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#Post#: 7076--------------------------------------------------
RICHMOND JANE DOE: F, found in Wayne County, IN sewer - 1 Ocotb
er 1975
By: Akoya Date: June 19, 2020, 4:47 pm
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HTML https://i.imgur.com/34TSujt.png
Richmond Jane Doe is woman who was found by excavating crews
working on a sewer project in October of 1975.
#Post#: 7077--------------------------------------------------
Re: RICHMOND JANE DOE: F, found in Wayne County, IN sewer - 1 O
cotber 1975
By: Akoya Date: June 19, 2020, 4:48 pm
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HTML https://identifyus.org/en/cases/6716
NamUs UP # 6716
[img]
HTML https://identifyus.org/images/no_photo.png?1253737907[/img]
ME/C Case Number: OC-73-75
Wayne County, Indiana
30 to 99 year old Female
Case Report - NamUs UP # 6716
Case Information
Status Unidentified
Case number OC-73-75
Date found October 01, 1975 00:00
Date created February 21, 2010 22:10
Date last modified April 03, 2017 11:16
Investigating agency
date QA reviewed December 12, 2010 05:16
Local Contact (ME/C or Other)
Name Ron Stevens
Agency Wayne Cnty Coroners Ofc
Phone 317-694-9563
Case Manager
Name Elizabeth Murray
Phone 513.244.4948
Demographics
Estimated age Adult
Minimum age 30 years
Maximum age 99 years
Race Unsure
Ethnicity
Sex Female
Weight (pounds) , Cannot Estimate
Height (inches) 62, Estimated
Body Parts Inventory (Check all that apply)
All parts recovered
Body conditions
Not recognizable - Decomposing/putrefaction
Probable year of death 1975 to 1975
Estimated postmortem interval Months
Circumstances
Location Found
GPS coordinates
Address 1
Address 2
City Richmond
State Indiana
Zip code
County Wayne
Circumstances
Body found in a sewer.
Physical
Hair color Brown
Head hair
Straight dark brown hair.
Body hair
"pubic hair appears to be gray"
Left eye color Unknown or Missing
Right eye color Unknown or Missing
Eye description
decomposed
No other distinctive body features
Fingerprints
Status: Fingerprint information is currently not available
Clothing and Accessories
No clothing or accessories
Dental
Status: Dental information / charting is available and entered
DNA
Status: Sample is currently not available
Images
There are currently no images available for this case.
#Post#: 7078--------------------------------------------------
Re: RICHMOND JANE DOE: F, found in Wayne County, IN sewer - 1 O
cotber 1975
By: Akoya Date: June 19, 2020, 4:50 pm
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HTML http://www.newsexaminer.com/news/lo...cle_280f811b-1475-5ec7-8acd-53103dac76cf.html
By MIKE EMERY
Palladium-Item
and
By JAMES SPRAGUE
jsprague@newsexaminer.com
Dec 9, 2014
HTML https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/newsexaminer.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/4/51/45116b9c-1240-53ea-89b2-3bb1dde53956/5824dabf15cc2.image.jpg
Lula Miller, who disappeared Nov. 1, 1974 from her home in
Laurel and has never been found. The Indiana State Police this
week will be exhuming the remains of an unidentified Jane Doe in
Richmond to see if those remains are, in fact, Miller's.
(Contributed)
RICHMOND — Lula Miller left her Laurel, Indiana, home Nov. 1,
1974. She was never heard from again.
Workers for a Richmond excavating company discovered a body Oct.
1, 1975, in a sewer. The decomposed remains could not be
identified.
Nearly 40 years later, utilizing the Internet’s power and
advanced DNA testing, Indiana State Police Sgt. Scott Jarvis
hopes he’ll answer both lingering questions.
Jarvis this week will exhume from an area cemetery the remains
of that body found in a sewer and submit DNA samples for
testing. He thinks the results will show the remains are Miller.
“I’m more confident than not,” the 15-year ISP veteran told the
Palladium-Item.
Jarvis’ journey to this point began with a January phone call
from a volunteer with The Doe Network, an online database of
missing persons and unidentified bodies. The volunteers comb
through cases, trying to find matches, according to Jarvis.
Jarvis began researching beyond the similar time frame,
proximity of location and gender match. He reviewed the cases,
researched newspaper accounts at the Ball State University
library and acquired the autopsy report and photos from
Cincinnati.
“There are characteristics, like height and weight, and other
factors that match from the autopsy,” Jarvis said. “There are
similarities between this lady and the one missing from Franklin
County.”
DNA was taken from members of Miller’s family and run through
national police databases of unidentified bodies. There was no
match. Jarvis then worked through the legal steps necessary to
obtain a search warrant to exhume the remains in Richmond and
analyze DNA. Final paperwork was approved last week, leading to
the next step this week.
After the remains are exhumed and checked at a local funeral
home, Jarvis said, the University of Indianapolis anthropology
lab will conduct an examination.
“They are looking for any information they can get,” Jarvis
said, “but we’re basically relying on DNA.”
Mitochondrial DNA samples will be sent to the University of
North Texas for analysis. Then, Jarvis and Miller’s family
members will begin a wait that could last six months, depending
on the lab’s case load.
“The daughters I’m in touch with are excited. They were 2 or 3
years old when their mom left,” Jarvis said. “They’re excited
about the possibility of finding her for closure, but they don’t
have their hopes up. It’s still just a possibility right now.”
It’s a possibility brought about because of advances in
communication between agencies and the collection and analysis
of evidence. Jarvis said it would not have been unusual for
cases a couple of counties apart not to be matched, especially
with no means of identification available.
“Back then, they would only check for blood type,” Jarvis said.
“DNA wasn’t even used back then.”
Jarvis, who is based in Pendleton District 51, has utilized
modern methods to solve other cold cases. He said he’s found a
missing Connersville woman and a missing Brookville man alive
previously, but more often, such searches result in no answer.
“It’s interesting and frustrating, too. There’s a reason these
cases go unsolved during previous investigations,” Jarvis said.
“It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.
“When you do solve one, it is rewarding.”
#Post#: 7079--------------------------------------------------
Re: RICHMOND JANE DOE: F, found in Wayne County, IN sewer - 1 O
cotber 1975
By: Akoya Date: June 19, 2020, 4:52 pm
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continued
EVERTON — News this week of the Indiana State Police planning to
exhume the remains of a body found in Richmond, in order to see
if they are the remains of a missing Laurel woman, might not
have been possible without the involvement of a Fayette County
resident.
It's something that Everton resident Tomijo Bolton Schmid, a
local advocate for missing persons, unidentified bodies and cold
cases, has been working on having happen since 2006, when she
learned of the disappearance of Lula (Gillespie) Miller, a
Laurel resident who disappeared in November 1974 and has never
been found, she told the News-Examiner Tuesday.
Sgt. Scott Jarvis of the ISP's Pendleton Post said the agency
this week will be exhuming the remains of an unidentified woman
found in a Richmond sewer in October 1975 and compare the DNA
from the remains to that of Miller's.
For Bolton Schmid, it's progress toward finding out what
happened to Miller. She learned of Miller's story from her
mother, Emma Gillespie, at a rally in 2006 remembering Bolton
Schmid's brother, Jason, who was run over and killed by a
vehicle in August 1986 and who Bolton Schmid believes, to this
day, was murdered.
"In 2006, when I had the vigil for Jason, Lula's mother (Emma
Gillespie) came to the vigil and she shared Lula's story with
me," Bolton Schmid said. "That's when I started working to get
something done … when I talked to her in 2006, she said 'I'd
leave my porchlight on every night.' She was waiting for (Lula)
to come home. She never gave up her coming home."
Bolton Schmid, formerly of Laurel herself, began looking into
the disappearance of Miller a little further after speaking with
Miller's mother, and posted a story and photo of Miller —
provided by one of Miller's daughters, Tammy Miller — on her
website, justiceforjasonbolton.com.
"I got digging on some of the websites and I found the
description of the lady they found (in Richmond). Every just
matches (with Lula)," she said. "I just posted her story and her
picture. I started sharing and I made contact (with the Doe
Network)."
Something else that Miller's mother — who passed away last month
at the age of 91 — told her also gave Bolton Schmid the thought
that the unidentified Richmond remains could, possibly, be
Miller.
"Lula's mother told me the last she heard from her was that she
got a letter from Richmond saying (Lula) was getting on a
Greyhound bus to go to Florida," Bolton Schmid said. "She never
heard from her since."
Further contact between Bolton Schmid and Tammy Miller led to
the Miller family being put in touch with the Doe Network and
the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs.
"She got me connected with NamUs and while I was talking with
the volunteer from NamUs, Tomijo stumbled upon that Jane Doe
burial plot at Earlham College in Richmond, and it sounded just
like (Lula). So we contacted the state police and that's when
they took over the investigation," Tammy said.
Doing that helped to get the DNA from Miller's children entered
into the national DNA database maintained by NamUs — the very
DNA which will be used to compare the unidentified remains to
that of Miller's DNA.
"This has been well over a year in the making," Bolton Schmid
said. "(The family) submitted their DNA last year."
"It's been a long time in process," Tammy added. "We've had
doors slamming in our faces, but it's a 50-50 chance. We still
don't know it it's her, but it could be if it isn't her, someone
else is looking for who is there and they can get closure.
Either way, it's win-win. The person who's there, their family
will have closure. It's pretty exciting."
The Doe Network also reached out to Sgt. Jarvis about the Miller
disappearance, helping more to spur the investigation.
"It took me forever to get her information to the right people,"
Bolton Schmid continued. "Nobody was even looking for (Lula),
until we got that DNA entered."
J. Todd Matthews, who serves as director of case management and
communications for NamUs — which is based at the University of
North Texas, where the mitochondrial DNA samples will be sent to
for analysis — and media spokesman for the Doe Network, said
Bolton Schmid did play a role in bringing the Miller case to
their attention.
"Tomijo helped coordinate the family to the volunteers at Doe
Network," Matthews told the News-Examiner in an email Tuesday.
"They have always been helpful with coordinating with NamUs for
DNA collection. So pretty much she served in the role of an
advocate pointing out people and resources."
Bolton Schmid said she is hopeful that the remains prove to be a
match to Miller, so that closure can be brought to the Miller
family and law enforcement can then begin looking at the
circumstances surrounding her disappearance so long ago.
"If this is her, it's going to open up some doors," Bolton
Schmid said. "And if it's not her, someone else's loved one will
get to come home."
According to the Charley Project, another non-profit
organization whose website, www.charleyproject.org, profiles
more than 9,000 "cold cases" nationwide, Miller, 27 at that
time, left her residence Nov. 1, 1974 to walk to the store in
Laurel and never returned. No other details were available.
According to daughter Tammy, however, rumored details are that
Lula Miller was raped, beaten and thrown off the Laurel Bridge
the day before her disappearance, and that she survived the
incident, made it home and filed a police report with the Laurel
Town Marshal at that time.
"She disappeared the day after and no one's seen her since,"
Tammy said. "Nobody ever filled out a missing persons report or
anything. So I contacted the Franklin County Sheriff's
Department, filled out a missing persons report, and that's what
got the ball rolling (in the case)."
Reportedly, according to Tammy, the same group of people
involved with her mother's rumored rape and ensuing
disappearance are the same ones who were involved in the death
of Jason Bolton as well.
If the remains are identified as Lula Miller, her daughter wants
to see law enforcement pursue the case even further.
"I would," she said. "I don't know if that will ever happen, but
if it doesn't, at least we'll know where Lula is, where she's
been for 40 years. It's definitely a homicide, either way, and
I'm pretty sure (law enforcement) will pursue that route. I
don't think it's just going to stop there."
Tammy also praised Bolton Schmid for her assistance in getting
her mother's disappearance the attention it deserved, as well.
"She's awesome. She is awesome," Tammy said. "I know she is
having her struggles too, and we talk from time to time and try
to be there for each other. She finds out information and she's
been a godsend. She really has. I know there's a lot people out
there, especially locally where she lives, that just want her to
be quiet about Jason, but if she was to be quiet about Jason,
the same thing would happen with him that happened to Lula. It's
been 40 years and things are just now starting to roll."
THE REMAINS WERE NOT LULA MILLER.
#Post#: 7080--------------------------------------------------
Re: RICHMOND JANE DOE: F, found in Wayne County, IN sewer - 1 O
cotber 1975
By: Akoya Date: June 19, 2020, 4:53 pm
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Your News Wire
Missing Woman Found Alive 1,000 Miles From Home FORTY Years
Later - Your News Wire
HTML https://i.imgur.com/s3JeXYM.jpg
A woman, Lula Miller, suspected of being Richmond Jane Doe was
found alive.
#Post#: 7081--------------------------------------------------
Re: RICHMOND JANE DOE: F, found in Wayne County, IN sewer - 1 O
cotber 1975
By: Akoya Date: June 19, 2020, 4:55 pm
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HTML http://www.fox29.com/unusual/113733425-story
Indiana mother missing since 1974 found alive and well in Texas
(INSIDE EDITION) - An Indiana mother of three who vanished
without a trace in 1974 has been found alive in Texas.
Lula Ann Gillespie-Miller was 28 when she signed away her
parental rights to her three children, including a newborn, over
to her parents.
A letter her parents received was postmarked from Richmond,
Indiana in 1975 and was the last time they heard from
Gillespie-Miller.
Gillespie-Miller thought she was too young for motherhood, she
reportedly told her parents. For the next four decades, she was
a missing person in the state of Indiana.
According to the Indiana State Police, that all changed after
Detective Sergeant Scott Jarvis took the case in January 2014.
The Doe Network, a group that assists families with missing
persons investigations, initially contacted ISP about
Gillespie-Miller.
Gillespie-Miller began his search in Richmond, where he
discovered a case of a Jane Doe whose body was buried in an
unmarked grave in the Indiana town.
The detective took a sample of Gillespie-Miller's daughter's DNA
to compare to her missing mother's and potentially determine
whether the buried body was hers.
While awaiting the DNA test results, police said Jarvis'
investigation took him in some new directions.
He began to following the trail of a woman with similarities to
Gillespie-Miller who had lived in Tennessee in the 1980’s, then
moved to Texas.
That trail led to a woman who'd been living in a small Texas
town since the 1990's, possibly under an alias.
After this past Thursday, Jarvis would no longer need the DNA
results after Texas Rangers the detective asked to visit the
woman in Texas made contact.
Police say the woman admitted to them that she is, indeed, Lula
Ann Gillespie-Miller.
She is now 69 years old.
Gillespie-Miller has committed no crime, police say. Authorities
will not reveal exactly where she now resides because she also
retains her right to anonymity.
However, she gave police permission to give her daughter Tammy
Miller her address so the two might soon reconnect.
Miller hopes to speak with her long-missing mother over the
Easter weekend.
For more stories and videos, please visit INSIDE EDITION. Don't
forget to watch INSIDE EDITION at 6:30 p.m. weekdays.
#Post#: 7082--------------------------------------------------
Re: RICHMOND JANE DOE: F, found in Wayne County, IN sewer - 1 O
cotber 1975
By: Akoya Date: June 19, 2020, 4:57 pm
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HTML http://www.inquisitr.com/2927657/in...iving-under-alias-in-texas-why-did-she-leave/
For over forty years, Laurel, Indiana, has been at the center of
an unsolved mystery over the disappearance of a young woman
named Lula Ann Gillespie-Miller. Back in 1974, she left Laurel
and vanished, and no one in her family knew her whereabouts. At
least not until Thursday, when Indiana State Police found her in
Texas living under an alias.
The facts behind the mystery of what happened to Lula may have
been solved, but even as the story goes viral with accusations
of Lula being “selfish” or a “deadbeat parent,” all of the
outsiders reading about this case don’t know the whole story —
not by a long shot.
Back in 1974, the widowed Gillespie-Miller was 28 years old and
had just given birth to her fourth child. While news outlets
report she signed over her children to her parents before she
left, the backstory behind why she left has been left out,
although locals can tell you why.
Just a few days before her disappearance, Gillespie-Miller was
allegedly raped by four men in Laurel. Then she was beaten and
thrown over the Laurel bridge to die. But Lula managed to drag
herself to her mother’s house and survived, filing a police
report on the incident that has since disappeared. A few days
later, Lula was gone as well, so she was rumored to have been
killed by her attackers to keep her silent.
Forty years later, Indiana State Police Detective Sgt. Scott
Jarvis took over the cold case at the request of the Doe
Network, a website that helps people seeking missing family
members. According to her family, the last contact with Lula was
a letter postmarked from nearby Richmond, Indiana, in 1975.
After reviewing the case, Jarvis noted the similarity in her
appearance to a Jane Doe found in Richmond in 1975, who was
buried in an unmarked grave there. In December 2014, Jarvis
obtained a search warrant to exhume the body for DNA analysis,
using a sample from Gillespie-Miller’s daughter, Tammy Miller.
In a phone call with Jarvis on March 17 to get an update on the
status of the DNA testing, he reported that results of the DNA
were still pending on the exhumed body, but he gave no
indication that the case had taken a different turn and that
evidence had been found indicating Lula may still be alive.
According to the Indiana State Police press release, Jarvis
noticed similarities between Gillespie-Miller and a woman who
lived in Tennessee in the 80s and later moved to Texas, where
she might still be living under an alias. Thursday, Jarvis
contacted Texas Rangers to make a visit to the home of the woman
he suspected might actually be Lula Gillespie-Miller. The
Rangers reported that she admitted her true identity as the
woman — now 69 years old — who disappeared from Laurel, Indiana,
back in 1974.
The press release also reported that Lula gave permission for
Jarvis to pass on her contact information to her daughter,
Tammy, who was too young to remember her mother when she left.
As the story spread across social media, many were posting about
what a horrible mother she was to abandon her children, without
knowing the context of why she left. Some may still wonder why
Lula Gillespie-Miller felt she had to leave instead of fighting
for justice against her attackers.
If you ask locals, they know the answer, but they probably won’t
tell you.
When the story of the Laurel Five murders broke over four years
ago, the crime was painted as having occurred in a quaint small
town that never sees violence or murder. Laurel, with a
population as of 2010 of 512 people, lies just south of the
Fayette county line in Franklin County. While the Franklin and
Fayette County areas certainly don’t see the crime rates of
large cities, the rural farming communities have seen a fair
number of unsolved disappearances and murders over the years.
#Post#: 7083--------------------------------------------------
Re: RICHMOND JANE DOE: F, found in Wayne County, IN sewer - 1 O
cotber 1975
By: Akoya Date: June 19, 2020, 4:59 pm
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HTML https://i.imgur.com/ak6dHdv.gif
HTML https://i.imgur.com/fQJ6LD5.png
#Post#: 7084--------------------------------------------------
Re: RICHMOND JANE DOE: F, found in Wayne County, IN sewer - 1 O
cotber 1975
By: Akoya Date: June 19, 2020, 5:00 pm
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Richmond, Indiana
HTML https://i.imgur.com/3ZZ1zHi.jpg
HTML https://i.imgur.com/ilVB9ci.jpg
HTML https://i.imgur.com/8n3ysPj.jpg
#Post#: 7085--------------------------------------------------
Re: RICHMOND JANE DOE: F, found in Wayne County, IN sewer - 1 O
cotber 1975
By: Akoya Date: June 19, 2020, 5:00 pm
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HTML https://i.imgur.com/hVC86KG.gif
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