THE LITTLE JANE DOE OF ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
- Mystery Shack
- Nov 18, 2018
- 5 min read
On the afternoon of February 28, 1983, two men were rummaging for scrap metal in a basement of an abandoned building, located at 5635 Clemens Avenue, in St. Louis, Missouri. The search of the two men were uneventful, at first, but things took a twisted turn when one of the men lit a cigarette – and the light revealed a horrific sight for the two men.
On the ground was the lifeless body of an African – American girl, wearing only a blood-stained yellow V – neck sweater with no tags. Her body was positioned face down with her hands bounded by the wrists using a red and white nylon rope. By the time that her headless body was discovered, mold was already growing on her neck.
Homicide detectives, Joe Burgoon and Herb Riley initially thought upon arriving at the scene of the crime was that the victim could’ve been a prostitute, but was later proven otherwise when they examined the victim’s body. It was revealed that the body of the victim hadn’t gone through puberty yet, and was only about 8 to 11 years of age. The detectives also determined that the beheading of the victim was done elsewhere due to the lack of blood at the scene of the crime. They also found some traces of blood on the walls leading to the basement which means that her body was carried in the basement for disposal, the traces of blood denoting that her body brushed against the walls during the process. The autopsy that was conducted by Mary Case from the St. Louis‘s Medical Examiner’s Office, showed that the young girl had been raped and the cause of death being strangulation, three – five days prior to the events that unfolded on February 28.
The child’s head was never found, which made it difficult to identify the body because dental examinations couldn’t be done, even facial reconstruction through forensic technology programming. The investigators searched lists after lists of children enrolled at the surrounding schools but they never found anything that could identify the little girl. They also gone through the database of missing children but no child matched the description of the little Jane Doe.
Detectives turned to the assistance of a group of psychics at some point during the investigation. The group of psychics performed a seance after Herb Riley provided photos of the little Jane Doe’s fingerprints, weirdly enough, all of the psychics came to the same conclusion; her head can be found on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico and that he should contact the Coast Guard. An in-depth investigation was done to pursue this lead but like all the other efforts of the investigators before, have been proven to be futile. After ten months of pursuing all of the possible leads, and with nobody coming forward, the case of little Jane Doe turned to a cold case. Her body was then buried in December 1983 at Washington Park Cemetery in Berkeley, Missouri.
In 1993, ten years after the incident, the investigators mailed the evidence (her blood stained sweater and the red and white nylon rope that bound her hands) to a psychic living in Florida in an attempt to receive another lead but it was a very wrong move on the part of the investigators because the evidence was lost in the mail delivery.
Twenty years later, the remains of the Little Jane Doe was unearthed for further analysis to be able to identify her native origins based on the water that she had drank. Her remains were brought to the St. Louis Medical Examiner’s Office where the researchers from the Smithsonian Institution and University of North Texas found out that she had spent most of her life in one of the numerous south-eastern states.
The advancement of technology provided a glimmer of hope for the case of the Little Jane Doe, although she may not be properly identified unless someone will be able to provide an information that would be able to further help the case. With the nicknames the police had given her “Hope” and “Little Jane Doe”, she was reburied in Calvary Cemetery which was funded by the non-profit organization, “Garden of Innocents”, with the plot of land being properly maintained than her previous burial site.
With the lack of evidence from the murder, investigators weren’t able to identify possible suspects. The investigators have their suspicions that a family member may have been the one who committed the murder of the little Jane Doe, but couldn’t exactly say due to the fact that they do not know where she came from, and couldn’t base their theory on the lack of reports of missing children. However, one suspect stood out to the investigators, which was Vernon Brown.
Who was Vernon Brown?
Vernon Brown (1953-2005)
He was a high school dropout who had a very terrible upbringing as a child and was a victim of excessive physical abuse from his grandfather. In 1973, he was convicted for molesting a 12 year old girl which landed him a sentence of four years in Indiana prison. After being released, a nine year old girl, Kimberly Campbell, disappeared and was later found in a vacant residence which was apparently owned by Vernon’s grandmother, strangled and raped. Although he was the prime suspect, authorities weren’t able to charge him due to the lack of evidence. He move to Enright Avenue in St. Louis, Missouri in 1985, under a false name, Thomas Turner, where he lived with his wife and stepchildren.
On October 24, 1986, he took notice of a nine year old girl, Janet Perkins, a few blocks away from their home. He lured her into his home, he ordered his stepchildren, who witnessed Janet come inside their house, to go into their bedrooms and proceeded to lock the doors from the outside. He led the young girl to his basement, and bounded her feet and hands using a wire coat hanger. He then proceeded to strange her with a rope, her screams and pleads echoing through the air vents, which could be heard by Vernon’s stepchildren. After that, he discarded her body in an alleyway behind his residence. The body of the young girl was discovered by the police the following day inside two trash bags. And after two days, on October 27, 1986, they arrested Vernon Brown, with a relative of a neighbor who testified that they had witnessed the young girl enter his home.
Through the questioning of the detectives, Brown confessed to murdering Janet on videotape. It wasn’t the only crime he confessed in committing but he also confessed to the murder of a nineteen year old, Synetta Ford, on March 7, 1985. She was found on the apartment basement where Brown worked as a maintenance man before, strangled using an electrical cord and was stabbed multiple times. He claimed that at the time, he was arrested by the authorities but was later let go after giving a false alias to the detectives.
While in prison in Bonne Terre, a homicide detective, Tom Carroll, frequently paid him a visit and questioned him about the other crimes that he may have committed, particularly about the case of the Little Jane Doe. But Brown never confessed to her murder or any other crimes. Also worth mentioning is the fact that the disposal of the body of the Little Jane Doe was methodical, far from Brown’s way of disposing his victims. Even with this occurrence, the detectives believed that he could be involved with at least twenty cases of unsolved homicides but have no enough evidence to support their claims.
Vernon Brown was executed through lethal injection on May 18, 2005, at 2:55 am, with his final words being “You’ll see me again. To all my friends, don’t think of me as being gone, but there with you. And to Jazz, who has my heart and love. Peace, love. Vernon Brown.” taking his remaining secrets to his grave.
The case of the Little Jane Doe of St. Louis, Missouri, to this day remains unsolved. But as long as there are people who shine light to her case, we shouldn’t lose our “Hope.”
sources:
https://truecrimearticles.com/2018/02/18/the-st-louis-jane-doe-of-1983/
https://morbidworldblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/who-was-little-jane-doe/
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