On the afternoon of 28 February, 1983, two men were searching for a pipe to fix their broken van in St. Louis, Missouri, when entered a crumbling, abandoned, red-brick apartment building located at 5635 Clemens Avenue. As they ventured into the damp basement, an overpowering stench assaulted their senses. Their eyes were drawn to the source of the smell: a bundle in the middle of the basement.
They recoiled in horror to see that the bundle was in face the headless corpse of a little girl. She lay on her stomach, nude except for a yellow v-neck sweater that was drenched in blood. The label had been torn from the sweater and her hands were bound behind her back with black and red nylon rope.1
Within minutes, detectives swarmed the area, cordoning off the site and beginning their grim investigation. The girl was identified as a black child, estimated to be between seven and ten years old, standing between 4 feet 10 inches and 5 feet 4 inches tall when she was alive. Her fingers were adorned with two coats of red nail polish.
Initial investigations quickly revealed that the child had not been murdered in the basement. The lack of blood surrounding her body suggested that she had been killed elsewhere and disposed of in this abandoned building. Detective Sgt. Herb Riley, grappling with the grotesque reality before him, remarked to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Her head appeared to have been cleanly cut off. It was like somebody took a carving knife to her.” Detectives also believed that the girl’s body hadn’t been in the basement for too long because she was well-preserved.
The news of the grisly discovery swept throughout the area like wildfire, and people were horrified of the gruesome nature of the murder. Stanley Sztukowski who worked at the Medical Examiner’s office remarked: “Just when you think you’ve seen about everything, you see something like this. I’ve been working murders for 20 years, and this has got to be the worst one I’ve seen.”
In the wake of a horrific discovery, detectives wasted no time launching a thorough investigation to identify the little girl. The crime scene buzzed with activity as officers canvassed the neighbourhood, conducting door-to-door inquiries in an urgent effort to uncover her identity. Strangely, there had been no reports of any children missing in the area, raising an alarming question: how could a child end up in such a tragic situation without anyone noticing her absence?
Despite reviewing records of approximately 20 missing children in St. Louis, none matched the description of the headless girl. The child’s body was promptly transported to the medical examiner’s office, where autopsy results revealed she had been dead for two to three days and had suffered sexual assault. The community, already reeling from the grisly discovery, began to refer to her as “St. Louis Jane Doe.” She was also affectionately nicknamed “Hope,” “Precious Hope,” and “Little Jane Doe,” reflecting a community’s desire to honour her memory and seek justice.
Yet the investigation faced an insurmountable hurdle: the girl’s head was still missing. Detectives scoured a 16-block radius surrounding the abandoned building, meticulously checking sewers, trash cans, and any potential hiding places, but to no avail.
Captain Leroy Adkins took to the airwaves, issuing an urgent appeal to Black parents, urging them to “know where your children are.” He urged those with daughters staying with relatives or friends to “double check” their whereabouts. The unnerving silence surrounding the girl’s identity prompted detectives to theorize that either the parents were unaware of their child’s absence or, more disturbingly, that they might be involved.2
As the days trickled by, frustration mounted within the investigative team. One detective poignantly remarked on the difficulties they faced: “When you don’t know who the victim is and you don’t have a murder scene, you’re going to have a hell of a time with the investigation. I mean, where do you start?”3
In their relentless pursuit of answers, detectives diligently checked attendance records at local schools, reaching out to foster homes, halfway houses, hospitals, and detention centers. A description of the little girl was disseminated to police departments across the country, but no one could identify her.
The community of St. Louis came together in a solemn gathering to honour the memory of the little girl whose life had been so tragically cut short. A memorial service was held at New Mount Gideon West Baptist Church, where mourners shared their grief and sorrow for a child they had never known but whose story had touched their hearts. In the aftermath of this memorial, detectives renewed their appeal for information, with Captain Leroy Adkins poignantly stating, “Somewhere out there is a mother without a little girl, a brother without a sister, a neighbor without a little girl running up and down the street.”4
As the weeks turned into months, hope began to wane, yet in June, a glimmer of potential information emerged. Detectives announced they had received a letter from someone claiming to have details about the little girl. The anticipation was palpable, but when the detectives refused to disclose specifics—only stating that the letter identified the killer as a local man—the hope that the lead would lead to justice quickly faded. Despite their pleas for the sender to come forward, the individual remained silent, and the crucial lead fizzled out.5
By December, it was announced that St. Louis Jane Doe would finally be buried at Washington Park Cemetery. Lieutenant William Wilson addressed the media, acknowledging that there were still no new leads in the case, but they continued to check missing person reports from across the country. On December 3, the little girl was laid to rest in an unmarked grave, attended only by the detectives who had dedicated their time to the case and members of the media. Four gravediggers served as pallbearers.6
Detective Herb Riley, who led the investigation, explained why it took so long for St. Louis Jane Doe to be buried: “Maybe I grew so attached to this kid I didn’t want to go through with it. I kept thinking she would get a burial by the family.” The only people who attended the burial were detectives who worked on the case and the media.7 Eventually, a gravestone was erected at the grave, paid for by donations that were collected by local school children.
Despite a thorough investigation, the identity of St. Louis Jane Doe remained a mystery, as did the identity of her killer. Years passed, but the haunting case lingered in the minds of those who had worked on it. In 2001, Captain Adkins, now retired, expressed the ongoing frustration of not knowing what had happened to the little girl. “For the past 18 years, I still thought about the little girl and wondered why nobody ever ‘cared enough’ to come forward and identify her,” he said. “We have a lot of unsolved cases. But you don’t have that feeling of inadequacy or failure that you do in this one. It’s just frustrating.”8
Over the years, many theories emerged, yet the prevailing notion was that St. Louis Jane Doe had been killed by her family. As Adkins pointed out, “it must have been a very private family—isolated.” In 2013, in an effort to uncover more about her past, the body of St. Louis Jane Doe was exhumed, and isotope tests were conducted on her remains. The results revealed a tragic truth: she had spent her entire life in a cluster of southern states, including Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Tennessee, North Carolina, or South Carolina.
After the exhumation, St. Louis Jane Doe was reburied at Calvary Cemetery, in the Garden of Innocents—a poignant section of the cemetery dedicated to unidentified or abandoned children.
Footnotes:
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1 March, 1983 – “Decapitated Body of Girl Found in Basement”
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 2 March, 1983 – “Police Try to Identify Girl Found Decapitated”
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 13 March, 1983 – “Police Still at Square One”
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1 April, 1983 – “New Appeal for Help”
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 8 June, 1983 – “Writer of Letter About Killing Sought”
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1 December, 1983 – “Headless Body to Get Burial”
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3 December, 1983 – “Body of Decapitated Girl Buried”
- The Kansas City Star, 29 May, 2001 – “Murder Mystery Persists”
Comments: