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#Post#: 4587--------------------------------------------------
Re: LADY OF THE DUNES: WF, 27-49, found in Provincetown, MA - 26
July 1974 *Ruth Marie Terry*
By: Akoya Date: April 18, 2020, 3:47 pm
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HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_of_the_Dunes
There were also signs of sexual assault at the scene, possibly
performed with a piece of wood, likely after she died.
She had extensive dental work on her teeth, worth between five
and eight thousand dollars, although several teeth were removed
by the killer, likely as an attempt to prevent her
identification. Her hands had also been removed; one at her
wrist and the other at her elbow.
Someone had paid for very expensive dental work. Several teeth
were removed as were her hands. This is a procedure done by the
mob for years. It prevents identification of the victim.
HTML http://www.masslive.com/bostonspirit/2014/10/whitey_bulger_gays_and_the_lad.html
There was also a size 10 shoe imprint found at the scene, the
same shoe size as Bulger, and a green towel or blanket believed
to be from the Crown & Anchor.
The blanket/towel appears to have come from the hotel where
Whitey Bulger and his female friend were known to stay.
#Post#: 4588--------------------------------------------------
Re: LADY OF THE DUNES: WF, 27-49, found in Provincetown, MA - 26
July 1974
By: Akoya Date: April 18, 2020, 3:48 pm
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From what I have read, she may have been local to the Cape. Some
reported to have recognized her from the Crown & Anchor with
Bulger. I have no way to answer your other questions. The
personal information would probably only be known to the victim,
herself.
#Post#: 4589--------------------------------------------------
Re: LADY OF THE DUNES: WF, 27-49, found in Provincetown, MA - 26
July 1974
By: Akoya Date: April 18, 2020, 3:53 pm
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HTML https://www.usatoday.com/story/life...ape-cod-murder-victim-appear-scene/923860002/
'Jaws' mystery: Did long unknown 'Lady of the Dunes' Cape Cod
murder victim appear in movie scene?
Maria Puente, USA TODAY Published 5:51 p.m. ET Aug. 7, 2018 |
The mangled bodies left behind by the monster white shark in
"Jaws" are famous even four decades after the monster-smash
movie landed in 1975. But maybe you haven't heard about the real
woman's body left behind on the dunes of Cape Cod.
She was murdered by a human, not chomped by a shark. In fact,
she's one of New England's oldest, most famous and saddest
unsolved murder mysteries: She's "The Lady of the Dunes."
Nowher frozen cold case is getting new attention because,
strangely enough, this unknown woman might have appeared
briefly, a face in the crowd, in "Jaws" when it was filmed on
Martha's Vineyard off Cape Cod in the summer of 1974, the same
summer she was killed.
That is the theory that ghost-story writer Joe Hill — the son of
horror novelist Stephen King, whose pen name is a contraction of
his middle name, Hillstrom — has been exploring since 2015. He
thinks he's spotted the Lady of the Dunes in a split-second
crowd scene about 54 minutes into the film.
"She swims at you out of the crowd, you'd hardly notice her if
you watched it on a TV but it's different if all the actors are
10 feet high," Hill says in a phone interview with USA TODAY.
His theory has gone viral in recent weeks due in part to a
podcast series, just ended, about the making of "Jaws" and
director Steven Spielberg, “Wondery’s Inside 'Jaws,'” created
and hosted by film buff Mark Ramsey.
"The idea that this cold-case murder could somehow be solved
right (from) the big screen...well it's an intriguing and
enticing possibility," Ramsey says in a phone interview with USA
TODAY.
"How cool would that be if a movie and a podcast about the movie
could lead to the reopening of a cold case and a possibility to
solve that ancient case?"
This new interest could be important because the Lady of the
Dunes, who was maybe in her 30s, was never identified after her
body was found by a teen walking her dog in the dunes near
Provincetown, Mass., in July 1974, shortly before the shooting
of "Jaws" wound down.
Her death was gruesome: Her head was partly decapitated with a
shovel, her hands were missing, and some of her teeth were
missing. The killer's effort to disguise her identity suggests
he knew her and that her identity could lead to him. It worked:
No one has been identified as her killer or even as a person of
interest.
[​IMG]
Is this woman in scene from "Jaws" the Lady of the Dunes,
murdered on Cape Cod the same summer the movie was
filmed?(Photo: Joe Hill)
Sadly, no one has ever claimed her. How could a woman be
murdered in such a way in such a close-knit community and no one
know her name? Even if she was just a tourist on Cape Cod that
summer, surely her family somewhere would have looked for her?
Hill would like to see her DNA submitted to a genealogical
database to possibly track down her relatives who could identify
her.
"That would be the most wonderful thing," Hill says. "She’s
someone’s daughter. And it would matter to the people in law
enforcement who have committed years to finding closure in the
case."
Provincetown detectives and the local district attorney's office
did not return messages seeking comment on the case, but they
are still plodding away at it 44 years later. The most recent
facial reconstruction was in 2010 when a new composite was
created using state-of-the-art technology and computer analyses;
it's been widely distributed in the region.
[​IMG]
Hill, 47, (his latest, "Strange Weather," is a book of four
short thriller novels), is a New Englander who grew up in Maine
and lives in New Hampshire. He fervently loves "Jaws" and has
watched it every summer since he was 9. "Especially in New
England, it's to cinema what "Moby Dick" is to American
literature," he says.
He also knew the reconstructed face of the murdered Lady. "It's
the Holy Grail of unsolved American crimes," he says.
So, in the summer of 2015 when "Jaws" was re-released to
celebrate its 40th anniversary, he went to see it with his three
teen sons, for the first time in a big-screen theater. That's
when he saw the woman in the scene at the Vineyard ferry dock.
She's wearing a blue bandana, similar to one found with the body
of the Lady.
"You see her on that big screen and she leaps out at you in that
one moment," he says. Later, when he told the story, "It was
almost like telling a ghost story, and I was seeing the ghost of
this murder victim superimposed on this movie."
If she is the Lady, could the movie really help identify her?
Strictly speaking, the woman in the movie wasn't really an extra
in "Jaws" — she was captured in a crowd scene and probably
didn't even know it at the time. Besides, back then records on
extras for films were sketchy at best.
Still, "everybody who was an extra (or appeared) in "Jaws" will
tell you about it, it's an experience one does not forget,"
Ramsey says. "One easy way to identify (the woman in the movie
scene) if she's alive is for her to (come forward) to say, 'that
was me, I’m not dead, hello!' "
But in that case, the Lady of the Dunes would remain
unidentified. Hill once told an FBI agent friend about his
theory, expecting to be teased. Instead, he was told there might
be something to it.
"Odder ideas have cracked colder cases,” he says.
#Post#: 4590--------------------------------------------------
Re: LADY OF THE DUNES: WF, 27-49, found in Provincetown, MA - 26
July 1974
By: Akoya Date: April 18, 2020, 3:55 pm
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HTML https://www.ranker.com/list/lady-of-the-dunes-facts/cat-mcauliffe
Disturbing And Fascinating Facts About The Lady Of The Dunes
The case of the "Lady of the Dunes," has baffled law
enforcement, journalists, and the public for more than 40 years.
The Lady was a name given to a young woman whose badly beaten
was discovered in 1974 in a tourist town at the tip of Cape Cod.
The nature of the young woman's death, as well as the many
theories about her killing, have led several people - including
the son of a world-renowned horror author - to ask: "Who was the
Lady of the Dunes?"
Some people have theorized the unidentified woman was killed by
an organized crime boss from Boston, while others say she was
murdered after she successfully escaped from police custody.
Another recent theory is that she might have been an extra in
Jaws. Whoever she is, her true identity has eluded many people.
What happened to this woman, and why?
She Was Brutally Murdered And Mutilated
HTML https://i.imgur.com/fx7LpML.jpg
Photo: National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children/Wikimedia Commons
On July 26, 1974, a teenage girl and her dog discovered the
badly decomposed corpse of a young woman in the dunes of
Provincetown, a coastal resort community on Cape Cod. The woman
- who was eventually dubbed the "Lady of the Dunes" - was found
laying facedown on a blanket, nude, with a bandana and a pair of
jeans beneath her head.
After examining her lifeless body, officials determined the
woman was killed by a blow to the head that crushed her skull.
She was also nearly decapitated, possibly as a result of
strangulation, and her hands had been cut off, making it
impossible for law enforcement to get her fingerprints. The
authorities also determined she was sexually assaulted with some
sort of wooden object after she was murdered, and they concluded
she was probably between the ages of 25 and 30 and was
five-foot-eight and weighed approximately 145 pounds.
She May Have Been Killed By A Famous Mobster
[​IMG]
Photo: United States Marshals Service/Wikipedia
In addition to cutting of her hands, someone removed several of
the woman's teeth, causing people to speculate the Lady of the
Dunes may have been killed by James "Whitey" Bulger. He was a
notorious mobster involved with an organized crime syndicated in
nearby Boston at the time. Bulger and other members of the
Winter Hill Gang reportedly removed their victims' teeth after
killing them to make it more difficult for the authorities to
identify them. He was also known to frequent a popular gay bar
in Provincetown called The Crone & Anchor - close to where the
Lady was found.
According to Sandra Lee, who wrote a novel based on the case,
the Lady of the Dunes may have been a young woman who came to
America from Ireland, and it's possible Bulger - an Irish
American himself - was grooming her to force her into sex
slavery. Lee believes Bulger or one of his cronies may have
killed the young woman in Boston around the Fourth of July, and
they preserved her corpse in a freezer until they dumped her
body in the dunes, where it was discovered on nearly three weeks
later.
#Post#: 4591--------------------------------------------------
Re: LADY OF THE DUNES: WF, 27-49, found in Provincetown, MA - 26
July 1974
By: Akoya Date: April 18, 2020, 3:57 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Continued:
A Suspected Serial Killer Confessed To Murdering Her
While behind bars for murdering two people, Hadden Clark told a
cellmate he killed the woman known as the Lady of the Dunes. The
convicted murderer, a paranoid schizophrenic, told his fellow
inmate that his alternate personality, a woman named Kristen,
killed the Lady of the Dunes in 1974, as well as nine-year-old
Sarah Pryor in 1985. Clark, who authorities believe is a serial
killer, was a suspect in several other murders. He also showed
investigators where he allegedly buried some of his victims.
However, officials from Massachusetts searched the places on
Cape Cod where Clark indicated he hid his victims' bodies, and
they didn't find any evidence to support the convicted killer's
claims. While the authorities haven't ruled out Clark as the
person responsible for murdering the Lady of the Dunes, the
Provincetown police doubt he was involved in the unsolved
killing.
Police Thought She Might Have Been An Escaped Inmate
Another theory is the Lady of the Dunes is Rory Gene Kesinger, a
24-year-old woman who was arrested during a drug raid in
Pembroke, MA, near the beginning of 1974. A few weeks after she
was apprehended, Kesinger escaped from the Plymouth County House
of Correction and seemingly disappeared. Some to suspect she was
murdered - possibly by one of the many criminals the young woman
was known to associate with during her short life.
Kesinger ran away from home when she was just 15, and she was
known to rob banks, use drugs, and went by five different
aliases. So it's possible she made up a new identity to start
over after she broke out of jail. Still, due to the similarities
between the Lady of the Dunes and Kesinger, police compared DNA
taken from the unidentified woman found in Provincetown and with
a sample collected from the escaped inmate's mother. To the
surprise of many officials involved in the case, experts
determined Kesinger was not the Lady of the Dunes.
She May Have Been In A Blockbuster Film
In 2015, author Joe Hill, son of writer Stephen King, proposed
another theory about the Lady of the Dunes after watching Steven
Spielberg's classic film Jaws. In the movie's Fourth of July
scene, a woman - who is similar in appearance to the Lady of the
Dunes - is clearly visible for a few seconds of the film,
wearing jeans and a blue bandana like the ones discovered under
the murder victim's head.
Much of Jaws was filmed in the summer of 1974 in Martha's
Vineyard, which is approximately 100 miles from where the Lady
of the Dunes was discovered. Hill theorized the two women might
be one and the same, which the writer himself admits is "a
pretty wild bit of speculation." While some people - including
Hill - find it highly unlikely the Lady of the Dunes was an
extra in a summer blockbuster, the information collected by the
writer was passed on to law enforcement officials.
A Woman Said She Might Have Witnessed Her Murder
[img]
HTML https://i.imgur.com/xTvgGoS.jpg[img]
In 1987, more than a decade after the Lady of the Dunes was
murdered, a young woman in her early 20s claimed that while she
was visiting Provincetown, MA, approximately 15 years earlier,
she saw her father strangle a woman. Because the young woman
lived in Canada at the time, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
passed the information on to the Provincetown police chief and
the Massachusetts State Police.
However, by the time authorities in the United States learned
about the woman's disturbing allegations, she had moved to
Montreal. In 1987, the investigators made efforts to locate this
woman, but were never able to find her. They also couldn't
corroborate the information she provided.
#Post#: 4592--------------------------------------------------
Re: LADY OF THE DUNES: WF, 27-49, found in Provincetown, MA - 26
July 1974
By: Akoya Date: April 18, 2020, 4:00 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Continued
Another Woman Thought She Might Have Been Her Missing Sister
HTML https://i.imgur.com/dQM1s2R.jpg
In 1987, law enforcement received a call from a Maryland woman
who thought the Lady in the Dunes might be her sister who went
missing in 1974. According to the woman, she lost touch with her
sister after she relocated to Boston the same year the Lady of
the Dunes was discovered in Provincetown.
The woman said she hadn't spoken to her sister since 1974, and
her missing sibling - like the Lady of the Dunes - had auburn
hair. According to the Provincetown police chief who received
the tip, he told the woman to send him her sister's dental
records for comparison, although it's unclear if she complied
with his request.
They Are Still Trying To Recreate Her Face To See If Anyone
Knows Her
Using her skull, experts have produced images of what the Lady
of the Dunes may have looked like before her death. In 1979 -
five years after the authorities think she was murdered - the
first facial reconstruction of the Lady of the Dunes was created
using clay. Over the next few decades, other people offered
their depictions of the unidentified woman, with most of them
bearing little resemblance to one another.
In May 2010, officials used a CT scanner to produce an image of
her skull, which was in turn used to create yet another
reconstruction of the Lady of the Dunes. Sadly, this latest
image has failed to reveal the woman's identity.
Police Have Contacted Thousands Of Dentists In An Effort To
Identify Her
Because someone cut of the young woman's hands, law enforcement
were unable to get fingerprints from the Lady of the Dunes. As a
result, the police relied heavily on dental records to help them
eliminate possible matches. While someone removed many of the
young woman's teeth, they left evidence of the expensive dental
work the Lady of the Dunes had before she was murdered.
Experts found several gold crowns in the woman's mouth, which
were worth at least $5,000 in the 1970s - a rare luxury for most
people at the time. Seizing upon this unique clue to the murder
victim's identity, the Provincetown police chief got the case of
the Lady of the Dunes featured in dental journals. Law
enforcement officials contacted thousands of dentists in an
effort to learn the identity of the young woman with multiple
gold crowns, and they've ruled out at least 50 possible matches.
She Was Buried In An Unmarked Grave
On October 19, 1974 - three months after the young woman's body
was discovered - the Lady of the Dunes was buried in an unmarked
grave in St. Peter's Cemetery in Provincetown, MA. She was laid
to rest with a simple headstone which reads:
Unidentified Female Body
Found Race Point Dunes
July 26, 1974.
According to law enforcement officials, for several years after
the Lady of the Dunes was buried in the Provincetown cemetery,
someone - who was never identified - commemorated the day the
young woman's body was found by placing flowers on her grave. In
2014, Detective Meredith K. Lobur of the Provincetown Police
Department told the press she was raising money to buy a new
casket for the Lady of the Dunes, as the unidentified woman's
existing metal coffin was disintegrating due to rust.
HTML https://i.imgur.com/0jf0Clz.jpg
#Post#: 4593--------------------------------------------------
Re: LADY OF THE DUNES: WF, 27-49, found in Provincetown, MA - 26
July 1974
By: Akoya Date: April 18, 2020, 4:04 pm
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HTML https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...e-dunes-theory-unsolved-murder-cape-cod-vgtrn
Stephen King's Son Thinks 'Jaws' Could Crack an Unsolved 1974
Murder
The theory connects one of Cape Cod's oldest cold cases to one
key moment of the film.
By Lauren Messman
Aug 7 2018, 7:20pm
In the summer of 1974, a young girl stumbled upon the body of a
woman in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, whose identity has continued
to stump authorities more than 40 years later. Still known only
as "the Lady of the Dunes," the woman had been left naked, head
nearly severed, with her hands and several teeth removed, all in
an attempt, police believe, to keep her identity a mystery.
But for horror writer Joe Hill—the son of author Stephen
King—the victim's identity may be wrapped up in his favorite
film, which also happened to be filming on Cape Cod that same
summer—Steven Spielberg's Jaws.
According to the Washington Post, Hill, like many armchair
detectives, became fascinated with the story of the Lady after
reading about her in The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths Are
Solving America’s Coldest Cases. After studying a reconstructed
image of her face—one local authorities made after exhuming her
body in 2010—Hill thought he spotted a similar-looking woman
while he was watching Jaws, an extra among the rest of the
beachgoers terrorized by the film's bloodthirsty shark. The
quick shot of a woman, clad in a blue bandana similar to the one
that was reportedly found with the Lady's body, got Hill asking
himself: "Is the Lady of the Dunes in Jaws?"
HTML https://i.imgur.com/Rags5QJ.jpg
The Lady of the Dunes composite sketch via the Town of
Provincetown, and screenshot from Jaws via Joe Hill's Tumblr
Hill wrote about his theory, which he openly admits is "out
there," on his blog in 2015, and it recently wound up on
Wondery's Inside 'Jaws,' a podcast about the making of the film.
And sure, the super blown-up images of the extra don't really
solidify the theory, but there are some key details that match
up between Jaws's production schedule and the few facts we do
know about the Lady of the Dunes. Along with the resemblance,
Hill points out that the Lady was alive in June during the
filming, and her body was found in Provincetown, not too far
from the film's Martha Vineyard set.
“I’ve heard it said that everyone who was out on Cape Cod in the
summer of 1974 appears in the movie Jaws,” Hill told the Post.
"The possibility that a person would make a stop on the island
and appear in the movie is not unreasonable," he added.
Hill even said that he approached an FBI friend about his
theory, who told him, "There might be something in it. Odder
ideas have cracked colder cases."
Without records of the extras who appeared in the film, Hill has
encouraged people who may have starred alongside the bandana-ed
woman in Jaws to shed some light on who she could be. But until
that happens, or the local authorities make a break in the case,
it's nothing more than a wild theory.
"It IS a helluva what-if, isn't it?" Hill wrote. "What if the
young murder victim no one has ever been able to identify has
been seen by hundreds of millions of people in a beloved summer
classic and they didn’t even know they were looking at her?"
#Post#: 4594--------------------------------------------------
Re: LADY OF THE DUNES: WF, 27-49, found in Provincetown, MA - 26
July 1974
By: Akoya Date: April 18, 2020, 4:04 pm
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HTML https://geology.com/cities-map/map-of-massachusetts-cities.gif
#Post#: 10144--------------------------------------------------
Re: LADY OF THE DUNES: WF, 27-49, found in Provincetown, MA - 26
July 1974
By: Scorpio Date: December 12, 2022, 10:20 pm
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The Lady Of The Dunes has been identified as 37-year-old Ruth
Marie Terry of Tennessee.
HTML https://i.imgur.com/Rrt0Ctsl.jpg
#Post#: 10145--------------------------------------------------
Re: LADY OF THE DUNES: WF, 27-49, found in Provincetown, MA - 26
July 1974
By: Scorpio Date: December 12, 2022, 10:23 pm
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HTML https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/seeking-info/ruth-marie-terry
HTML https://i.imgur.com/xBpzEr6l.jpg
Date(s) of Birth Used: September 8, 1936
Place of Birth: Tennessee
Height: 5'6-1/2"
Weight: 146 pounds
Sex: Female
Race: White
Remarks:In addition to Tennessee, Terry had ties to California,
Massachusetts, and Michigan.
Details:
On July 26, 1974, Ruth Marie Terry, 37, was found deceased in
the dunes about a mile east of the Race Point Ranger Station in
Provincetown, Massachusetts. The cause of death was a blow to
the head and is estimated to have occurred several weeks prior.
Her hands were missing, presumably removed by the killer so she
could not be identified through fingerprints and her head was
nearly severed from her body. The left side of her skull had
been crushed. No weapon was found at the crime scene. Her ****
body was discovered lying on a beach blanket with her head
resting on folded jeans.
The case is being investigated as a homicide by the
Massachusetts State Police assigned to the Office of the Cape
and Islands District Attorney, the Provincetown Police
Department, and the FBI.
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