Fauquier County

Naming the nameless: Jane Doe exhumed in Fauquier County to try to identify woman, solve case

The Virginia Unidentified Project started in 2021, making Virginia one of the few states to have someone in the medical examiner's office dedicated to examining these cases

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In Fauquier County, a renewed effort is underway to try to solve a mystery that spans almost 50 years.

The sheriff's office and the state medical examiner's officer are working together to identify a Black woman whose body was found by hunters in 1976, underneath an abandoned school bus on rural property between Opal and Bealeton.

The woman's grave, marked Jane Doe, sat next to blooming forsythia in the Warrenton Municipal Cemetery. Her case sat deep in the county sheriff's office file cabinets after it was created in August 1976.

Few details about the young woman were included. No cause of death was ever determined, and no one stepped forward to identify her.

Forty-seven years later, no one in the sheriff's office even remembered the case until they were contacted by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Virginia and told about a special program to try to name the nameless.

"It was not on our radar," said Jeffrey Long of the Fauquier County Sheriff's Office. "In fact, we didn't know we had a Jane Doe in the county. This is the only one we have on record of any unidentified remains in the county."

Investigators believe the Fauquier Jane Doe was in her 20s, and had possibly had a child. She was wearing an off-white dress with a belt, and wore a dark opal ring. She suffered from the disease rickets, which softens and weakens bones in children.

The Virginia Unidentified Project started in 2021, making Virginia one of the few states to have someone in the medical examiner's office dedicated to examining these cases.

There are more than 200 people in the commonwealth who are considered "long-term unidentified," and so far the project has made 32 positive identifications.

The Fauquier sheriff's office jumped at the chance to possibly identify their Jane Doe. The process began with the use of ground-penetrating radar to pinpoint the vault.

On Good Friday, the woman's body was exhumed and town workers helped with the task.

"They were able to carefully and respectfully exhume the remains and lift the lid off the vault," said Long. "And then we had our detectives present with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to be able to carefully extract all the evidence from inside the vault."

Now, using more sophisticated DNA technology, it's hoped that Fauquier's Jane Doe can be identified.

"From the DNA example, we'll be able to hopefully identify some relative somewhere or at least get a lead, and our detectives will take over from there," said Long.

The sheriff's office made sure the woman got some long overdue recognition after the exhumation was done with dignity. Pastors and chaplains were invited to attend.

"We wanted to make sure we said a few words on her behalf and conducted this honorably, in a sacred place and a sacred event. So it was emotional that way," Long said.

Also on hand was Conway Porter, the president of the local NAACP chapter.

"I was just happy that we might be able to move her from the column of a statistic into humanity, to know her name," said Porter. "We need to know her name."

The sheriff's office is hopeful that giving Jane Doe a name might answer questions for some family, somewhere.

"[We're] just very hopeful that we can somehow contribute to bringing this to closure for the family and friends who have been wondering," said Long "Some have been wondering for generations now what happened to her."

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