The Girl Next Door

She was 5'1" 110 lbs. She had a butterfly clip in the back of her hair and beautiful gold hoop earrings. She had no drugs or alcohol in her system. For all intents and purposes she was the girl next door. But nobody knows who she is or where she is from. The authorities have to dig up her body to try to figure out who she is. Her body was found in Castro Valley California behind a restaurant in a bag. She had died with a rag stuffed down her throat and had died of asphyxiation. They are hopeful that the new pathologist they have hired can tell them something about her that they have missed. First, however, they have to identify her to even begin a homicide investigation. This story is a mystery from beginning to end with only partial answers.

There are a million clues a seasoned pathologist can ferret from a skull, they just need the right pathologist. The last ditch effort is called facial reconstruction. This is where the pathologist and a facial reconstructionist work together to try to get a physical identity from the victims skull in hopes that someone will recognize her. The homicide investigators are desperate to find out who killed this little girl. They think it can be done they just don't know how. Homicide Detective Sgt. Dudac can sometimes get obsessed with his cases and this one is no different. He, like others who have worked on this case, are haunted by it. He has solved his share of cases but murders are rare in the Northern California city of Alameda.

Alameda is a beautiful community. It is middle to upper class community without a lot of any kind of crime especially violent crime. So what he saw on the night of May 1st, 2003 was especially shocking even for a seasoned Detective like Sgt Dudac. The body of a young girl murdered and stuffed in a bag behind a restaurant. She had been dead for about ten days and was fairly well decomposed. The way she died, with a rag in her throat, suggested that someone may have wanted to silence her. Perhaps she witnessed something she shouldn't have. In any event, normally within the first 24 to 48 hours they have the victim identified either through fingerprints, dental records or missing persons reports. But in this case all their efforts failed.

A local artist did the best she could to render a likeness of the girl but it seemed nobody was looking for this girl. Although they had ten good prints they matched no one. The investigators guessed she was in her early teens in good health with perfect teeth. This Jane Doe had all the identifying characteristics of a normal teenager, a girl next door type from her painted toenails to the clothes she was wearing. The Detectives released a sketch of the girl to the local media hoping someone would recognize her and contact them. It was also posted on websites dedicated to finding missing children. They got about 150 responses mostly false except for one that they followed it all the way to the Texas Mexico border where they collected DNA samples from several mothers who had missing girls.

Unfortunately, all these leads were dead ends but Scott Dudac remained determined even though his frustration was mounting. Then another clue that seemed almost to good to be true from a possible witness. They got an anonymous letter from someone claiming that they had saw someone get something from the trunk of a car and dump it in the exact spot where the body was found. The police ask the person to come forward and talk to them on the promise that he/she would remain anonymous, however the person refused. He stated that he was reluctant to come forward because he was in the parking lot waiting to meet a married girlfriend. As the weeks turned to months the letter writer never came forward and no one claimed this young girl. However an unlikely hero was about to come forward with the promise of having the clue that would help solve this mystery.

Dave Woolworth, a landscaper around town, was best known for his tie died T shirts. Once the forensic investigation was completed the remains were destined for cremation but that was unacceptable to Woolworth. Woolworth decided to take the lead in raising donations for the cause. Largely through his efforts she has become known as Castro Valley's Jane Doe. So four months after her body was discovered the adopted daughter of Castro Valley was given a funeral fitting a dignitary. As several more months went by this child went nameless and her killer faceless. That is when Sgt Dodac made the agonizing decision to exhume Jane Does body and search again for the clues that could close this case. The anthropologist on this case was Ann Galloway. She is reportedly one of the best in the business.

She will examine Jane Doe's bones which could provide a better estimate of her age. Her guess is 14 to 17. In addition, Sgt. Dudac has turned to Dr. Duane Spencer a forensic dentist and an expert in his field. He compares the x rays of Jane Doe's teeth to some of his teen age patients. But he too can only narrow the age range down to the 14 to 17 year old range. Sgt. Dudac feels the best chance of unlocking this mystery is to get a better picture of what Jane Doe looked like when she was alive. To that end he calls in forensic artist Gloria Nusee who will make a sculpture of Jane Doe based on her bone structure. So Dr's Nusee and Galloway study Jane's bone structure for clues to the girls facial features. It is part science, part art, and part guesswork. The first thing the Dr's need is the girl's ethnic background.

The first step is to make a mold of the scull so that Jane's remains can be returned to the cemetery in the morning. She then takes the mold to her studio where she will work on it for weeks to bring Jane to life. There she uses clay and depth markers to prepare a lifelike face, again in hopes someone will recognize her. Five weeks after the exhumation and after some 40 hours of work she finally has a life like replica of what Jane Doe looked like in life. When Sgt Dudac sees the bust he thinks he is one giant step closer to finding out Jane Doe's real name and the identity of her killer. In a media blitz the new sculpture is released to the public. Sgt. Dudac is also spreading the word to other police agencies about Jane Doe and he is offering a $55,000 reward for information.

Ellen Leach of Gulfport Mississippi is a stockroom clerk by day and an armchair detective by night. She is one of thousands of normal citizens who scour the Internet trying to help detectives solve cold cases by matching photos of the missing to those who remain unidentified. Late one night the features of Jane Doe began lining up with the features of a missing girl from Southern California. Unfortunately, the dental records of the missing girl do not match up with Jane Doe. It's another dead end by now one of hundreds. Gloria Nusee is even beginning to doubt her own work. Detectives are also keeping an eye on her grave to see who might be visiting it. One day sure enough she got an intriguing clue. A note is found on her grave along with a necklace. The note reads "It's OK baby girl, Jim is paying for what he did to you".

Sgt. DuDac is hoping that fingerprints and DNA from the note will provide some answers but that will take weeks, even months. In the meantime the combination of police work and publicity finally pays off. In January, 2006 48 Hours mystery reported the case and one of the calls that came in turned the case around. Some one who watched the program thought Jane Doe looked like a girl who was seen in Castro Valley with a man named Miguel Castaneda and he worked at the restaurant where the body was dumped. Detectives had some questions for Castaneda but when they went looking for him he was gone. Detectives have received a tip that Jane Doe and the man she was seen with may be from the same town in Mexico. So they are chasing their lead all the way across the border to try to identify Jane Doe. The Detectives head to Yahualica a poor working class town near Guadalajara.

Their plan is to show the sculpture of Jane Doe and the picture of Castaneda to as many of the towns people as possible. For the next 48 hours the detectives work day and night handing out some 4000 fliers. The team hopes the reward, now up to $65,000 will attract some attention as well. At first he recruited some help but soon the local people, like those back in Castro Valley, had taken this case to heart. Sgt. Dudac was most interested in contacting the teenagers in town as he thought they were his best shot of finding Jane Doe's family. From one school to another he repeated his story about how Jane Doe had been found. On his third day in Mexico, Sgt. Dudac received a frantic message. It was a woman that had seen the flier and feared that it was a picture of her missing Daughter. The minute Sgt. Dudac laid eyes on her he knew his search for Jane Doe's identity was over.

The woman showed the Detective pictures of her Daughter and they were remarkably similar. The woman also told the Detective that her Daughter, like Jane had perfect teeth. The age and time frame fit too. Her Daughter had left for California in March of 2003 on her 16th birthday and had went to stay with Miguel Castaneda who was a family friend. She had lost contact with her about the same time the body was discovered behind the restaurant. Although Sgt DuDac had the unpleasant duty of telling the woman what had happened to her Daughter in the end he didn't have to. The woman knew. A DNA sample from her mother confirmed the identity of Jane Doe. Her real name is Yesenia Nungaray. She loved poetry and liked to read books a lot and wanted to leave the area she was from to make a better life for herself.

Four years after Yesenia's murder, Detectives finally know her tragic story. On that tearful day in Mexico Sgt. Dudac made two promises to her mother: 1) to bring her Daughter's body back home, and; 2) to hunt down her killer. And he wants to start by finding Miguel Castaneda. Yesenia's body is exhumed one last time. To begin the journey back home to Mexico. At last she is met there by her mother and there are two communities in mourning, one on either side of the border. Castro Valley once again raised money for a Mexican funeral fit for a princess. For Yesenia's Mother, Maria, it is the end of wondering for four years what happened to her Daughter. Maria knew her Daughter's future was bleak in her home town so she reluctantly let her go to California especially since Miguel Castaneda promised to watch over her.

Yesenia had told her Mom that the worst day in America was better than her best day in Mexico. Then the phone calls suddenly stopped. Castaneda had told Maria that Yesenia had packed up and left. She thought Yesenia was somewhere in the San Francisco bay area and did everything she could to contact Yesenia but didn't know who to call. With his first promise fulfilled it is now time for Sgt Dudac to try to keep his other promise.. to find Yesenia's killer. He tries to track her last movements. He found the house where she stayed in Hayward California. She got a job as a baby sitter. But the situation may have soured quickly. Sgt. Dudac has received a tip that Castaneda asked a friend of his to help him move a large bag. When the friend came over he realized what was in the bag he wanted no part of it. Although Sgt. Dudac won't identify the friend he is now certain that Castaneda is the killer.

Although Yesenia thought of Castaneda as a big brother, Sgt. Dudac theorizes that Castaneda wanted more than that and when she refused he killed her. Sgt. Dudac still hopes to hear from another witness, the mystery man who was waiting in the parking lot to meet his married girlfriend. Although the necklace found at her grave did not yield any DNA evidence Detectives have enough evidence to have an arrest warrant issued for Castaneda but first they have to find their suspect and that might not be easy as he could be hiding in either country. Their public urgings for Castaneda to turn himself in go unheeded. Yesenia's mother, Maria, is extremely grateful to the Detectives who brought her Daughter home but also to a man she will never meet, landscaper Dave Woolworth. To date there have been no arrests in the case and even though the Detectives think they know who the killer is no one knows what a court of law would say even if he is arrested. The $65,000 reward remains unclaimed. Forensic Artist Gloria Nusse has helped solve three other cases this year.