Lady of the Dunes

Lady of the Dunes (also known as Lady in the Dunes) is the nickname given to a woman whose unidentified remains were discovered on July 26, 1974 in the Race Point Dunes, Provincetown, Barnstable County, Massachusetts Her body was exhumed in 1980, 2000, and 2013 in efforts to identify her and her murderer; these have proved unsuccessful, despite the reconstruction of her face a number of times. The case was featured on the television series Haunting Evidence in 2006. Discovery: Police were called to the scene where the naked, decomposing body of a woman was discovered by a teenage girl on July 26, 1974. Sandra Lee, who later became a crime author, stated that she and her sister had found the remains two days before the report, which had traumatized the pair. She later wrote a book about the case, titled The Shanty: Provincetown's Lady in the Dunes. The body was found yards away from a nearby road and had a significant amount of insect activity. Two sets of footprints were found leading to the body and tire tracks were located fifty yards from the scene. She was lying face down on a green towel, with folded Wrangler jeans, and had a blue bandanna placed under her head. She had long auburn or red hair, which was pulled back into ponytail with a holder with gold sparkles, and she had painted pink toenails. Lady of the Dunes was approximately 5'6" tall (initially believed to have been 5'8"), weighed 145 pounds, and was of an athletic build. She had extensive dental work on her teeth, worth between five and ten 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. She was nearly decapitated, possibly from strangulation, and had a massive wound on the side of her skull, determined to be the official cause of death. There were also signs of sexual assault at the scene, possibly performed with a piece of wood, likely after she died. Because of the effort her killer took to prevent her identification, some surmised that the decedent may have had a criminal history, as her fingerprints may have been on record. However, her hands and thus fingerprints may have been removed to prevent ID of the victim and hinder identification of the violent offender who killed her. The age of the victim has been widely disputed, as most sources describe the woman's age between twenty-five to forty years old, although she could have been as young as twenty and as old as forty-nine. Other sources state she was between twenty-seven to forty-nine, or twenty-five to thirty-five. Investigation: After searching through thousands of missing person cases and the list of approved vehicles driven through the area, no suitable matches were found. At the scene, there was no sign of a struggle, as the sand and towel she was lying on were not disturbed. This has led some to speculate that she had been killed at another location and disposed of in the Race Point dunes, or that she may have also known the perpetrator or was asleep when she died. No evidence apart from what was found near the body has been found, although police searched extensively in the dunes. The first facial reconstruction of the woman was created with clay in 1979 by Clyde Snow, who was a forensic artist. Her remains were exhumed in 1980 for examination, (although the skull was not buried at the time), which uncovered no clues. Again, in March 2000, the body was uncovered to extract the victim's DNA, which also did not uncover clues toward her identity. In 1987, it was reported that a Canadian woman told a friend that she saw her father strangle a woman in Massachusetts, around fifteen years before. Police officers did not believe this entirely, although they attempted to locate the woman. Also in 1987, another woman also told police that the reconstruction of the victim looked like her sister, who disappeared in Boston in 1974. Investigators also followed a lead involving Rory Gene Kesinger, who would have been 25 years old during the murder, who had broken out of the town's jail in 1973. After the skull was reconstructed, authorities saw a resemblance between Kesinger and the victim. This theory was later discarded, as DNA from Kesinger's mother compared to that of Lady of the Dunes' bone marrow did not match. Another missing woman, Francis Ewalt, of Montana has also been ruled out. The Lady of the Dunes was buried on October 19, 1974, in a grave reading "Unidentified Female Body Found Race Point Dunes, July 26, 1974" after the investigation went cold. In May 2010, her skull was placed through a CT scanner that generated images that were then used by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to reconstruct. The final product was subsequently released. Currently, one of the investigators on the case is raising funds to rebury the body in a new casket, as the original casket has deteriorated. In August 2015, speculation arose that Lady of the Dunes may have been an extra in the 1975 film Jaws, which was filmed in Massachusetts in 1974. The find was initially noticed by Joe Hill, the son of horror author Stephen King. Hill had learned of the case after reading The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths are Solving America's Coldest Cases a matter of weeks before. During one of the film's shots, a woman resembling reconstructions of the victim is depicted amongst members of a crowd, wearing a blue bandanna and jeans, coincidentally found with the victim. A lead investigator has noted interest in this potential lead, although it has been described as "far-fetched" and "wild speculation." Suspects: Two years following the creation of the reconstruction, it was learned that a woman who resembled the composite was seen with mobster Whitey Bulger around the time the woman's death occurred. Bulger was known for removing his victims' teeth, which occurred in this murder. Sandra Lee, the woman who claimed to have first discovered the body, believes the theory of Bulger's involvement, stating he should be a "person of interest." Lee also expressed that the victim may have been a prostitute and could have originated from a foreign country, such as Ireland. She elaborated that the victim may have been initially strangled, like some of the other victims of Bulger and that Lady of the Dunes was likely killed at another location. Tony Costa, a serial murderer from the area, was initially suspected in the case but was later eliminated as a suspect. Costa died on May 12, 1974, which was inconsistent with the time period in which Lady of the Dunes died. Hadden Clark confession: Serial killer Hadden Clark confessed to her murder, but many believe this to be a false statement, as Clark is known to be a notorious liar. In 2004, Clark sent a letter to a friend stating that he had killed a woman in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He had also supplied two drawingsIn April 2000, Clark led police to a search spot where he claimed he had buried two of his victims, both of whom were women murdered twenty years before. He also stated that he had murdered several others in various states during a span from the 1970s to the 1990s. Authorities have had difficulty with Clark's statements due to the fact that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, a condition which has led others with the same mental illness to confess falsely to crimes. one of a handless, naked woman sprawled on her stomach, and another of a map pointing to where the body was found. “I could have told the police what her name was, but after they beat the shit out of me, I wasn't going to tell them shit. This murder is still unsolved and what the police are looking for is in my grandfather's garden.” — Hadden Clark