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#Post#: 1262--------------------------------------------------
GRAND BAY JANE DOE: WF, 50-60 - floating in Sessions Creek, sout
h of Grand Bay, AL - May 18, 1976
By: Scorpio Date: February 10, 2020, 3:29 am
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HTML https://i.imgur.com/HqZyNL7l.jpg
HTML https://www.namus.gov/UnidentifiedPersons/Case#/13574
Found floating in Sessions Creek at the Potter Tract Road bridge
about a mile south of Grand Bay.
#Post#: 1263--------------------------------------------------
Re: GRAND BAY JANE DOE: WF, 50-60 - floating in Sessions Creek,
south of Grand Bay, AL - May 18, 197
By: Scorpio Date: February 10, 2020, 3:29 am
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HTML https://www.facebook.com/Mobilecountysheriffsoffice/posts/missing-personcold-casein-1976-jane-doe-x-1-was-murdered-and-placed-into-session/10156131738488191/
HTML https://i.imgur.com/ww9rDUel.jpg
MISSING PERSON/COLD CASE
In 1976 JANE DOE X-1 was murdered and placed into Sessions
Creek, near the Potter Tract Road Bridge in Grand Bay. It is
believed that she may have been from another state. JANE was
shot in the back of the head and both her hands were cut off.
HENDERSON JAMES WILLIAMS has been identified as the probable
suspect and is linked to this homicide, however, he passed away
while serving time in prison for the murder of his mother, ERMA
STANLEY WILLIAMS. ERMA was found floating in a body of water
within the area of Hall Road and Interstate 10 in Grand Bay.
ERMA's cause of death? Blunt force to the head,severly beaten
and both hands cut from the body. At the time of his mother's
murder we know HENDERSON JAMES WILLIAMS lived at 9500 Hall Road
in Grand Bay, Alabama.
MCSO is looking for any informtion about identity of this person
or any information on her murder. If you would like to speak
with the detective in charge of the case, call 251-574-8633. If
you would like to email information about this case you may do
so to coldcase@mobileso.com.
#Post#: 1264--------------------------------------------------
Re: GRAND BAY JANE DOE: WF, 50-60 - floating in Sessions Creek,
south of Grand Bay, AL - May 18, 197
By: Scorpio Date: February 10, 2020, 3:29 am
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HTML https://www.al.com/pr/2007/09/the_jane_doe_file.html
The 'Jane Doe' file
Updated Mar 29, 2019; Posted Sep 14, 2007
By Paul Cloos, Press-Register
The woman was shot in the head, her body partially covered by a
garbage bag and thrown into a murky creek in south Mobile County
in 1976. Her hands were chopped off, leaving no fingerprints to
help identify her.
She had no teeth because they had fallen out or been removed
over the years, long before she was killed. Another form of
identification eliminated.
For more than 30 years, those two things have crippled
investigators' attempts to identify the woman and track down her
killer or killers.
(Photo courtesy Mobile County Sheriff's Office)
A case file at the Mobile County Sheriff's Office holds evidence
related to the 1976 death of a woman whose body was found dumped
in a creek. The woman remains unidentified.
Duncan Crow, one of the Press-Register reporters covering the
story at the time, said recently that seeing the woman's body
pulled from the creek was an unsettling experience.
Crow, who was 19, said it upset him even more when Mobile County
deputies told him that the corpse was missing its hands.
"It was disturbing, for obvious reasons," he recalled. "You
don't think about stuff like that, normal people don't."
Now an assistant state attorney general and assistant counsel
with the Alabama Department of Revenue, Crow said he had been a
naive teenager who assumed the victim would be quickly
identified and the person who killed her captured.
"As you get older, and I've been practicing law for 22 years,
you just start to understand that crimes like that don't always
get solved," he said.
Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran, however, said recently that
he believes the killer or killers still can be found if
investigators one day are able to identify the woman.
"In a case like that, the person purposely abused the body to
prevent identification," the sheriff said. "Once the body is
identified, the prime suspect would stand out. The biggest key
in that case is the identification of the body."
Technological advances, such as DNA testing, which were not
available in 1976, could be used to help solve the case, Cochran
said.
And there is always a possibility that someone could come
forward and confess to the crime or be identified by an
acquaintance as the killer, he said.
The woman's handless body was found about 4:30 p.m. May 18,
1976, floating in Sessions Creek at the Potter Tract Road
bridge, about a mile south of Grand Bay.
She was discovered by a boy who had gone to the creek to shoot
at fish. The body was floating in the slow-moving creek almost
beneath the bridge in about 3 feet of murky water.
According to news accounts at the time, the woman had been shot
once in the head with what appeared to be a small-caliber gun.
The bullet went into the back of her head and exited in front.
It was determined that the woman was white and in her mid-50s.
She was about 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighed about 140 pounds.
She had dark brown hair cut to about 4 inches long.
She was found on a Tuesday, and authorities determined that she
most likely had been killed two days earlier.
Sheriff's Office investigators said at the time that the victim
was fully clothed, but that her feet were bare. Investigators
said she wore a yellow pullover blouse and green slacks and the
strap of her brassiere was cut in the back.
There was a small pool of blood on the bridge, and a tiny piece
of plastic bag, possibly from the bag over the upper part of her
body, was found near the blood, according to news reports.
Several people, most of them from the Jackson County, Miss.,
area, tried unsuccessfully to identify the woman, but she
continues to be listed only as Jane Doe, investigators said.
After studying old reports of the slaying, Cochran, who retired
as Mobile's police chief prior to being elected sheriff, said he
believes the killer did not live in Mobile County at the time
because so many people from Mississippi came forward to try to
identify the woman.
Regardless of where the killer lived, Cochran said, the killer
or killers were familiar with the county and knew of a remote
area to dump the body.
Crow said that he would like to see the crime solved.
"Maybe somebody saw something, saw something on the bridge that
day. They will remember something they didn't remember at the
time," he said. "Anything can happen, I guess."
#Post#: 1265--------------------------------------------------
Re: GRAND BAY JANE DOE: WF, 50-60 - floating in Sessions Creek,
south of Grand Bay, AL - May 18, 197
By: Scorpio Date: February 10, 2020, 3:29 am
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HTML https://unsolvedandunknown.com/2019/02/17/grand-bay-jane-doe/
Grand Bay Jane Doe
On May 18, 1976, a woman estimated to be between 50 and 60 years
old was found floating face down in Session Creek at the Potter
Tract Road bridge about a mile south of the town of Grand Bay,
Alabama.
[img]
HTML https://unsolvedandunknown.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/screen-shot-2019-02-16-at-11.05.40-pm.png?w=625[/img]
She was found by a teenager who had gone to the creek to shoot
at fish around 4:30 p.m. Investigators found several measures
had been taken by the killer or killers to try and conceal the
woman’s identity. Her teeth had either been pulled or fallen out
over time before her death, but her dentures had been removed.
Both her hands had also been cut off, thus eliminating both
dental records and fingerprints as possible means of
identification.
Cause of death was determined to be a gunshot wound which
entered through the back of her head and exited the front. The
gun was a small caliber handgun. Her nose was bloody and one of
her eyes was blackened. Her upper body had been covered by a
plastic bag, believed to be an effort to prevent blood from
getting in the car used to transport her body to the location
where her body was dumped. For this reason it is believed she
was transported to the location in a sedan, because it is likely
that had she been transported in the bed of a truck, blood could
simply be washed out of the truck bed, making the plastic bag
unnecessary.
A pool of blood and a small piece of what could have been the
plastic bag covering the upper body of the victim was found on
the Potter Tract Road bridge above the creek, making it likely
that the killer(s) dragged her body to the edge of the bridge
and threw her over into the creek. Time of death was determined
to be two days earlier on May 16, 1976.
Her physical description reveals she was a white female,
approximately 5’3″ (63″), weighed 140 pounds, had
short dark brown hair, and green eyes. She had a mole above her
upper lip on the left side. She had a hysterectomy scar on her
abdomen. She was found barefoot, wearing a yellow pullover
blouse and green slacks. A strap on her brassiere was also cut
in the back.
18 years after her murder, there was a possible break in the
case. Another woman was found near the Alabama-Mississippi line.
Like Grand Bay Jane Doe, her hands and dentures were removed in
effort to conceal her identity. She was identified, however, and
her name was Irma Williams. Her son, Henderson James Williams
was convicted of her murder in 1996. The similarities in the way
the suspect attempted to conceal the victims’ identities led
investigators to suspect Williams in Grand Bay Jane Doe’s
murder, but Williams died in prison in 2008 and was never
charged for her murder.
Almost 43 years later, Grand Bay Jane Doe continues to be
unclaimed and unidentified. With our current technology, it is
obviously more likely this Jane Doe could have been identified.
Several attempts to identify her were made, mostly by people in
Mississippi, but none were successful. A cast was found fairly
recently which was made of the inside of Jane Doe’s mouth to aid
in identifying her back in 1976. Investigators working her case
now hoped to use the cast to retrieve some of the victim’s DNA.
No reports yet on whether they were successful.
If you recognize Grand Bay Jane Doe or have any information on
her case, please contact Mobile County Sheriff’s Office
510 South Royal Street
Mobile, AL 36603
Phone: (251) 581-1181
UID Case # 76MB131799
Contact: Dt Johnny Thornton
#Post#: 1266--------------------------------------------------
Re: GRAND BAY JANE DOE: WF, 50-60 - floating in Sessions Creek,
south of Grand Bay, AL - May 18, 197
By: Scorpio Date: February 10, 2020, 3:29 am
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HTML https://www.wkrg.com/local-news/cold-case-woman-found-floating-in-creek-near-grand-bay-in-1976-never-identified/
Cold Case: Woman found floating in creek near Grand Bay in 1976
never identified
by: Peter Albrecht
Posted: Feb 15, 2019 / 09:29 PM CST / Updated: Feb 15, 2019 /
09:45 PM CST
cold case Grand Bay_1550262294008.JPG.jpg
GRAND BAY, Ala (WKRG) — A woman found shot, floating in a creek,
with her hands cut off. 43 years later her identity still isn’t
known and no one has ever been arrested for the crime.
On May 18, 1976, two boys were fishing in a creek that runs
under Potter Tract Road south of Grand Bay and made a gruesome
discovery.
“They’re out there at the fishin’ hole and found a lady floating
face down in the water,” said Detective J.T Thornton of the
Mobile County Sheriff’s Office
Thornton says the woman found in the creek had been shot, her
dentures removed, and her hands cut off. Plastic bags were
wrapped around her arms and head.
“We believe that was done to keep blood from spilling into the
trunk of an automobile,” Thornton said. “If it had been a
pick-up truck he’d be less likely to care because he could
easily wash it out. We believe that it was a four door sedan.”
Thornton says blood patterns on the road indicated that one
person likely dragged the body from a vehicle and tossed it off
the bridge on Potter Tract Road and into the creek.
The woman had been shot, once, at close range, in the back of
the head. But who was she? Detectives determined her age between
50 and 65. But no missing person report ever matched the body
and the woman still hasn’t been identified. It’s highly unusual.
“It’s very unusual that nobody came forward and identified her,”
Thornton said. “Toward that point in someone’s life, they’re
someone’s mother, they’re someone’s grandmother. It’s less
likely that you’ll see someone in that age range being
murdered.”
18 years later after the murder came a possible break in the
case. A woman’s body found in a pond near the
Alabama-Mississippi line. Her dentures had been removed and her
hands cut off. Irma Williams had been killed in nearby Moss
Point, Mississippi, by her son, a shipyard worker, named
Henderson James Williams.
Williams was convicted in 1996 and died in prison 12 years
later. He was never charged with the 1976 killing.
Thornton is re-examining the case and came across a cast
investigators in 1976 made of the victim’s mouth, to try to
match the missing dentures. He hopes that might contain DNA that
could finally identify the woman. And despite the fact no one
ever claimed her, and the only suspect died a decade ago,
Thornton says he’ll continue to pursue the case.
“There’s got to be some sort of closure for this lady,” Thornton
said. “I mean to just leave her floating face down in the water
is unacceptable. We’re not a savage society. This is the United
States of America!”
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