Heul Girl | |
---|---|
Born | c. 1960–1964 Unknown. Possibly West Germany |
Died | c. September 1976 Unknown |
Cause of death | Homicide |
Body discovered | 24 October 1976, Maarsbergen, Netherlands |
Known for | Unidentified victim of homicide; unsolved murder |
Height | 4 ft 9 in — 5 ft 5 in (150 and 160 cm) |
The Heul Girl (Dutch: Heulmeisje) [1] was a murder victim found on 24 October 1976 at the former De Heul parking lot on the A12, in Maarsbergen, Netherlands. [2] Her identity has never been established. [3]
It was assumed for many years that the naked, leaf-covered body belonged to a missing 18-year-old girl from a neighboring village. However, that theory was ruled out in 2006 when the missing girl, now an adult, reported to the police. [4]
Based on later research on the epiphyseal plates, the Heul Girl would have been 12 to 15 years old at the time of death, putting her date of birth between 1960 and 1965. [1] Isotope research on her teeth showed that the girl probably lived between the Ruhr and Eifel regions of Germany for the first seven years of her life. [2] Around 1975, the child was likely in East Germany or Eastern Europe. The year prior to her death, she supposedly stayed in either West Germany or the Netherlands. In that year, the girl received particularly poor nutrition, which may indicate extreme poverty or a possible kidnapping. [5]
In 2012, a witness stated that in 1976, multiple people saw the girl being "thrown out" by two men between the ages of 30 and 40. [6] [7]
In 2013, both the Opsporing Verzocht program and the German variant Aktenzeichen XY... ungelöst aired episodes on the case. [4] [6]
In 2016, the German judiciary gave permission to start a large-scale investigation based on the girl's DNA. This is a joint operation by both countries, in which DNA databases from both countries will be utilised. [5] [8] At the end of 2018, the Utrecht police confirmed that DNA testing had not started yet. [9]
In 2023, the case was part of Operation Identify Me by Interpol to identify 22 unidentified women who were found deceased in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany between 1976 and 2019. [10]
Else "Els" Borst-Eilers was a Dutch politician of the Democrats 66 (D66) party and physician. She was granted the honorary title of Minister of State on 21 December 2012.
Tammy Jo Alexander was an American teenage girl who was found murdered in the village of Caledonia, New York, on November 10, 1979. She had been fatally shot twice and left in a field just off U.S. Route 20 near the Genesee River after running away from her home in Brooksville, Florida, earlier that year. For more than three decades, she remained unidentified under the names Caledonia Jane Doe or Cali Doe until January 26, 2015, when police in Livingston County, New York, announced her identity 35 years after her death.
Colleen M. Fitzpatrick is an American forensic scientist, genealogist and entrepreneur. She helped identify remains found in the crash site of Northwest Flight 4422, that crashed in Alaska in 1948, and co-founded the DNA Doe Project which identifies previously unidentified bodies and runs Identifinders International, an investigative genetic genealogy consulting firm which helps identify victims and perpetrators of violent crimes.
The Gilgo Beach serial killings were a series of murders spanning from the early 1990s until 2011. Many of the victims' remains were found over a period of months in 2010 and 2011 during a police search of the area along Ocean Parkway, near the remote beach towns of Gilgo and Oak Beach in Suffolk County, New York. The search was prompted by the disappearance of Shannan Gilbert, who, like many of the known victims, was a sex worker who advertised on Craigslist. The perpetrator in the case is known as the Long Island Serial Killer, the Manorville Butcher, or the Craigslist Ripper.
The Bear Brook murders are female American murder victims, two discovered in 1985 and two in 2000, at Bear Brook State Park in Allenstown, New Hampshire, United States. All four of the victims were either partially or completely skeletonized; they were believed to have died between 1977 and 1981.
Marcia Lenore Sossoman King was a 21-year-old Arkansas woman who was murdered in April 1981 and whose body was discovered in Troy, Ohio approximately 48 hours after her murder. Her body remained unidentified for almost 37 years before being identified via DNA analysis and genetic genealogy in April 2018. King was one of the first unidentified decedents to be identified via this method of forensic investigation.
Evelyn Colon was a formerly unidentified American teenager from New Jersey who was found murdered and dismembered in three suitcases along with her unborn daughter on December 20, 1976, in White Haven, Pennsylvania. The brutality of the crime, the fact that she was pregnant when she was killed and the length of time that she remained unidentified created national attention.
Sherri Ann Jarvis was an American murder victim from Forest Lake, Minnesota whose body was discovered in Huntsville, Texas on November 1, 1980. Her body was discovered within hours of her sexual assault and murder, and remained unidentified for 41 years before investigators announced her identification via forensic genealogy in November 2021.
Tammy Corrine Terrell was an American murder victim from Roswell, New Mexico. Her body was discovered on October 5, 1980, in Henderson, Nevada, and remained unidentified until December 2021. Her case has been the subject of extensive efforts by investigators and has been highlighted as inspiring other work to solve cold cases of unidentified murder victims.
Dana Lynn Dodd was a formerly unidentified American murder victim whose body was found in 2006 in Kilgore, Texas. In 2013, investigators had hoped that a new reconstruction of the victim might uncover more leads. In August 2018, Joseph Wayne Burnette was indicted for her murder, following a confession, stating her name may have been "Ashley." The victim's case was later submitted to the DNA Doe Project, who made an identification in January 2019, 12 years later. While she remained unidentified, she was known by the nickname "Lavender Doe".
Unidentified decedent, or unidentified person, is a corpse of a person whose identity cannot be established by police and medical examiners. In many cases, it is several years before the identities of some UIDs are found, while in some cases, they are never identified. A UID may remain unidentified due to lack of evidence as well as absence of personal identification such as a driver's license. Where the remains have deteriorated or been mutilated to the point that the body is not easily recognized, a UID's face may be reconstructed to show what they had looked like before death. UIDs are often referred to by the placeholder names "John Doe" or "Jane Doe". In a database maintained by the Ontario Provincial Police, 371 unidentified decedents were found between 1964 and 2015.
The Redhead murders is the media epithet used to refer to a series of unsolved homicides of redheaded females in the United States between October 1978 and 1992, believed to have been committed by an unidentified male serial killer. The murders believed to be related have occurred in states including Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The murders may have continued until 1992. The victims, many remaining unidentified for years, were usually women with reddish hair, whose bodies were abandoned along major highways in the United States. Officials believe that the women were likely hitchhiking or may have engaged in prostitution.
Michelle Angela Garvey was an American teenage girl murdered in Texas within a month of running away from her home in Connecticut. Her body was quickly found but remained unidentified until a 2014 DNA test, after an amateur Internet researcher suggested a match between the Texas unidentified decedent and Connecticut missing-person data.
Margaret Fetterolf was an American murder victim from Alexandria, Virginia, who was discovered on September 12, 1976, in Woodlawn, Baltimore County, Maryland. For 45 years, her body remained unidentified before being identified in September 2021 through DNA testing by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Bode Technology, and Othram. Prior to her identification, she was known as "Woodlawn Jane Doe", in reference to the area of the county in which her body was found. The murderer, or murderers, have never been apprehended.
15-year-old Nicole van den Hurk disappeared on 6 October 1995 in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Her body was found in the woods between Mierlo and Lierop on 22 November.
DNA Doe Project is an American nonprofit volunteer organization formed to identify unidentified deceased persons using forensic genealogy. Volunteers identify victims of automobile accidents, homicide, and unusual circumstances and persons who committed suicide under an alias. The group was founded in 2017 by Colleen M. Fitzpatrick and Margaret Press.
Carl Koppelman is an American professional accountant and unpaid volunteer forensic sketch artist. Since 2009, Koppelman has drawn over 250 reconstructions and age progressions of missing and unidentified people.
Operation Identify Me was launched on 10 May 2023 by Interpol to solve cold cases across Western Europe to identify 22 unidentified women who were found deceased in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany between 1976 and 2019. Most of the women were murdered, and have never been identified.
The Teteringen Girl is an unidentified woman found dead on 25 December 1990 in the Cadettenkamp forest outside of Teteringen, a village northeast of Breda, Netherlands. She is one of the 22 unidentified women mentioned in Interpol's Operation Identify Me.