Yosemite Jane Doe
During the spring of 1982 a decomposing hand was discovered in Yosemite National Park at the Summit Meadow turnout.
Investigation of the area discovered a second hand. Both hands had been purposefully severed. Fingerprints could not be taken. It was clear that both hands had been tossed before the winter snows.
Further searches of the immediate area found nothing.
On June 28, 1983, a little boy playing in Summit Meadow found a human thigh bone. Investigators located more of the skeleton. It appeared to have been there for a couple of years.
The book Death in Yosemite says that the victim appeared to be a Hispanic or Native American female no older than her early twenties. However, both NamUs and the NPS Cold Cases (both linked below) describe the woman as a white / caucasian. NPS describes her as blonde and gives an age estimate of 17-23. NamUs gives here age as 17-25 and hair color as unknown.
Henry Lee Lucas was a convicted serial killer active between 1960 and 1983. He is known not just for his crimes but his many false confessions. Death in Yosemite says he had the ability to trick interviewers into giving him crime scene details which he would later repeat, giving the impression he had knowledge that was unreleased to the press.
Lucas was interviewed about Jane Doe in 1983 and confessed to the crime.
He said that he was on a road trip with Ottis Toole (another serial killer) as well as Toole’s nephew Frank Powell and niece Becky Powell.
Frank would end up in a mental institution after witnessing Lucas’ and Toole’s violence.
Lucas and he considered Becky to be his wife. He murdered her in 1983.
Lucas claimed that he and his crew picked up a teenage girl near Coarsegold, California. They drove to Yosemite National Park, bought a picnic lunch, and proceeded to Summit Meadow where they sat down on a log to eat.
Lucas and Toole murdered the woman shortly after that. He chopped off her hands and tossed them across the road to prevent her identification.
To verify his confession, investigators asked if there was anything unusual about the murder location.
Lucas said there was a “license plate” nailed twenty feet up a tree. This was actually a yellow trail marker that was nailed at a sufficient height to prevent it from being snowed over in the winter (cross country skiers relied on these markers).
Lucas also described burying the trash from the picnic under the log because “it was an eyesore.” He didn’t do this to preserve the beauty of the area. He did this because he thought trash would attract attention to the location of the body.
He described the log, and it was later verified that the trash was indeed stuffed under it.
Death in Yosemite ends this case by saying Lucas and Toole were never tried for this murder as the lack of identity of the victim would make this difficult. And also that they were being tried in several other jurisdictions.
Jane Doe’s jawbone has never been found, so the reconstruction on the NamUs page has a generic chin. She is described as having a slight overbite, and a long, narrow face.
Did Lucas really murder Jane Doe?
Will we ever know who she is?
Update:
In 2021, Special Agents of the NPS Investigative Services Branch (ISB) working with Marshall University and Parabon Nanolabs identified Jane Doe.
At the request of her family, her identify has not been made public.
Links
National Park Service Cold Cases:
https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1563/cold-cases.htm
Phenotyping, Genetic Genealogy Help ID Jane Doe Found at Yosemite in 1983:
Henry Lee Lucas Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Lee_Lucas
Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite Paperback by Michael P. Ghiglieri, Charles R. Farabee
https://www.amazon.com/Off-Wall-Yosemite-Michael-Ghiglieri/dp/0970097360/