Her bones were found 25 years ago in a trunk just off a Gambrill State Park road. Police are still trying to find out who she is, the woman they call Jane Doe.
A man and woman were looking for mushrooms in the woods when they discovered the trunk, said Detective Sgt. Bruce Degrange of the Frederick Police Department. Inside they found the remains of a woman estimated to be about 17- to 25-years-old, decomposed in the summer heat.
Detectives have checked dental records, but no leads have produced answers.
Investigators do not believe she was from the Frederick area. Once in a while, police hear about someone matching her general description who vanished in another place, Degrange said.
Detectives have pursued leads as far as Virginia and Massachusetts, looking to match the victim's bones with women who went missing about the same time.
"We're still following leads as they present themselves," Degrange said.
As with most cold cases, he said, the older it gets, the harder it is to solve.
"We haven't had anything new for awhile."
Kylen Johnson organizes the Maryland Missing Persons Network, part of an international organization known as the Doe Network.
A few people gathered last week for a small vigil, she said, near where the woman's bones were found on August 24, 1982, in what used to be known as the Frederick City Watershed.
Johnson has been involved with a number of cases over the last seven years, some of which she has helped detectives solve.
She believes the technology is now available to put police on the right track, she said.
"We never lose hope," Degrange said.
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=64587
http://doenetwork.org/cases/431ufmd.html