A murder case that has captured the minds of many and one surprising clue in a well known horror film may point to the mystery woman's identity.
It was a warm day on July 26 1974 in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the town is usually best known for attracting artists and creative people due to its breathtaking views and for its flourishing LGBTQ+ community. It was a picture perfect day, many were out enjoying the sunshine and making the most of their day. That included the Metcalfe family who were taking their dog for a walk along the Race Point Dunes, the dog wondered off and starting barking by some bushes so 12-year-old Leslie Metcalfe followed her pet but was horrified to see what she thought was a dead deer but soon realised her mistake, she had stumbled across the nude body of a woman.
The crime scene
The woman was found by the road in a small clearing, two sets of footprints lead to and from the scene and tire tracks were found 46 metres from the body. The footprints were a size 10 and indicated that a heavy person had been running. It was thought the woman had been there for at least 10 days to two weeks before her body was found. The woman was found face down on a beach blanket, there was no sign of a struggle leading police to believe she had either known her killer or had been sleeping when she was attacked. The sand and beach blanket had not been disturbed leading police to believe she may have been moved to that spot after her death.
A blue bandana and a pair of Wrangler jeans were found under her head. She had long auburn or red hair, pulled back into a ponytail with a gold flecked elastic band and her toenails were painted pink. Police determined her to be around 5 feet 6 inches and weighed around 145 pounds with an athletic build. She had undergone expensive dental work, including crowns, worth $5,000 to $10,000; some dentists refer to this work as "New York Style" and several of her teeth had been removed. Both of her hands and one forearm were missing and in their place was a pile of pine needles, most likely in an attempt to conceal her identity. Most sources agree her age as between 25 - 40 but she could have been as young as 20.
Her cause of death was determined to be from nearly being decapitated, she had also been strangled and one side of her head had been bashed in with what was thought to be a military style entrenching tool. There was also signs of sexual assault with an object thought to be a wooden block, although it was thought to have taken place after death.
Composites Between 1979 to 2006
Police looked around in the local community to see if anyone had seen her, they used blood hounds and looked at anyone who had a permit to bring their vehicle in the area, they found nothing. A local woman noted it was very strange no one in the tight knit community knew who the woman was.
Police pored over missing persons reports hoping to find the identity of their Jane Doe and their only evidence despite extensive searches were the jeans, bandana, beach blanket and elastic band. Her first facial reconstruction came in 1979 with the use of clay and her remains were exhumed in 1980 but no new clues were found. Her body was exhumed once again in March 2000 for DNA and finally in May 2010, her skull was placed through a CT scanner to create a detailed recreation of what she looked like, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children then used this to create their own sketch of her.
2010 reconstruction
In 1987, a Canadian woman claimed she had witnessed her father strangle a woman in Massachusetts around 1972, police tried to find this woman but failed after Canadian police had alerted them. Another woman came to the police to tell them her missing sister looked like the Jane Doe, her sister had gone missing from Boston in 1974 but this was inconclusive.
Police also looked at the possibility of the Lady of the Dunes being missing drug dealer and bank robber Rory Gene Kesinger. Rory would have been 25 at the time of the murder after her escape from jail in 1973. They had noticed a resemblance between the two women but DNA from Rory's mother did not match. Kesinger has never been found.
Rory Gene Kesinger
An odd development happened in August 2015, the Lady of the Dunes may have been an extra in the 1975 hit film Jaws. The film had been shot on Martha's Vineyard only 100 miles south of Provincetown. Joe Hill, son of author Stephen King, brought this to police after reading The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths are Solving America's Coldest Cases weeks before. Joe was watching the films Fourth of July scene when he suddenly noticed a woman standing in the crowd, she had a blue bandana and jeans on similar to the Lady and had red hair. Police have called this an interesting lead as she could have appeared in the film days before her murder while others have called it far fetched. Sadly, the names of all the extras weren't kept as so many of the local community wanted to be involved and the casting director for the extras has sadly passed away since leaving no chance to see if the Lady really is in the film.
The woman suspected of being the Lady of the Dunes in Jaws
Suspects have been found in the case such as in 1981, a woman who resembled the Lady was seen with mobster Whitey Bulger around the time she died. Bulger was known for removing his victims teeth something that happened to the Lady but sadly no link has ever been confirmed and Bulger was murdered in prison in 2018. A woman named Sandra Lee, who claimed her family was close to the mobster, is the person who came forward about this in 2015 and claims Bulger was in the area at the time of the murder. Lee also claims she was the one to find the Lady before Leslie Metcalfe but she did not alert the authorities.
Whitey Bulger in 2011
Another suspect came into focus in the form of serial killer Tony Costa but he was later eliminated as a suspect as he had died on May 12 1974 and the Lady was found in July 1974.
New hope came to the case when serial killer Hadden Clark confessed stating "I could have told the police was 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 police is looking for is in my grandfathers garden." Clark apparently lured a woman into the Dunes while staying with his grandfather in Cape Cod in 1974. He says he hit the woman in the head with a surf casting fishing rod and then got a saw from the back of his truck and removed her hands, he also claims to have used her fingers as fishing bait and burying the hands elsewhere.
Police are sceptical as Clark apparently suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and the details he has given were ones printed in the newspaper and he also has a history of confessing to murders he did not commit. Clark apparently sent a letter to a friend confessing he had killed a woman in Cape Cod, Massachusetts along with drawings, one of a handless, naked woman sprawled on her stomach and another with a map pointing to her location. In April 2000, Clark had led police to a spot he claimed he had buried two of his victims 20 years prior and had claimed to have killed several others in various states between the 1970's and the 1990's. Police find Clark to be an unreliable source and can't take his word on anything alone and with no evidence connecting him he can't be proven to be telling the truth.
Hadden Clark
With new advancements in technology and DNA police are hopeful that one day the Lady will finally be identified. They are currently very hopeful at the prospect of the use of DNA analysis using genealogical family tree building sites. This method was famously used to bring the infamous Joesph James DeAngelo aka the Golden State Killer in California to justice decades after his murder spree.
The Lady of the Dunes grave
The Lady of the Dunes was buried at Saint Peter's Cemetery in October 1974, her tombstone reads "Unidentified female body found Race Point Dunes". The case of the Lady of the Dunes is the oldest unidentified deceased person in Massachusetts and the local community still strive to identify the woman as she has not been forgotten by them and her mystery still intrigues those who hear it.
Lady of the Dunes facial reconstructions (with and without freckles)
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