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Brenda Gerow, formerly called Pima County Jane Doe, was an unidentified American murder victim who was found on April 8, 1981. Her identity has never been confirmed. In late 2014, a photograph of a facial reconstruction of the victim was made public. She was buried under a headstone with the placeholder name of "Jane Doe" with the phrase "UNK - 1981" The victim was identified in 2015, as her profiles on Namus and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have been removed. In 2015, evidence came to light that the victim was Brenda Gerow, who was last seen a year prior, and it appears that the killer was John Kalhauser, as according to Gerow's brother Brenda left with Kalhauser in 1980 and was never seen again.

Physical characteristics and clothing

The body of a white female was found in the desert on April 8, 1981 in Tucson, Pima County, Arizona, near Houghton Road and Interstate 10. Her remains were found by hunters driving in the desert who saw a jacket hanging from a tree and then looked through the area and discovered her body lying on the ground.

The victim was a young adult, between eighteen and twenty-two years of age. The autopsy determined she died one-and-a-half to two days before her body was discovered and cause of death was strangulation by ligature. She had been severely beaten. and had been sexually assaulted. When found, her body was in an advanced state of decomposition rendering her facially unrecognizable and her eye color undetermined. The pathologist who examined her was able to determine she had a light skin complexion as well as long, light brown to blond hair. The victim had a noticeable white spot on one of her upper front teeth. She was approximately five feet two to five feet three inches and weighed around 100 to 110 pounds at the time of her death.

Her body was clothed in a denim jacket, denim jeans, white socks with pink pom poms, a white bra, blue underwear, brown suede shoes and unique blouse that was a dark blue and had "puffy reddish-colored sleeves" with a flower design. Her jacket appeared to have been thrown into the trees near her body.

Investigation

The crime scene was photographed and law enforcement flew over the area to take additional photographs and to find any additional clues. Body decomposition was not advanced enough to completely alter her fingerprints, which were eventually taken. Dental information was obtained along with, years later, her DNA. DNA from another individual was extracted from her clothing in 2006 which allowed for a DNA profile of a potential suspect to be created after the sample analysis was completed in 2007. At the time the victim was found, authorities in Tucson were unable to obtain fingerprints. In an effort obtain her fingerprints, the victim's hands were removed from the body and sent to the FBI. While the FBI had been successful in getting fingerprints from the victim, they were not a match to any missing persons on file or to anyone arrested for a crime. The case was compared to several missing person cases, however, were ruled out.

To investigators, the style of some of her clothing suggested she could have been involved in the local county fair which had occurred at the time of her murder. Images of the victim's clothing have been featured on online websites, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children posters, and in various news reports, in an effort to identify her. The victim had been walking or running through a wooded area before her death, as scratches on her body suggested.

After a 2012 exhumation of the body, the victim's face was digitally reconstructed after her skull was examined via a CT scan. The scan was sponsored by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in order to create an approximation of facial features and appearance when the victim was alive.

Different theories regarding the life and demise of the victim exist. Investigators have theorized she was a runaway child before she became an adult, had possibly been estranged from family, had been murdered elsewhere and dumped at a new scene, or had hitchhiked to Tucson from another location.

"Flower Girl" and John Kalhauser

In late 2014, a photograph of a young woman with light hair holding a bouquet was found in possession of Massachusetts convicted murderer John (also known as "Jack") Joseph Kalhauser. The girl in the photo resembles the victim and matches the description of Pima County Jane Doe. The photograph is believed to have been taken between 1979 and 1981, fitting the time frame in which Jane Doe was found. Although the girl in the photograph has not been identified, law enforcement has dubbed her "Flower Girl." Kalhauser is considered a suspect in Jane Doe's murder and has refused requests from the authorities to identify the girl in the photograph. Kalhauser has past ties to Arizona and is believed to have murdered his wife, Diane Van Reeth in 1995; he was living under an assumed name at the time of his wife's death. Van Reeth's body has never been found. Kalhauser's criminal history includes being convicted for the 1974 murder of Paul Chapman and being indicted for the attempted murder of a man in 1979. Following his indictment, Kalhauser jumped bail and fled after being released from jail.

References

1. ^ Murillo, Lupita (9 December 2014). "Crime Trackers: "Jane Doe" Cold Case heating up". KVOA News. NBC. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
2. ^ Kimble, Mark (11 April 2002). "Jane Doe: 21 years here in a grave marked UNK". Tucson Citizen. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
3. ^ "NamUs UP # 10566". identifyus.org. National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. August 27, 2012. Retrieved December 22, 2014.
4. ^ "Jane Doe #3". Pima County Sheriff Department. 3 November 2010. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
5. ^ "Case File: 1058UFAZ". doenetwork.org. The Doe Network. November 10, 2013. Retrieved December 22, 2014.
6. ^ Murillo, Lupita (25 June 2013). "New technology helping in '81 cold case". KVOA News. NBC. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
7. "Pima Arizona Jane Doe April 1981". canyouidentifyme.org. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
8. ^ "Jane Doe 1981". missingkids. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Retrieved December 22, 2014.
9. Melanson, Alana (6 December 2014). "Police seek woman's ID in cold-case probe". Lowell Sun. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
10. Matas, Kimberly (26 June 2013). "Cold Case: 32 years after her death, deputies seek to ID Jane Doe". Arizona Daily Star. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
11. Goldstein, Sasha (27 June 2013). "Arizona sheriff hopes DNA, facial reconstruction, will help crack 32-year-old cold case". New York Daily News. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
12. Machelor, Patty (11 March 1999). "Kalhauser makes deal for 20-year Sentence". Tucsan Citizen. Retrieved 21 June 2015. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)
13. "Pima County Jane Doe Killer- Arizona- 1981". AMW Fans. 28 December 2014. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
14. ^ Huff, Steve (6 December 2014). "Pima Jane Doe and the Flower Girl, Part 1". Cold Papers. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
15. "Chelmsford Police Seek Info In Arizona Cold Case Murder". CBS Boston. CBS. 6 December 2014. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
16. Taurasi, Liz. "Police Asking Public's Help in Identifying Woman in Jane Doe Case [Updated]". Westford Patch. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
17. Huff, Steve (24 December 2014). "Pima Jane Doe and the Flower Girl, Part 2". Cold Papers. Retrieved 21 January 2015.

External links

• Pima County Jane Doe at the Doe Network
• Murder of Brenda Gerow at Find a Grave

Template:Unidentified decedent

• Formerly unidentified murder victims
• People who were forensically reconstructed
• 1981 deaths
• 1981 murders in the United States
• Unsolved murders in the United States
• 1960s births
• Sexual assaults in the United States
• Violence against women in the United States
• People murdered in Arizona
• People from Tucson, Arizona
• Deaths by strangulation in the United States
• 2015 body identifications