal that particular crime at all, as
Speaker 2: he simply placed her body in two trash bags and
Speaker 2: tossed her in a dumpster in the alley behind his residence,
Speaker 2: so it really didn't take much for police to solve
Speaker 2: the case. And make an arrest after she was found.
Speaker 2: Compare that to the circumstances of how Hope was murdered
Speaker 2: as the killer went to the trouble of removing her
Speaker 2: head for vent identification and carrying her body into the
Speaker 2: basement of an abandoned building. I just can't reconcile Brown
Speaker 2: going to the trouble of doing all that and then
Speaker 2: being so lazy when covering up the murder of another
Speaker 2: girl three years later. So unless conclusive evidence ever surfaces
Speaker 2: to link Brown to Hope's case, I'm inclined to believe
Speaker 2: he was not or killer.
Speaker 1: I agree, and I think it's interesting with the decapitation.
Speaker 1: It could either be one of two things. I think
Speaker 1: the most likely explanation in most cases is they're trying
Speaker 1: to obscure an identification, but it also could be some
Speaker 1: perverse part of the process that the killer enjoys and
Speaker 1: it's part of their mo is the decapitation that they
Speaker 1: might like for any variety of reasons. But I just
Speaker 1: Vernon Brown is so horrible. He's one of the words
Speaker 1: that I've heard of in any case. Hands down, his
Speaker 1: actions were monstrous, and he was just capable of the
Speaker 1: most egregious acts against people that were supposed to trust him,
Speaker 1: like his partner's three boys, and that just really stuck
Speaker 1: with me. Anyone that he could predate on, he would,
Speaker 1: And so it's really easy to associate him with another
Speaker 1: awful crime, which is Little Hope being found without her head.
Speaker 1: And do I think that he didn't know? Do I
Speaker 1: think justice was served there, even though we talked about
Speaker 1: how neither of us really believe in the death penalty,
Speaker 1: but we're not shedding tears over Vernon Brown. So there
Speaker 1: was justice in those cases for the people who are
Speaker 1: victimized by him. But I just I don't get the
Speaker 1: gut feeling that he is the perpetrator in Little Hope's case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like I said, because he was not mentioned
Speaker 2: in the documentary, it makes me wonder if they've turned
Speaker 2: up new information which rules him out because he was
Speaker 2: originally from Indianapolis, and I don't know the exact time
Speaker 2: that he moved to Saint Louis to live under a
Speaker 2: false name. So they were able to turn up evidence
Speaker 2: which shows that he was still in Indianapolis in February
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty three, then that positively rules him out
Speaker 2: as a suspect in this case, but of course figuring
Speaker 2: out who murdered Hope will probably require her to be
Speaker 2: identified first, so it was good to learn that CCMORE
Speaker 2: and Parabondanolobs are currently working on this case. As you recall,
Speaker 2: a genetic match was found between Hope and the DNA
Speaker 2: for two individuals who were born around one hundred years ago,
Speaker 2: and when More attempted to contact the granddaughter of one
Speaker 2: of these people, she refused to cooperate and pulled a
Speaker 2: relative's DNA from the gen match database. On the surface,
Speaker 2: this might look incredibly suspicious, as if this woman knows
Speaker 2: exactly what happened to precious Hope and does not want
Speaker 2: their family's dark secret coming out. But that may not
Speaker 2: necessarily be the case, as you have to remember that
Speaker 2: most people out there are not true crime fans acts
Speaker 2: like us, and do not have a devout interest in
Speaker 2: cold cases and using genetic genealogy to solve them. So
Speaker 2: just imagine if you were someone who didn't follow this
Speaker 2: stuff and then suddenly get a phone call informing you
Speaker 2: that law enforcement is hoping to use your relatives DNA
Speaker 2: to help assist them with a cold case investigation. You
Speaker 2: can understand why some people might be taken aback by that,
Speaker 2: particularly if they have a natural distrust of law enforcement.
Speaker 2: So even if this woman had no knowledge of Precious Hope,
Speaker 2: she may become paranoid over the idea of a relative's
Speaker 2: DNA being so accessible. For all we know, the person
Speaker 2: who was a genetic match to Hope may have been
Speaker 2: some very distant relative who never even knew of the
Speaker 2: girl's existence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. I think there's a lot of different
Speaker 1: reasons why this woman shut this down and was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to remove this person's DNA. But I also
Speaker 1: thought the jedmatch was the ancestry dot com or twenty
Speaker 1: three and meters. It's specifically there isn't it for the
Speaker 1: purpose of putting your You choose to put your DNA
Speaker 1: on there. The purpose is to potentially solve crimes. Is that?
Speaker 1: Is that my understanding?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just gonna double check if this started before
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, because I can't remember if this was around
Speaker 2: before they were using it for cold cases. Oh no,
Speaker 2: it was actually started in twenty ten, which was a
Speaker 2: long time before they were using it in law enforcement investigations.
Speaker 2: So I think some of the people at first who
Speaker 2: put their DNA in there had no idea that it
Speaker 2: was going to become a tool to help solve cold
Speaker 2: cases and be used by law enforcement. So I can
Speaker 2: understand maybe if just an average person has not been
Speaker 2: following what's been happening in true crime, and they uploaded
Speaker 2: their DNA, say back in twenty ten, or one of
Speaker 2: the relatives uploaded their DNA, they might be taken aback
Speaker 2: if they suddenly receive a phone call saying that, hey,
Speaker 2: a DNA of a relative of yours is link to
Speaker 2: the murder of this girl from Saint Louis in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty three. So that kind of makes it more understandable
Speaker 2: if you originally put your DNA in there with no
Speaker 2: idea how it was eventually going to be used.
Speaker 1: What would have been the person's initial objective? Was it
Speaker 1: like connecting family members? What was it for?
Speaker 2: I think it was. Let me just double check here.
Speaker 2: I always assumed it was something very similar to ancestry
Speaker 2: dot com. No, it looks like it was mostly used
Speaker 2: for the purposes of family trees and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: just trying to match up DNA with relatives to learn
Speaker 2: your family history or your ancestry or something. Okay, So yeah,
Speaker 2: I can understand people submitting it, and for what I
Speaker 2: can tell, Like, would the woman who was phone submitted
Speaker 2: it herself? But would it only been a relative. I
Speaker 2: guess it was only a relative who submitted it. So
Speaker 2: I guess if the woman didn't submit it and had
Speaker 2: no idea what these websites were for and was just
Speaker 2: told it's a genetic match to you, then she would
Speaker 2: have been taken aback.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they almost made it sound like she was the
Speaker 1: one who submitted it because she they said that she
Speaker 1: then removed her relatives DNA. But I guess if it
Speaker 1: was another family member, then maybe she found out who
Speaker 1: submitted the DNA and got them to remove it. I
Speaker 1: guess either option is possible, But I guess with that
Speaker 1: contextual clue, it gives us a little bit more understanding
Speaker 1: into what could have been her frame of mind when
Speaker 1: she received that phone call and it was like a
Speaker 1: WTF moment. And I can understand if you don't have
Speaker 1: a trust in law enforcement, you're not up on true crime,
Speaker 1: you think this is none of my business. I want
Speaker 1: to stay out of this. I don't want to implicate
Speaker 1: anybody in my family and have to deal with the
Speaker 1: ramifications of that, So just don't even involve me. I
Speaker 1: can understand that given what the initial objective was and
Speaker 1: how this is a completely different thing.
Speaker 2: And as a side note, I met a gentleman at
Speaker 2: advocacy con that I attended Indianapolis several weeks ago, who
Speaker 2: his brother went missing in nineteen eighty and for completely
Speaker 2: unrelated reasons back in twenty fourteen, he decided to submit
Speaker 2: his DNA to some ancestry website, just figuring that it
Speaker 2: would be used to like find other relatives or connect
Speaker 2: his family tree, and he had no inkling that it
Speaker 2: was going to be used in a law enforcement investigation.
Speaker 2: And he claimed in twenty twenty three he received a
Speaker 2: fault call where they just suddenly told him out of
Speaker 2: the blue, did you have a brother go missing back
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty because we have just linked your DNA
Speaker 2: to a dead body that was found in another state.
Speaker 2: And he was like, probably like this person where he
Speaker 2: submitted his DNA, and that even though we had a
Speaker 2: missing relative, he had no inkling that someone was going
Speaker 2: to pull that DNA one day and use it to
Speaker 2: find out what happened to his brother.
Speaker 1: Wow, Well, that certainly is a circumstance where it worked
Speaker 1: out for the best.
Speaker 2: Definitely yeah. And it was a case where he went
Speaker 2: missing from Chicago and was founded in the town of
Speaker 2: Ryan Lander. Wisconstant and that he died like only a
Speaker 2: few months after he went missing, But they just had
Speaker 2: no inkling that he was there. And it only got
Speaker 2: solved because of DNA and these genealogical websites. So trying
Speaker 2: to put the pieces of the puzzle together and figure
Speaker 2: out Hope's identity might be a long and arduous process.
Speaker 2: We saw a situation like that in a case involving
Speaker 2: an unidentified victim known as the El Dorado Jane Doe,
Speaker 2: who was murdered in nineteen ninety one and was profiled
Speaker 2: all the way back on episode number eight of The
Speaker 2: Trail Went Cold. The El Dorado Jane Doe cannot be
Speaker 2: identified for three decades, but in January of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: it was announced that genetic genealogy had linked her to
Speaker 2: a second cousin who had uploaded her DNA into the
Speaker 2: jed Maatch database. However, it took another three years to
Speaker 2: determine her true identity, and while details are sketchy, one
Speaker 2: of the possible reasons it took so long to figure
Speaker 2: everything out was because she may be conceived during an
Speaker 2: affair or one night stand and her biological father had
Speaker 2: no idea she even existed. So we may have a
Speaker 2: similar situation unfold in Hope's case, where even if her
Speaker 2: biological family is identified, it might take a while to
Speaker 2: put everything together and determine her true identity and the
Speaker 2: circumstances which led to her being murdered.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's just so crazy how many of these cases
Speaker 1: there are out there, like the El Dorado Jane Doe
Speaker 1: and being able to solve that. I just always think
Speaker 1: of your list first of yes individuals and only the one.
Speaker 1: What's the one that isn't solved?
Speaker 2: Still a little miss Panasofki, who we mentioned on our
Speaker 2: last episode, which is one where I think the reason
Speaker 2: she hasn't been solved is she may have originally hailed
Speaker 2: from Europe before she was murdered in the United States,
Speaker 2: and they have different rules for DNA and genetic geology
Speaker 2: over there. But I'm just hoping one day that they
Speaker 2: can identify her and make it ten for ten Because
Speaker 2: I wrote that list back in twenty thirteen and all
Speaker 2: these years later, nine out of the ten decedents on
Speaker 2: that list, including El Dorado Jane Doe, have since been identified.
Speaker 1: And what would you say? In like most cases, as
Speaker 1: far as the theories went about the victims or the
Speaker 1: potential crimes, how close were internet sleuths, Well a.
Speaker 2: Lot of the time they were wrong. One funny thing
Speaker 2: is that the El Dorado Jane Doe. I'm sure you've
Speaker 2: heard of the fort Worth Missing Trio case, right, yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: And I remember that to the person who killed El Dorado,
Speaker 2: Jane Doe was making these crypt to comments in prison
Speaker 2: about how he might have been responsible for the disappearance
Speaker 2: of three girls in Texas, which took place in the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies, and people were wondering, oh, could this woman
Speaker 2: maybe be one of the missing girls from the fort
Speaker 2: Worth Missing Trio case? But of course that didn't turn
Speaker 2: out to be the case. And more often than not,
Speaker 2: the theories surrounding these decendents are a lot more elaborate
Speaker 2: and sensationalistic than what turns out to be the truth.
Speaker 2: Like you have stuff about how people escape from a cult,
Speaker 2: or they might have gone underground in some like a
Speaker 2: terrorist organization or something like that, or been a spy,
Speaker 2: but more often than not, they're just people who decided
Speaker 2: to break off all contact with their families, go out
Speaker 2: on their own, and unfortunately cross paths with someone who
Speaker 2: murdered them.
Speaker 1: I always think of this summer to man. I know
Speaker 1: he has identity back, but I can't think of his
Speaker 1: name off the top of my head. But I always
Speaker 1: think of the theory of him being a ballerina.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's another ridiculous one. Yeah. So, while I'm
Speaker 2: sure it won't be easy, I do have a feeling
Speaker 2: that it will only be a matter of time until
Speaker 2: the Saint Louis Jane Doe is identified. Given that over
Speaker 2: forty years have passed, it's possible that the person who
Speaker 2: was responsible for murdering her is now deceased and will
Speaker 2: never face justice. But at the very least, this poor
Speaker 2: girl can finally get her name back. This is a
Speaker 2: case which has made a vivid impression on everyone who
Speaker 2: has heard about it, and while it's undeniable that the
Speaker 2: Saint Louis Metropolitan Police Department made mistakes during their investigation,
Speaker 2: I don't doubt that everyone who worked on this case
Speaker 2: was genuinely passionate about solving it. Some of the former
Speaker 2: detectives who have since retired or passed away said that
Speaker 2: they were always haunted by the fact that they could
Speaker 2: never close the books on this one. But like we
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier on in this episode, if Joseph Augustus Airelli,
Speaker 2: a boy who was murdered all the way back in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty seven, can be identified, there's always hope for
Speaker 2: this girl. Hell, that's why they nicknamed her Precious Hope.
Speaker 2: But it will be nice if we can start referring
Speaker 2: to her by a real name. So if you happen
Speaker 2: to have any information about the identity of the Saint
Speaker 2: Louis Jane Doe or the circumstances of her murder, please
Speaker 2: contact the Saint Louis Metropolitan Police Department at three one
Speaker 2: four two three one one two one two. That's three
Speaker 2: one four two three one one two one two Jules.
Speaker 2: Any final thoughts on this case.
Speaker 1: This is a really heartbreaking but interesting case, just because
Speaker 1: there really are relatives out there and they don't want
Speaker 1: to be involved. I really hope through genetic genealogy they're
Speaker 1: able to link some more people who do want to
Speaker 1: be involved and do want to participate, and they can
Speaker 1: build out that family tree and give Hope back her
Speaker 1: identity because she deserves that. But at least in the meantime,
Speaker 1: I'm thankful that the city of Saint Louis wrapped their
Speaker 1: arms around her and they really took her in like
Speaker 1: a child of their own, and I think that's such
Speaker 1: a beautiful thing. But this case is shocking to think
Speaker 1: that there is nobody close by who's a little girl
Speaker 1: who's reported missing. And I don't know how much we
Speaker 1: can rely on those isotope tests. It's too bad that
Speaker 1: there isn't the accuracy, and I think the fact that
Speaker 1: we don't have teeth obviously lends itself to that. But
Speaker 1: to think that a caregiver could do this to a child,
Speaker 1: to decapitate them, and we brought up another case where
Speaker 1: a little girl was also decapitated, and it seems like
Speaker 1: if you don't want to have somebody be identified, they're
Speaker 1: obviously tied to you in some way, unless it's some
Speaker 1: part of your murder process where you just enjoy removing heads.
Speaker 1: I think that there's a strong likelihood in this case
Speaker 1: that there is somebody who was in a caretaker position
Speaker 1: who was responsible for Hope's death.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's what happened as well. And while
Speaker 2: we don't know this for certain, that's a lot of
Speaker 2: people think what happened with the Boy in the Box
Speaker 2: slash Joseph Augustus Relli case where because they were kept
Speaker 2: away from society and not many people interacted with the
Speaker 2: victim while they were still alive. That's why no one
Speaker 2: has been able to put two and two together and
Speaker 2: figure out who she is. And I still remember it
Speaker 2: was twenty eighteen when they started using jed match and
Speaker 2: they kept using it to identify all these John and
Speaker 2: Jane does and everyone was thinking, ooh, they will eventually
Speaker 2: get to Saint Louis Jane Doe. It's inevitable that she's
Speaker 2: going to be identified. But here we are, about seven
Speaker 2: years since Jed Maatch became a thing, and it still
Speaker 2: hasn't happened yet, even though people are still actively working
Speaker 2: on it. And I think most loose out there would
Speaker 2: rank this as their number one choice of a victim
Speaker 2: to be identified, because her story is so heartbreaking and
Speaker 2: that she was beheaded and assaulted and discarded like garbage
Speaker 2: in this abandoned building. Yet over the past forty years,
Speaker 2: so many people have become attached to this girl and
Speaker 2: are really hoping that she can finally get her name back.
Speaker 2: I also need to give a recommendation for Precious Hope.
Speaker 2: Revisited the documentary we talked about a few times. Like
Speaker 2: I said earlier, the guy who directed it ed rar
Speaker 2: byrds Sosa. He was nice enough to email me after
Speaker 2: my original Trail and Cold episode. Seems like a really
Speaker 2: nice guy who's really passionate about getting this case solved.
Speaker 2: And if you haven't seen it, it's available for viewing
Speaker 2: on to be and it has a lot of information
Speaker 2: that had not and made publicly before the movie came out,
Speaker 2: and it's spreading even more awareness. So I think it's
Speaker 2: going to eventually pave the way to her being identified.
Speaker 2: And one final thing I wanted to mention is that
Speaker 2: I often do Q and A episodes on the Trail
Speaker 2: Went Cold at the end of the year, and one
Speaker 2: question I often get asked is which case have you
Speaker 2: covered on the podcast do you think is going to
Speaker 2: be solved in the near future. One year, I was
Speaker 2: asked and my pick was the Jane Doe known only
Speaker 2: as Orange Socks, which we've talked about as well, who
Speaker 2: was eventually identified as Deborah Jackson, and on another Q
Speaker 2: and A episode, my prediction was a murdered man and
Speaker 2: woman who were known as the Sumpter County Does, who
Speaker 2: are both shot to death in a remote area of
Speaker 2: South Carolina, and within a month of me releasing that
Speaker 2: Q and A episode, they were finally identified as well.
Speaker 2: So and the Q and AA episode I released at
Speaker 2: the end of twenty twenty four, my pick was the
Speaker 2: Saint Louis Jane Doe. So I'm hoping that the good
Speaker 2: Luck Street will continue and that she will be identified
Speaker 2: at some point this year.
Speaker 1: Robin the Psychic Detective, Yes, I.
Speaker 2: Mean I'm better than Maaren Vernier. What can I say?
Speaker 1: Bring that up?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you don't have to mail me any sweaters
Speaker 2: or ropes or any key pieces of evidence. I can
Speaker 2: do that without it. So thanks for joining us, Jules.
Speaker 2: Hopefully we'll have Ashley back for our next series of episodes.
Speaker 2: So thank you all so much for joining us, and
Speaker 2: we'll see you again next time.
Speaker 3: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 2: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 2: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 2: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
Speaker 2: tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in
Speaker 2: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
Speaker 2: the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon,
Speaker 2: and if you join our highest tier tier free the
Speaker 2: ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
Speaker 2: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
Speaker 2: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 2: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 2: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 2: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
Speaker 2: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
Speaker 2: Tier three.
Speaker 3: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 3: about the Jules and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
Speaker 3: free episodes of the Path Went chili. We've got our
Speaker 3: Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
Speaker 3: so they're not very many, but they're just too short
Speaker 3: to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
Speaker 3: so we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link
Speaker 3: them in the show notes.
Speaker 2: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
Speaker 2: any chance you have to share us on social media
Speaker 2: with a friend or d rate and review is greatly
Speaker 2: a pre ciate it. You can email us at the
Speaker 2: Pathwentchili at gmail dot com. You can reach us on
Speaker 2: Twitter at the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure
Speaker 2: to bundle up because cold trails and chili pass call
Speaker 2: for warm clothing.
Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy