Technology may help solve 23-year-old case

Jen Lawson

Wednesday, June 4, 2003 | 11:15 a.m.

She was found dumped alongside Arroyo Grande Boulevard in Henderson almost 23 years ago.

The victim was a young woman, probably in her late teens, with blue eyes and feathered brown hair. Investigators determined she had been raped, hit on the head and stabbed multiple times in the back, but they never determined her name.

Now investigators hope technology that wasn't available in 1980 might help them identify the girl who has been known as Jane Arroyo Grande Doe.

When homicide victims remain unidentified it not only leaves family and friends without knowledge of their fate, it also means that a killer may be at large. Without knowing the identity of a victim, it is usually impossible for police to determine who killed that person.

A detective who had been haunted by the Arroyo Grande case for years thought he might have a lead on who the young woman was, so her body was exhumed Thursday from Palm Mortuary in Henderson. Coroner's investigators obtained better dental X-rays and a DNA sample, and she was returned to her grave Monday morning.

About 20 Henderson officers attended Monday's brief service at the mortuary. They stood with their heads bowed under a tent, gathered around the young woman's gray casket and asked for God's help in finding out who she was.

"We recommit her spirit to you," Henderson police chaplain Gary Morefield said during a prayer at the service. "We hope you help reveal the identity of this person that you care about very much."

The young woman was found the night of Sunday, Oct. 5, 1980, on Arroyo Grande near Lake Mead Boulevard, which is now Interstate 215.

She didn't carry any identification. She doesn't appear to be from the Las Vegas area; no one fitting her description was reported missing from Henderson or the surrounding area around that time. Her fingerprints didn't match those of any missing people entered in a national database.

In a short article that ran in the Las Vegas Sun at the time, police asked for the public's help in identifying the victim. No one ever came forward with information, police said. Two weeks later, police released a sketch of her. She remained nameless, but she wasn't forgotten.

Until she is identified and her next of kin is notified of her death, "the only family she has is at the Henderson Police Department," Capt. Jutta Chambers said.

Over the years, Detective John Williams worked on the case whenever he could, Chambers said. Williams declined to speak to a reporter.

"It's always on his mind," Chambers said.

In the past few months, Williams learned that Jane Arroyo Grande Doe might be a runaway from Reno, Chambers said. That led to the exhumation, which was one of the last official acts of Ron Flud, who retired Friday after 19 years as coroner. Investigators were soon disappointed with the news that she wasn't the missing girl from Reno, however. Another possible match was also ruled out. Now they are trying to determine if she could be one of two runaways from the East Coast who disappeared around the same time the body was discovered.

As of this morning investigators had not determined whether Jane Arroyo Grande Doe was one of those runaways.

It's "very unusual" for the coroner's office to exhume a body, Clark County's new coroner, Michael Murphy, said.

"We normally would not do that unless we had reason to believe we could get a match," he said. "We are not going to arbitrarily exhume John or Jane Does to get DNA samples. While it's solid technology, it's still new technology and it's being stretched to the limit with current cases."

Since 1969, the coroner's office has accumulated 190 "Doe cases," or unidentified bodies, Murphy said. Of those, 14 are homicide victims.

In the Arroyo Grande case, Murphy said he believes there is a good possibility that investigators will eventually identify her.

"How good of a possibility? I am kind of the eternal optimist," Murphy said. "Good solid investigative work will ultimately prevail."