The Skeleton Crew (29 page)

His white-collar profession requires him to travel around the country regularly (his mother is still terrified every time he gets on a plane); he owns the first two-story brick house with architectural details in a neighborhood of small clapboard ranches and trailer homes; and he is the subject of a TV show, a documentary, dozens of newspaper and magazine articles, and now, a book.

He's considered moving to somewhere more connected to the twenty-­first century, but he knows he'll probably never leave Overton County. He hates the tornadoes and poisonous snakes and meth labs; plus he and Lori
seem to be always yanking some deadbeat relation back from the brink of prison, addiction, or financial ruin. But Todd is forever linking meaningful occasions with his close surroundings—the tree he planted when one of his sons was born, the limestone quarry where Papa Vaughn broke his back, a past generation's condemned eyesore of a house spewing splintering chairs and broken glass that he's contemplated fixing up. He seems determined to live out the rest of his life in Livingston, mostly, it seems, so he'll be certain to die there.

Todd's hale and hearty parents have already installed their shared gravestone at the family cemetery. It's easier for the survivors that way, he says. He knows he'll be buried there, although he's less certain about who'll mow the grass then, because his sons don't feel the way he does about maintaining the family plot. Industrious, serious Devin, not yet in junior high school, might be the one wielding the trimmer one day.

Todd can't see his older son taking that on. Dillan, despite his parents' urging to stay in college, dropped out after less than a year to take a job in the automobile parts factory where Todd worked for twenty years. In April 2011, weeks after Dillan's nineteenth birthday, he and his girlfriend, Hayley, announced they were going to be parents. Todd became a grandfather at forty-two.

As his own father had wished for him, Todd wished Dillan had waited a few more years—“I'll admit it, I was not a grown man when I got married”—­and Dillan was two years younger than Todd was when Dillan himself was born. It is what it is, Todd says. A child, he says, is always a blessing.

The generations are important to Todd. The baby, like Todd, named James (although he's called Connor, his middle name), was barely born before he appeared at his first command performance: a photo of five generations of the Matthews and Riddle clans. If Todd could somehow have managed it and Lori didn't kill him first, he'd have slipped the ethereal presence of Bobbie Ann—forever twenty-four, fresh-faced, and smiling—into the frame.

Wilbur Riddle, hard-of-hearing, divorced from his third wife, lives alone. He reads the Bible every day. “When you're retired, you don't know what day it is,” he says, so every night he tears a page off the calendar on his bathroom wall. Tent Girl still crops up in his thoughts, especially when he's driving along quiet country roads. “Once you know that stuff goes on, when I see a cliff or something, it makes me want to get out and see what's over it,” he said.

The state has widened Route 25 and installed a guardrail where he'd like to petition for a memorial to Tent Girl. With only a fifth-grade education, he finds the paperwork daunting.

He's still possessive of her. “I figured it would be solved some day,” he crowed to a reporter who called him for a comment after Todd identified Bobbie Ann. “I said, ‘Somebody out there knows this girl.'”

To me he avowed, “The way I found her, I was supposed to find her.” If he hadn't happened to spot her that day in May 1968, he's convinced she'd still be there, a skeleton by now in the tarpaulin. Then he got to puzzling: Why was it ordained that he, of all people, should be the one to find her?

He has never settled on any reason at all.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
have been privileged to meet exceptional people along this journey who welcomed me into their homes, their workplaces, and their lives. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Betty Brown, Ellen Leach, Bobby Lingoes, Daphne Owings, Lauran Halleck, Kristy Gault, and the rest of the web sleuths for their candidness and trust. I admire their commitment, envy their talents, and hope this book brings them some small fraction of the recognition they deserve. Rosemary Westbrook, Carol Cielecki, Don May, and Jan Buman generously and graciously spoke to me about their painful losses, and Art Eisenberg, George Adams, Rhonda Roby, B. J. Spamer, and the rest of the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification staff were excellent hosts during my visit. Many others filled in gaps in the history of the Doe Network and helped me appreciate the behind-the-scenes work involved in maintaining a web presence for the missing and the unidentified. Mike Murphy, Rick Jones, Marcella Fierro, Clyde Gibbs, and Emily Craig were patient with my squeamishness and eloquent in their explanations of the sensitive roles they play for the living and the dead.

Todd Matthews was invariably accommodating, upbeat, and willing to drive me around Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arkansas and to search his memory and e-mail archives for me. Todd was also a good sport about seeking out sublime Southern barbecue at roadside joints and about that time I insisted we attempt to infiltrate the Body Farm. Thanks to Lori Matthews for her forbearance during all of the above.

I am enormously appreciative of the thoughtful feedback and enthusiastic support of instructors and fellow writers at Grub Street in Boston, the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Graduate Program in Science Writing, and Harvard University Extension School. I'm lucky to have an amazing circle of friends, neighbors, book group and writing group compatriots, fellow science writers
at New England Science Writers and the Geek Offices Writing Lab, and colleagues at Tufts University and MIT who not only read early drafts and offered spot-on advice but also listened to gory tales of decay and decomposition over countless meals and martinis.

This book would not exist without my agent, Lindsay Edgecombe, who from day one believed I could do this, and with endless patience walked me through the vagaries of the publishing industry. My editor, Sarah Knight, a fellow aficionado of the macabre and the offbeat, took a chance on a first-time author and then made the manuscript infinitely better with her eagle eye for tone, flow, and pace.

A boatload of thanks to my husband, Bill Wittenberg, and to our inimitable kids, Brett and Claudia, who were dubious at times that there actually would
be
a book but who nonetheless cheered me on and generously accepted the fact that I spent more quality time with my laptop than with them. I'll never find the words to tell you all how extraordinary you are and how grateful I am for your faith, love, and loyalty.

And, lastly, I wish my father, who believed reading was the best thing in the world, had lived to see my name on the cover of this book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Deborah Halber is a Boston-based journalist whose work has appeared in
The Boston Globe; MIT Technology Review
; the interactive graphic magazine
Symbolia
; and many university publications. A native New Yorker, she received her BA from Brandeis University and an MA in journalism from New York University. After working as a general assignment reporter for weeklies and dailies in New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, she became editor of Tufts University's alumni magazine and then a science writer for MIT, chronicling everything from quantum weirdness (that's the technical term) to dark matter, neuroscience, worm longevity, cell undertakers, and the properties of snail slime. A member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, Mystery Writers of America, and the National Association of Science Writers, she lives with her family in a house in the suburbs with a lot of former pets buried out back.

ENDNOTES

PROLOGUE

THE WELL DRILLER

2
Parents invoke her:
Byron Brewer, a reporter with the
Georgetown (Kentucky) Graphic
, gave a speech about the Tent Girl legend at Barbara Hackmann-­Taylor's funeral on April 25, 1998.

2
Master Detective
magazine told Riddle's story:
Alan Markfield, “Who Is the Tent Girl . . . and Who Killed Her?”
Master Detective
, May 1969.

4
Among the army recruits on high alert:
Author interview with Todd Matthews.

4
In 1789, one such spring:
“Georgetown: Gateway to the Kentucky Horse Park” website, www.georgetownky.com/History/free-things-to-do-revised.

5
they came in brilliant blues, greens, and reds:
See collector Chris McClelland's webpage for examples of glass insulators: http://railrunner42.tripod.com/myglassinsulatorsite/.

8
The fact that the former clearing was once:
“Diagram of Spot Where ‘Tent Girl' Was Found,”
The Cincinnati Post and Times-Star
, May 23, 1968.

8
the former clearing was once the first pull-off:
Chuck Koehler, “Mystery Teen-Age Girl's Body Found in Scott Field,”
The Kentucky Post and Times Star
, May 20, 1968, p. 1.

8
The Cincinnati Post
would dub her Tent Girl:
Garth Haslam, “Anomalies: The Strange and Unexplained” website, http://anomalyinfo.com/.

8
“the most baffling case in Kentucky's criminal history”:
Alan Markfield,
Master Detective
.

CHAPTER 1

THE ULTIMATE IDENTITY CRISIS

11
America is home to tens of thousands of unidentified human remains:
Nancy Ritter, “Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains: The Nation's Silent Mass Disaster,”
NIJ Journal,
National Institute of Justice, no. 258, Jan. 2007, p. 2.

12
The unidentified dead don't yield up any of the soothing:
For a discussion of the significance of death rituals, see Somini Sengupta, “The Nation: Body and Soul; Why Disposing of the Dead Matters to the Living,”
The New York Times
, Feb. 24, 2002.

13
identity lets us know:
For a thorough exploration of identity, the nature of postmortem identity, and how the living perceive the dead, see Richard Jenkins's
Social Identity
(London: Routledge, 1996);
Identity Theory
by Peter J. Burke and Jan E. Stets (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); and
Beyond the Body: Death and Social Identity
by Elizabeth M. Hallam and Glennys Howarth (London: Routledge, 1999).

13
this first-of-its-kind national census:
Kristin A. Hughes, “Unidentified Human Remains in the United States, 1980–2004,” National Criminal Justice 219533, Nov. 1, 2007, http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=819.

14
the National Institute of Justice estimates:
Nancy Ritter, “Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains: The Nation's Silent Mass Disaster.”

14
“I don't know how the police and the city morgue didn't realize”:
Letter courtesy of Daphne Owings.

14
Around half of the unidentified die natural, accidental, or self-inflicted:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Death Index and the National Crime Information Center Missing Person and Unidentified Person Statistics.

15
a photo in
The
Boston Globe
of a woman:
John R. Ellement, “Images of Cape Victim Released,”
The Boston Globe
, May 6, 2010, B2; illustration courtesy of Provincetown
Police Department.

16
Now a new, go-getter police chief was reopening:
Pru Sowers, “Province­town's ‘Woman in the Dunes' Murder Case to Be Reopened,”
Provincetown Banner
, posted Nov. 5, 2009.

16
a new suspect in her murder would be identified in 2012:
“New Clues in Provincetown's Woman in the Dunes Case Point to Bulger Connection,”
Provincetown Banner
Wicked Local website, posted March 1, 2012, courtesy of Wicked Local partner WCVB–Channel 5 Boston.

17
As one cold case investigator put it, unidentified corpses:
Author interview with Gerald D. Nance, whose cold case unit of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is the real-life version of those on
Cold Case
and
NCIS
. Nance was with the real NCIS—the Naval Criminal Investigation Service—until retiring in 1998.

17
“Cynicism, clannishness, secrecy”:
Larry J. Siegel and John L. Worrall,
Essentials of Criminal Justice
, 8th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2011), 122.

18
names of administrators listed on the Doe Network:
http://www.doenetwork.org/.

18
a conference for cops and forensics personnel:
University of North Texas Center for Human Identification, hosted by Virginia Police Department, Regional Missing & Unidentified Persons Workshop, Sept. 30, 2010.

18
serial killer Son of Sam gave New York City:
Steve Dunleavy in the
New York Post
, http://www.nypost.com/p/news/item_4CqKKzfl3NjbqnL3Nv6xpL.

20
The ninth woman in the country certified in forensic pathology:
Nicole Peradotto, “Marcella Fierro: Compassionate Medical Examiner Solves Pathology Puzzles in the Cause of Justice,”
UB Today
, University of Buffalo, Fall 2007.

20
“Kay is blond, blue-eyed”:
“The Real ‘Kay Scarpetta' Retires: Virginia Medical Examiner Was the Inspiration for Novelist Cornwell,” Associated Press, updated on www.today.com, Jan. 1, 2008.

21
“forget it,” Fierro said. “There was really nothing”:
Author interview with Marcella
Fierro.

21
a police artist and an anthropologist from the Smithsonian:
FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin
, vol. 46, no. 8, Aug. 1977, p. 12.

22
She asked them to tell her their stories:
“Postmortem: Death Investigation in America,”
PBS Frontline
, air date Feb. 1, 2011, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/post-mortem/interviews/marcella-fierro.html.

23
the FBI wouldn't have a working computer system:
“Countdown Begins for New UCR Data Collections and Initiatives Coming January 1,” Federal Bureau of Investigation,
CJIS-Link
, vol. 14, no. 3, Dec. 2012.

23
“I think he's around sixty”:
Author interview with Betty Dalton Brown.

27
“Websleuths is SUPPOSED to be [a] TRUE CRIME forum”:
For a user discussion of Websleuths, see Amazon.com customer discussion “The Truth About Websleuths, the Owner and Some of the Bloggers . . .” at http://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Websleuths-owner-bloggers-/forum/FxC2118KCLGTN1/Tx3NLX33TWC6KHH/1/ref=cm_cd_NOREF?_encoding=UTF8&asin=1937856380&cdItems=25&store=generic. “Presumed Guilty: Casey Anthony: The Inside Story forum,” and Yahoo! Answers, “Why Did Websleuths a True Crime Forum Ban So Many People?” at http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080726052004AAx06ET.

CHAPTER 2

YOU CAN DISAPPEAR HERE

31
James J. Meads kept the skull:
Henry Scammell, “The Lady in the Dunes,”
Boston Magazine
, July 2001, p. 85.

32
on July twenty-sixth, a couple and their daughter:
I culled details of the discovery and early investigation of the Lady of the Dunes from the Province­town Police Department case history; newspaper articles in the
Provincetown Advocate
, including “Victim Found on Back Shore Dunes” and “Victim's Identity Still Sought” (Aug. 8, 1974), and “Dentist Doubts Teeth Will Identify Victim” (Aug. 15, 1974); Henry Scammell, “The Lady in the Dunes,”
Boston Magazine
, July 2001, p. 85; “Body Found on Cape”
The New York Times
, July 31, 1974;
The
New York Times
(1923–Current file); ProQuest Historical Newspapers; and Michael Newton,
The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes
(New York: Infobase Publish
ing, 2009).

33
Jim Hankins had spent sixteen years with the U.S. National Park Service:
Author interview with Jim Hankins.

33
He also didn't care for the sleeping bag set:
Paul Robbins, United Press International, as run in
The Beaver County
(PA)
Times
, May 31, 1972.

34
Jimmy Meads was a sergeant in March 1969:
The description of the Tony Costa case and Costa's relationship with Meads comes from
Leo Damore, In His Garden: The Anatomy of a Murderer (The Cape Cod Murders)
(New York: Arbor House, 1981).

38
send Chief Jimmy Meads to New York City:
Author interview with James J. Meads.

39
The Ace of Spades was one of P-town's:
Taken from a blog documenting “womyn's” spaces, http://lostwomynsspace.blogspot.com/2011/03/ace-of-spades_1593.html.

CHAPTER 3

IT'S THE ETHERNET, MY DEAR WATSON

43
In “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Holmes:
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
by Arthur Conan Doyle, originally published by Doubleday/Penguin Books, is available online at Camden House http://168.144.50.205/221bcollection/canon/scan.htm.

44
in 1999, More used Yahoo!:
Yahoo! groups, “ColdCases: Missing, Murdered and Unidentified,” http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coldcases/.

47
Marra's site Stormcritters.com:
The history of the Doe Network and the Missing Persons Cold Case Network was reconstructed through an author interview with Meaghan Good, a self-described former friend and associate of Marra's and creator/Webmaster of the Charley Project, http://www.charleyproject.org/history.html; ColdCases posts attributed to Marra and others; media reports such as “Net Sleuths Are Hot on Cold Case Trail” by Brian T. Murray in the
Newark Star-Ledger
, Sept. 5, 2003, “Names for the Nameless” by Ellie M. Bayrd for the Callan Publishing group in Minneapolis, Minn.; and a mention in Matt Birkbeck,
A Beautiful Child: A True Story of Hope, Horror and an Enduring Human Spirit
(New York: Berkley, 2004), p. 262.

48
When Carol first started searching for Todd online:
Author interviews with Carol Cielecki and newspaper accounts such as Noah Shachtman, “Face on a Milk Carton?
Amateur Sleuths Dig Deeper,”
The
New York Times
, Jan. 1, 2004.

50
In 1975, Sean Lewis Cutler, seven years old:
Douglass Crouse, “A Day for Fond Memories and Lingering Questions,”
Bergen Record
, Sept. 26, 2003, offers news coverage and an comprehensive timeline of the Sean Cutler case. Other sources include a synopsis of Sean and Lewis Cutler's whereabouts written by Sean's cousin, Patrick Harkness, courtesy of Carol Cielecki.

53
“They found him in the ocean at Daytona Beach”:
Michael Deak, “Long-Missing Man's Remains Found in Fla,”
New Jersey News Tribune Online
, March 29, 2008.

55
psychologist Harry F. Harlow discovered that monkeys:
H. F. Harlow, “Learning and Satiation of Response in Intrinsically Motivated Complex Puzzle Performance by Monkeys,”
Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology
, vol. 43, no. 4, Aug. 1950, pages 289–94.

56
When I tracked down Wahlstrom in Sweden:
Author e-mail exchanges with Helene Wahlstrom.

57
a member of Websleuths sat at her computer in Phoenixville:
Websleuths discussion thread, “CA—Elizabeth Ernstein, 14, Redlands, 18 March 1968” between registered users Gina M., Jeff E., James G., and others between July 21, 2007 and Dec. 19, 2009, http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=51613.

57
a missing teenager who seemed to fit Tent Girl's description:
A representative story about Norman and Ruth Ernstein's anguished search for their daughter Liz included these: http://sau.stparchive.com/Archive/SAU/SAU12121968p02.php in the
Sauk Centre
(MN)
Herald
, A.J.O., “People Make the News,” Dec. 12, 1968, p. 2, and “What Has Happened to Liz Ernstein?” published in
Redlands Daily Facts
, April 3, 1968.

60
I came across a 2009 obituary for a Stephen Ernstein:
Obituary,
Monterey Herald
, posted online Jan. 20, 2010.

61
Serial murderer Charles Hatcher:
Amber Keen; George Lewis; Kara Stone; and Andrew Lucas, “Charles Ray Hatcher” http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Psyc%20405/serial%20killers/Hatcher,%20Charles%20-%20fall,%202005.pdf, Radford University Department of Psychology, 2005.

61
Mack Ray Edwards told police that he had killed six kids:
Roy Haynes, “Death Penalty Voted for Slayer of Six Children,”
Los Angeles Times
, May 23, 1970.

62
incredibly, in 2011, half a lifetime after Liz Ernstein disappeared:
Guy McCarthy,
“Remains of Mentone Girl Identified 44 Years After She Disappeared Near Home,” Redlands-LomaLinda Patch, posted Aug. 31, 2012. (Author's note: In the comments section at the end of the article, a “James Gale” engages author Guy McCarthy in a dialogue about details of the case, similar to the way James G. attempted to engage Jeff E. through Websleuths.)