Case Revisit: The Lady of the Dunes | Morbid | Podcast | Forensic Files

hello Brethren happy after the holidays it's after the holidays now not now technically here but where you are in
the future in the future it's after the holidays and we have a little business before we tell
you why we're re releasing this specific episode there is a reason for the season
turn turn turn and Ash is really good at business business is my middle name also
admin she stands on it Nicole is also my real middle name in case you wondering don't steal it uh so anyway I don't know
don't use it for bad just don't steal it okay everybody a middle name is like let
me maintain my middle name let me anyway back to the business next listener Tale episode is going to
be available on all platforms with video on YouTube on January 2nd whoa whoa so I
think we're doing two installments of listener Tales for January because of you know the holiday you know the first
one that we're releasing in January on the second with video on YouTube is funny the
costumes it's funny all the other ones dead serious but this one funny funnier than
the last one I might add maybe I don't know we haven't even done it yet that's a pretty tall order well whatever but
anyway Elena back to you tell them why we're releasing this episode The Lady of the dunes so this was a crazy like
mysterious case there wasn't an answer for it unsolved was one of those you might say it's it was unsolved but you
can't say that anymore don't say that can't say that anymore because there's an update to the case we know who did it
now we know who did it we know who the lady of the dunes is and I'm not going to spoil anything for you but because we
did a whole episode to update you guys on it but if you need a refresher here it is listen to the lady of the dunes
say oh my goodness will we ever know what happened there and then you can say we do we do and then go to the next
episode and bada boo B which will be next Monday there you go there's the update so this is pretty fun it's a
little gift to you it was a gift from the universe to the whole world to know who this woman was and to know what
happened to her so we're passing it Forward enjoy please enjoy bye hey weirdos I'm Elena I'm Ash and this
is morbid and it's local to [Music] Massachusetts the way you said and it's local to Massachusetts hello
I get excited about these you should I do I like covering ones from Massachusetts it's kind of my thing it's
kind of your thing well do we have any business before we stay in Massachusetts before we stay in Massachusetts so one
weird thing happened that kind of goes along with this episode because it happened in Massachusetts it happened in
provinc town didn't it it did it happened in actually it happened in Cape Cod yeah but uh like so right around
there yeah but yeah this guy Michael Packard who is like a veteran Lobster d which Lobster fisherman wild no joke we
have a cousin that's a lobster fisherman we do who's a lobsterman shout out to Annie to Annie yeah it's it's a badass
job it is a very dangerous job and uh this guy Michael Packard uh got swallowed by a humpback whale and then
spit out I mean we're we're happy for the latter part of that story very happy for the ending imagine having that life
experience well and I guess like his crewmate was on the boat and this guy was going down to check the traps and he
said he just watches like the bubbles to make sure that he's like still alive essentially and he said all of a sudden
he saw this like crazy explosion of Bubbles and he's like oh my God he he died and I can't do anything about it
like literally just heless and the guy I guess thought it was a shark that had got him so he was like oh I'm dead like
he was like this is it he said I'm done I'm dead all I could think about was my boys they're 12 and 15 years old which
like kills me and he was breathing through like a breathing regulator at the time what inside of a hump back
whale well not a humpback I made that up he said no it was a humpback whale yeah
it was a humpback whale it's the morning it is and apparently he was like struggling because he was breathing
through that apparatus so he was struggling and the whale was like wow I didn't mean to eat you like you're not
what I eat right and so the I think the whale like felt bad that he had eaten him and so he brought him to the surface
to spit him out we love a whale we love a whale which I guess he said within like 30 30 seconds he said but he said
for a brief moment he thinks he was swallowed well he yeah he must have been like not just hanging out in his mouth
what the [ __ ] isn't that [ __ ] up can you imagine going home and like your wife is like hey how was your day at
work and you're like oh actually I got swallowed by a humpback whale how was your day sweetie I got swallowed by a
humpback wh they initially thought he uh he had broken both of his legs yeah and
they were like he at least broke one he apparently didn't break any bones when he went to the hospital yeah he went to
the hospital he just had uh soft tissue damage oh yeah what the [ __ ] and I guess
an expert said that humpback whales are like gulp feeders like they just slurp and gulp they just get as much as they
can down so this was definitely like an accident he just happened to be there and I think he was just gulping up food
and I think that happens in Finding Nemo like actually yeah and then there's I guess there's um a Marine Mammal expert
Peter Corrin and he's from the New England Aquarium which our cousin worked at hey I was just there the other day
yeah she's amazing and he works there and he was saying that the basically him the the whale bringing him to the
surface to spit him out he said it's perfectly believable that the whale was trying to help him shut up I love this
whale because there's evidence that say that humpbacks can be altruistic towards
humans shut the [ __ ] up it's like how um elephants think we're cute yes yeah I
love that [ __ ] love animals and not that I want to get swallowed by a humpback
whale but like wow love it but I think it was just like it was a whoops moment for that whale it was embarrassing and
he decided that he was going to try to make good at the end it was embarrassing he was probably really shamed imagine
having that under your belt for two truths and a lie yeah I was born here I like the color blue and I was swallowed
by back whale and they're like okay that's the line you're like I actually love the color red I hate blue like what
the [ __ ] that's an amazing story I thought I had a good one mine is just that I was born in Hawaii people are
always like that's the lie and you're like no but I was not swallowed by humpback you not maybe I'll still use it
in true truths in a lie though I think it's a good one and you know what Michael Packard I'm really glad that
you're okay congrats yeah congrats and make sure you tell your boys because they're going to love that story also
are you going to go back to Lobster I'm sure he will probably will those people are always just badass yeah they're just
they don't care like that's just they know the ocean they know the dangers of the ocean and they're just like yeah
yeah I'm okay like I think at one point he was like at least it wasn't a shark which you're like yeah but it was still
a whale that swallowed you yeah like you were in the bell of a whale yeah that's
scary that's crazy also it took everything in me and now I just like can't get past it when you said like
whales are gulp feeders I was going to say same yeah I figured and I couldn't let that joke go I figured you had to
bring it right back it's different after the fact but it still hits it does you're welcome I think a lot of
people can relate yeah uh but yeah so that brings us nicely into the episode today which is which is the crazy
mysterious and gruesome case of the lady of the dunes and unsolved very unsolved
uh and now I want to solve it whenever I get into one of these cases really hard
I'm like well you know things do happen after we cover cases sometimes freaks me
out I feel like this is it remind this reminds me of like the Karina Homer case the way I want to I want to solve it
like I really want to solve that case and I really want to solve this case and they're both Massachusetts I solved the
Kina Homer rce uh yeah I know who did it I Know What You Did Last Summer but I want it like salt like I want it you
want a real detective I need to know more information we need to solve this citizen detective stuff style let's do
it we're going to solve this did you hear us and we'll go we'll Sol this we should just get like a true crime Squad
together let's do it turny like she's clearly doing the damn thing SAR Sarah turny you're on the squad we have to get
Bailey s in because we're newly best friends yeah and she can make us look good too yes wow we're doing this yeah I
think that's honestly that's the Dream Team it really is I'm sure we'll think of more later we'll add to the squad
because it's early and I I mean the entire morbid network has to come exactly everybody everybody all right so
guys let's pack your bags come to Massachusetts we're doing this see you soon we're going to solve the lady of
the dunes case but let me tell you about it first so that you can you guys can decide afterwards if you want to join
the squad yeah so first of all if you happen to have any information about this case because it is a pretty
well-known case especially around here uh you can direct any tips any information anything that your
grandparents may have slipped out at some point at dinner time at at the table if they sat there and they
told you that one time they were in p toown and it was July it was hot and I stumbled upon this dead body here's
where you can tell the Provincetown Police Department 508 4871 1212 or 58- 4871 1213 or if you have any any
information about the unidentified body that we are going to talk about call the
office of the chief medical examiner at 61726773800 767 a so make sure you call those if you
have any information so I'm going to start this off with a quick little quote that's going to like Summit up for you
what we're going to talk about all righty for the last 47 years investigators have been struggling to
identify the lady of the dunes a handless corpse that was found nearly decapitated on a Massachusetts Beach so
that's going to tell you everything you need to know about where it is whoop there it is now it is wild to me it's
always wild to me when we can't find who did something even if we have the identity of the victim because it's like
people should never be able to get away with this stuff especially now right but
we don't even know who she is that's the thing that is nuts to me is that we don't know who this woman is I know no
one's been able to identify her it's so scary and when I start telling you who she was where how she was found you're
going to see that it's strange because as they say multiple times she seems well taken care of right you know like
she doesn't she didn't come across as somebody who was like you know going from place to place or down on luck down
on their luck or not maybe wasn't connected to people she seemed like she interacted with people quite often okay
so what happened was a bit after 6:00 p.m. on Friday July 26 1974 a 12-year-old girl named Leslie
metf was at race Point Dunes in p toown uh she was following a barking dog it was a beagle and she had been with
friends at the beach Leslie's sister Alysa had said in an interview later that she was at the Stables that day but
her sister and some friends had gone to the beach to play they had been hanging around and at a dune Shack that a f that
family friends were renting and a dune Shack is exactly what it sounds like but they were originally built like a
century ago um or Cent a a century a century earlier than like 1974 um but they were originally built as
cabins for like these Crews of people who would keep watch for ships so they wouldn't run a ground in bad water in
bad weather and they're just they're exactly what they sound like just little Shacks all across the dunes yeah now
after a while they turn them into like Beach Rentals and places where like local artists or like you know creators
of any kind could set up and sell their wees out of they're all over the place in btown exactly and on the in general
exactly now her parents were there as well and there were two dogs in this Shack when they were all ready to head
home they were just going to walk across the beach and the dunes and go back home
they started walking and one of the dogs the beagle followed them which was fine
he was just walking down the beach with them but then he kind of veered off the path and started barking wildly like
clearly trying to tell them something he was very clearly indicating something he
had found right that was for sure so Leslie was like hm what cuz she's 12 and I want to know what that dog's doing I
mean I'm 35 and I'd be like H I want to find out what that dog is barking at and
she followed him as I would and when she ran off the Beaten Track after the dog she quickly noticed a motionless form
laying in the dunes oh my goodness and she it was surrounded by Tall Grass mhm now she said she thought the body
initially was a deer at first not a mannequin this time not a mannequin she thought it was a deer and she said you
know she was upset enough about possib running into a dead or hurt deer that's still shitty of course but then she saw
the form completely she made out some legs and feet and she saw hair tied up into a ponytail and caked with blood oh
my goodness and she realized that she was looking at a human body this poor little 12-year-old finding that she
could also smell the scent of decomposition nearby like you know she had been there for a while in the Summer
Sun so she was baking what had happened though was it was really hot it's hot summers here and
on pet town and it's right next to the it's on the beach right next to the water Massachusetts water is not like
Crystal Clear Caribbean water love that dirty water so that smell of like the the ocean and all that is can be gnarly
and but it's something you just expect here like that you're going to have that beach smell get hit in the face with
like red tide exactly so it's like so this smell of this composing woman in the Sun for what they think could have
been you know up to more than a week wow I didn't know it was that long yeah they
think it was just kind of mixing with the which tells you something about what the ocean smells like here that people
were just like man well there's probably like mad bodies in our oceans too so yeah there definitely are um so she yeah
so she could definitely smell it the closer she got and their parents said that all they heard was her say Mom Dad
like she didn't scream she just said mom so her parents went to see what was wrong and they discovered the body yikes
so this body was only found about a mile away from the provinc toown police station oh wow which is interesting now
they immediately ran to the Dune Shack that they had been at and they contacted the Rangers uh Leslie's recollection was
that the clothing on scene was very neatly folded and placed under This Woman's head she could see some clothing
and she said she immediately saw that this woman was naked that her hands she didn't see initially that they were
missing we'll get into that but she said her hands were buried in the in the sand
gotcha uh luckily Leslie didn't see that the head was almost decapitated she said
she seemed like she almost looked like she was asleep and sunbathing in the nude which did it seem like she was face
down she was face down she was all all the way face down um apparently the family friends who had rented the Dune
Shack that summer said they never rented that Shack again they they never returned to the dunes again because they
were so disturbed by this whole thing yeah I would be too and um Leslie's sister Alysa said their family had been
visiting P toown for years at this point and um it was a very safe area yeah especially then it was like very safe I
mean kids could walk around without their parents they could run around on beaches and in the dunes to play No One
thought anything of it it's it's that whole thing of like quiet quaint little town nothing ever New England town it's
like every and it's it is this is weird um so Alyssa the sister also said that no one really interviewed them about
their experience the family and likely just went off of the Ranger story for details um usually papers and stories
say that Leslie was walking her dog and just came across the body but that's not
accurate and I did find many stories that started off with a 12-year-old girl walking her dog and that's wrong I know
it's not like totally pertinent to the INF like that she was chasing a dog that wasn't hers walking still you should get
the information but it makes it seem like this 12-year-old girl was just alone walking her dog and stumbled
across it and that's just not what happened well like to not mention that the parents also saw something exactly
because I guess I think the reason that they probably do that is like oh it's a 12 year-old so like that's why we didn't
really interview her exactly we just let it go and it's like H so park ranger James henkins was the first officer
arriving on scene and he said she was laying face down naked on a green Beach Blanket he could see red hair and that
she had been severely beaten over the head oh man uh she was also seemingly missing her hands he said they were not
buried he and other media Outlets said the hands were shoved into the Sands with pine needle piles around them like
her arms like where her hand should be and it made it look like she was doing push-ups weird yeah and he was quoted as
saying it was ghastly it was as if she had been laying there alone or on a blanket with someone and someone came up
and clubbed her there was no signs of a struggle even the sand hadn't been Disturbed wow that's so weird and that's
something that a lot of people talk about is there was Zero sign of struggle people say it did not look like she was
fought here it didn't look like it looked like she was there and was caught off guard well and there for like for
there to not be like even like maybe blood splatter on the sand like that's weird it's wild it's really wild and I
think there was like definitely like blood spatter and stuff but you could tell she didn't fight back so she was
definitely caught off guard caught off guard which it's like was she asleep that's what the that's honestly what a
lot of people think is that she was asleep well and I feel like that's kind of an area too where you would go to
sleep cuz like you don't have to worry about the water like the tide changing anything like that you're in the Tall
Grass exactly she was hidden enough that she could have been sunbathing in the nude exactly like hiding in the nude and
just kind of fell asleep yeah and it's like but what who what happened were you with someone right so like I said she
there was some clothing that were found there was a pair of Wrangler jeans that were folded up like a pillow under her
head which to me says she went to sleep with those under her head for like a pillow and there was also a blue bandana
under her head and she was laying halfway on a light green blanket Like a Beach Blanket um the uh Warren Tobias
who was the retired acting police chief in provinc toown said she was definitely
posed there she was lying out on a beach towel as if she was sunbathing so he doesn't think that she was asleep she
was either posed there or that's like where she what she was doing when it happened gotcha he could so James uh
James henin the ranger called Provincetown police chief at the time James Jimmy Mees at home because they
were friends they and actually I guess mes had given henkins like some extra responsibilities like he could kind of
like do more than a normal Ranger could because he was like trustworthy okay so he called him at home and he was like
you got to get down here now Province Town police chief James Jimmy Mees felt like it was his duty to solve this case
like oh so he was so trustworthy he well no this was the police chief oh well that's good he's trustworthy too he felt
very connected to this case and he took every opportunity to push it forward and
like really push down door to get things done for this case like he had a forensics team come together at one
point to create composits and claim models of her likeness he literally said he wouldn't retire until he found out
who she was and for years he actually had her skull in his office as a reminder to himself that she was unnamed
and can't be forgotten wow that is a dedication he also got her dental records and all information published
anywhere he could and constantly brought up her case in any interview he did anywhere he could he was really trying
to keep her case in the Forefront and make sure she was not forgotten it's so interesting that they did get her dental
records but like or like oh yeah and we'll get into it don't worry cuz she has very specific dental records too
which makes it even weirder weird I'm I love this so he said quote with most murders you try to figure out who the
murderer was I've spent years trying to figure out who the victim was as the years dwindle on more dentists will
retire or die more dental records will be lost and the opportunity for identification will
diminish maybe someone on death row will decide to cleanse his soul before he dies and confess to the murder it
appears that someday soon I'll retire and the case won't be solved but I'm sure whoever follows me in this job if
they get a lead they'll call me and I'll be ready oh and each chief after him have all made it a priority to bring
this case back up and try and solve it every single case I'm glad every chief after after him has been like priority
number one is solving this case yeah so when me showed up after henkins called him he showed up with two other
detectives that evening and he saw the scene and he said immediately his head went to Tony Chop Chop Costa hey we know
all about Tony Chop Chop we do if you remember we did an episode about Tony Chop Chop Costa another killer in
Provincetown and if you I don't know if anybody caught that Jimmy mes is kind of
a a familiar name I thought it was but then I didn't know if I like knew somebody like personally with that name
yep see mes was in our our Costa episode I thought so yeah uh he had actually known Costa since he was young when he
moved to Ptown and he mes had been the one to recruit Costa as a drug informant before he turned into a seral because of
his help in the drug informant cases mes wrote him a letter to get him early parole when he was in jail for
non-payment of Child Support and he cuz he basically wrote the letter to get him
out so he could use him as a police uh drug enant uh but five so he got him out five months early in November 1968 and
two months after he was let out he murdered Pat Walsh and maryan Yaki right so mes was part of the investigation she
he actually spoke to Patricia Morton who was the rooming house owner who told him
that uh Marian Waki and Pat Walsh had spent two nights at her room in house and that a man named Tony Costa had also
been staying there at the same time she had told him that they had interacted and that she had not seen the girls in a
few days and as we know Tony had killed them both right so that's a bummer so that's why their head immediately went
to Tony exactly so and it's very much like the dismemberment and stuff is very Tony Costa Tony Chop Chop Costa but not
like him sorry I'm probably jumping ahead of you oh no well well the big main thing was immediately he thought of
Tony chop job but then he realized it couldn't be him because he had killed himself May 12th 1974 all right well
that's out so it couldn't be him and I was going to say he didn't leave people out in the open he would have buried
them in like the garden thing that he had yeah he liked to do his little garden his Tony Garden yeah they
searched the surrounding areas around the scene for days and they found literally nothing not a shred of
evidence that's crazy they even used blood hounds nothing hit couldn't find anything I mean it must be hard on the
beach too because like Wind Blows and the sand moves you know like I can't IM abolutely it embes things and it's like
and then there water involved it's just all this it's like the worst thing ever so the autopsy was done Saturday July
27th 1974 uh what it what it came out was she was about 56 135 lbs and estimated to be
between 25 and 40 years old her build was described as an athletic build uh she had long hair that was reddish or
descri described as Auburn in a lot of places it was in a ponytail uh they couldn't actually determine what color
her eyes are because of decomposition oh wow so what happens is when you die you
stop blinking and so you don't produce any kind of moisture in your eyes and there is no more blood circulation to
help with all that so there's no Oxygen coming into your eyes once you're dead because the cornea needs to be moist for
oxygen to absorb into it and lack of oxygen affects the opacity of your of your cornea oh uh and the lens so it
doesn't change the color of the eye technically but if you're looking at it it will appear bluish or white or like
even gray It's like because it'll be cloudy yeah it'll have that cloudy Haze over it yeah that's so weird I never
knew that before yeah it's like a weird thing so sometimes it can be especially after if they they've been out for a
while that's really going to they're going to have cloudy eyes it's just way that's so frustrating too when you're
dealing with like an unidentified body yeah exactly so she also had pink toenail polish on
oh girl I know that always gets me it does ever since the Willie picked an episode cuz you had said one of the
girls was found with red toenail polish I paint my toes red all the time and I always think of it now cuz you always
think cuz I think that too doing autopsies I say it a lot that like little things always make me think like
oh you had no idea that was the last time you were going to paint your nails you know it's like such a personal thing
that like you just do like you don't paint your nails thinking of dying it's like a self-care thing so it's like they
just they either you or someone painted your toenails just and you had no idea that that was the last time you would do
that and it's sad it freaks me out it always gets me now now we're going to get into her teeth okay cuz I'm
interested she had lots of teeth missing but they are fairly sure that this was from the murder or circumstances but not
circumstances before the murder they think that this was on purpose that her teeth are missing uh she had a lot of of
gold crowns in her teeth huh estimated between $5,000 and $10,000 worth of dental work in
her um they actually sent out her dental records to dentists all over Massachusetts and the country also the
FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police wow and they didn't get anything nothing what that is nuts to me nothing
I'm like what and they think that the missing teeth were pulled out for that they pulled them out intentionally
I remember hearing that and how are there I don't know if you know this are there certain teeth that are better for
identification I don't think so I think it's more dental work just me General unless all I can think about is if she
had some kind of like maybe she had one tooth that severely overlapped another one that would be like very identifiable
like if she had some really really identifiable specific to her thing that they wanted to remove for that yeah but
like to just the teeth themselves there's I think that it's just really the dental work that you're looking for
well and then does that say to you that this is probably somebody who's like killed before because they know that and
they're like that like callous to freaking pull a tooth yes because when we get into the hands those hands were
definitely taken off to take away fingerprints right so this is somebody who knows how to take away
identification and did a great job because we can't identify her so clearly has probably done this before I feel
like that I feel like that I think so that's this is a one-off experienced level of mua and we're going to get at
the end of this episode we'll talk about the theories who who has been brought up
over the years and maybe talk about who we think could be it um she was also sexually assaulted with a wooden block
but they think it was done postmortem which is terrible regardless but um her hands were cut off like I said one at
the forearm and one at the wrist so no fingerprints to identify her obviously where her hands would have been whoever
placed her there had piled on pine needles like intentionally the left side of her head had been crushed in like an
eggshell they said the medical examiner said it looked like the blow had happened from someone lying next to her
or when she was asleep there wasn't any signs of struggle she was on one side of
the blanket so it seemed likely that she may have known her killer M or was at least slightly comfortable with them and
was asleep and didn't see it coming yeah so it's either she was asleep didn't see
it coming and didn't know the person or she was on that blanket with someone someone and they and she fell asleep or
was just lying there and they took her out she was almost decapitated they thought this was due to a combination of
multiple strangle strangulation attempts and also um that blow to the Head it was
done with a tool which um is called a military entrenchment Tool uh and that was actually the cause of death was the
Blow To The Head yeah I would think so the military entrenchment tool is a collapsible Spade kind of thing used by
military and like survivalists it's really sharp and usually made of like steel and [ __ ] oh okay um so I think it
was James henkins yeah that said quote the only instrument that could have been used to hack off her hands was an
instrument carried by almost all Dune bugs interesting it was common in all s surplus stores it was a handy tool for a
camper it was a folding shovel called an entrenching tool it was standard issue item for anyone in the Infantry soldiers
in World War II and Korea carried them it was very sturdy made out of heavy metal semi- pointed Spade likee the
blade could be folded down on the handle or it could be raised to a perpendicular
like a hoe or you could make it into a shovel with a straight handle around 18 in long to in hand to-hand combat you
could use it to fight your enemy wow so this is a versatile tool it is and it sounds like every dune buggy had one
yeah which is interesting and that it's a good tool for campers people who camp out on the dunes people who so this is
opening up like many doors a lot of doors um there was also a ton of insect activity on the body um that they notice
and we'll also mention that again after we talk about the theories now the stomach contents indicated that
she had recently eaten a meal of burger and fries got it girl which indicated to
a lot of people that she had been in town that day maybe at one of the burger and Fry joints right um she had
estimated to have been dead for at least 10 days but possibly as long as 3 weeks
whoa dude uh they believe she was they were thinking that she was possibly killed somewhere else if it's not the
theory of her being a just because of the lack of stuff at the crime scene there was blood but like I
think it wasn't as bloody as you would think it would be at that scene and then when you get into the insect activity
does that kind of like skew it even more it's it's honestly it doesn't but it's like I think they just can't figure it
out yeah they can't figure this out it's like she looks like she could have been
asleep on that towel on that towel or it could have been all set up to look like
she was sleeping on that towel because it almost does seem like too perfect like Po right yeah cuz it's but it's
like she's on the other thing is she's on her um she's face down right so it's like you would sunbathed that way yeah
like you know what I mean like you would do that but then it's like would somebody place you face down or would
they place you face up maybe they would place you face down to make it look like
you had been sunbathing now exactly right so they probably just don't want to rule out anything because it be
anything yeah they have no evidence to say exactly what is going on here which is I can't imagine working on this case
even just like listening to it is frustrating frustrating so no missing persons matched that description none
they searched all local motels and hotels asked if someone had seen someone matching that description or if someone
had not returned to their room matching that description nothing it's like how is she not connected to anybody that's
the thing and again no fingerprints so we can't even try that I know now uh a detective named detective Flynn said
quote it's certainly unusual that no one misses her she must have had a husband boyfriend parents someone she had been
pretty well taken care of we know that so she was like in like in a state where obviously she had almost $10,000 worth
of dental work in her house right it's she was not just like floating around homeless right you try your mind just
goes to all these different things like I like one of the first things I thought
was like was she like a runaway like and had been like had run away like a long time ago and just was making
and not dating anybody like maybe it's I it's there's so many ways you could go with it yeah and it's one especially in
the 70s it's like people were like going off on their own doing things on their own all the time oh yeah and provinc
toown was like a perfect place to go just I mean look at Tony Chop Chop that was like his whole life was just
floating around Province toown so it's like maybe not like but she's not a Drifter because she's well taken care of
so exactly it's weird and she must have been staying somewhere like her hair's nice it's in a ponytail you know like it
seems yeah they don't describe it as like unkempt or anything right so it's it's very strange uh there were two
pairs of footprints seen in the sand around the scene they appeared to be heading towards the body but they never
came right up to it hm so that's interesting um there was also a set of tire tracks present about 50 yards from
the crime scene but again it could have been weeks so that could have just been like a dune buggy yeah so over 30
different police officers searched the entire cape and they had zero leads zero I can not imagine now a few years later
they were getting a little desperate so they sent Jimmy Mees to New York City to
see a psychic named yolana Bard who was known as the queen of the psychics okay she had worked on a lot of cases a lot
of well-known people and at this point they're like can it hurt might as well just give it a shot sometimes it can
though it can so apparently he placed things in front of her but they were all in sealed packages okay so she wouldn't
know what was inside of them it was it was their test they were like you prove to me that you the queen so they were
like he was literally like tell me something if I wanted like tell me what's going on in one of these so she
stopped over one of them and said I sense blood in this one and it was an envelope containing a bloody piece of
evidence from the crime scene but also like there probably would be blood in one of them true so but then she said
she saw dripping and she said there was a be be now she didn't know what what victim she was talking about she said
there was a beach where the victim was found and she said their hands were buried that's what yeah that's huge so
she gave him directions to where the hands would be found buried wow and he went back to P toown to look he was like
all right I'm going to go check this out and he put everything she said together
and decided that the place she was indicating he thought was a place called the Ace of Spades which was a bar in
town and it had been a it had been there for a while and what happened was it the
water I guess dripped onto the beach from some of the sinks it was like known that the so the dripping water yeah um
and it all kind of matched up with the description so he went there and she had told him that they would be buried like
on in the basement mhm and unfortunately found out that 2 months earlier they had
cemented the basement oh my God that's that's also a little we little strange little strange why are you just
cementing your basement out of nowhere I Me Maybe you have radon but still maybe
Massachusetts it's old we got lots of radon coming up in these these random dirt basements I know so it's really not
that crazy to think it's not but like but it's curious timing well and he was thinking he was going to be able to at
least dig around and he couldn't even do thats uh so James henkins the ranger said that he had walked away from the
crime scene that night and he noticed something when he walked away and he said he didn't say say anything and it's
always bothered him he said he saw pictures and words drawn in the sand a little ways away but he said he didn't
it didn't look like kids drawings to him cuz he was like At first I was like oh kids draw in the sand all the time it's
the cape like kids are here all day every day but he was like for some reason it just didn't ring as kids
drawings to me and he says it always bothered him because he didn't investigate it or take a photo because
he was like whoever Drew those things was definitely close to the body recently because they would have been erased by
the wind or the waves if it was done earlier right so he's like it always bothered me that I didn't take the
second to go as well I know and the body was finally ra laid to rest at St Peter's Cemetery in October
1974 uh her tombstone says unidentified female body found race Point Dunes oh that's very sad yeah um and actually
Alyssa met CF and said she and her sister Leslie who was the one who found the body would often and go to the
cemetery and visit her grave I love that and they said they always felt like a weird connection to her and it always
bothered them that like they still don't know who she is well and it's like you have to like respect them like through
the afterlife too you know plant flowers or something yeah and it's like she's unidentified right like somebody knows
her and somebody somebody cared about her you know like who are you who are you that misses her and hasn't said
anything but in 1987 10 years after this a Canadian woman came forward and said said she thought this woman could have
been a victim of her father's apparently when she was young which hurts my heart she witnessed her
father strangle a woman while he she was visiting him in P toown in the 70s oh [ __ ] now this woman thought that this
was the woman she was like I think I recognize her as the woman wow so they get this and they tell mes about it and
he was like I'll go up to Canada and I'll I'll interview this woman like I'm going so then they tried to contact her
again to get more information she had moved out of her home and they literally couldn't find her again [ __ ] and she
never contacted them again I have Goosebumps look at my arm right I mean I feel like it's like
that's really shitty like why would you call and like get them excited to fix this Cas obviously that must be like a
really traumatic thing for you to have to like even call in the first place but it's like but it's like someone lost
someone and like clearly you were trying to help so like what made you change your mind follow through well you have
to wonder like is her dad still was her dad still alive at that point and like she got scared and like he found out or
something yeah like did someone find out in the family and was like you got to be
quiet did he find out there's so much that could have happened there it's like we we don't even know I can't find any
information about what this lady's name is or anything dude imagine if her dad like found out and he like also killed
her imagine like that's not I need to tons of digging to find who she was I'm going to keep digging to find who she
was cuz I swear to you find woman I'm going to find this woman come on I'm just going to call Canada hi can it's me
Elena me Elena and I'd like to talk to any conts in Canada guys we do Elena is calling 1800 Canada excuse me that's
spooky Johnny and Tyler accurate very ACC can you help me I meant like contacts to like the police people yeah
Johnny and Tyler they're very important people like they can they can help us out I mean they are VIP they are all
right so John Tyler let's get on this together more Squad up all right we we're making this squad huge all right
so we got we got the canadaa squad up so we're ready I'm dead but then there was
also a Maryland woman who called and said she thought the woman was her sister who had she had just moved to
Boston I guess recently and before this like when this was happening the sister the sister and suddenly had disappeared
oh and she was spending time in P toown right cuz very normal [ __ ] no one knew where she went that year she said
she just disappeared vanished and she said her sister matched the height weight and hair color did she say
anything about dental work at all well that's the important part because mes actually asked for her sister's dental
records and they were able to ship them out to mes because he was like let's do this they weren't a match [ __ ] you no
gold crowns nothing like that wow so sounded really good and I honestly I feel bad for the girl the mar woman
because I wonder what happened to her sister well she probably had like some ounce of Hope like all some kind of
closure you um the crime scene now is and at the time was I guess in the 70s was the biggest tourist attraction was
that place on the dunes and even now it's a big pull for people I'm also like I know it's it's one of those things
that it's like you can have a million opinions about it but it's one of those things that like it's never going to
stop that kind of like in you know it's seeing a place like that it's like going
to the Lizzie barding house you know it's like it's it's not going to it's like going to in Salem exactly it's it's
morbid curiosity definitely go to Salem it's amazing oh my God I love Salem so much love Salem it's also like like I
said in the other episode about it it's I think it's like a profound experience going to Salem absolutely when you go to
like the historical places well there's so many like historical sites like we went to like at least like 42 when we
were there the other day Massachusetts has like a lot of good history I think guys come to Massachusetts if you're
from here you get it hello I'm from the board of of Taurus tourism I can't speak
I'm from the board of Tourism on Bo on Ma in Massachusetts come visit Massachusetts Come Little Children yeah
that was in Massachusetts too see we have tons of [ __ ] do it all right so they did exume her body in 1980 2001 and
2013 see that makes me know they have to but it makes me so sad I know but I'm one of those I think it's like the
science in me I'm like nope bring them up we got to look at absolutely but then you're just like who are you like just
she can't rest in being so Disturbed yeah you just want her to rest in peace but they keep you know advances keep
happening in in science and forensic science so every time something comes up they're like let's bring her up and see
if we can use this exing her is eventually to get to the goal of her resting her resting in peace exactly and
that's always the goal with exing a body is to eventually get them to rest forever um but honestly it hasn't
nothing's come up every time they' brought her up it's nothing is is moving forward this is the strangest case now a
woman who people might know named Sandra Lee She's a crime writer she said when she was 9 years old she actually
discovered the lady of the dunes First with her sister but was too horrified to tell anyone at N9 years old she was with
her dog and stumbled upon her and she said quote I stumbled down an incline with my dog the dog was ahead of me my
dog got excited about something I heard a very strange noise if you can imagine someone holding a String of Pearls I
heard that sound and then there was a horrible smell at first I attributed to low tide she was face down her hair was
a mess and I could see a gouge in the right side of her neck her arms were tucked down in the sand so I didn't know
anything was missing I recognized the green blanket right away the lower half of her body was covered with something
she later found out that that sound like somebody holding a pearl necklace which
you can know you can tell what that sound is that was the sound of hundreds of thousands of maggots crawling all
over her body um yeah she says she is sure that she she's like I am sure either one or a
couple other people must have stumbled upon this body in those 3 weeks and just were too scared to say anything that's a
little messed up and she was like cuz she was like if it was kids there was kids all over this all over this beach
always playing in these Dunes think about it these two people are two children a 12-year-old and a 9-year-old
I'm sure another kid ran across this and was like I don't know what that is or ran across it and thought it was just a
naked sunbather um especially from a distance and now I have a question how do you
transport a b like how do you get the insects off of a body to transport it uh usually they transport with the insects
do they yeah so the people that transport do they just like gown up or something yeah they oh yeah definitely
got especially in a case like that where it's like so many and then you must just
like definit out you'll definitely try to like get them out when there's like hundreds of thousands but evidence in
the bag basically have you ever opened a bag and had I be in there luckily oh which is a good a good thing Sor just a
little side note I was really curious down for insects I they can exist I just don't want to exist are not for me mots
are not something I want to deal with and that is really a great way to describe the sound of
magot a pearl necklace in your hand that's actually my birthstone so please leave so please leave thank you all
right so here's here's some of the theories that have come across or people of Interest okay somebody thought she might
have been a woman named Rory Jean kessinger now this was a 24-year-old woman at the time and she matched the
height and the weight of the lady in the dunes she was also known to be a drug dealer and a bank robber she was picked
up at one point running around naked in the woods in Pembroke saying she was had
been sexually assaulted and an off duty police officer brought him to his home to call for backup and when she got in
there she turned off the lights stole his gun and then said she had to kill him what the [ __ ] and he wrestled it
from her but she went to jail for assault and intent to murder wow she went to jail in Plymouth and on
May 26th 1974 she escaped from jail because someone smuggled her in a hacksaw and
she sawed through the bars like I hate to say this but like bad [ __ ] Vibes she
was never seen again unless she's the lady on the D she was never seen again no one knows where she went such a
different such a different Rory Honestly though not a different Rory Rory Gilmore
she did go to jail she did steal a boat H and she commits she's part of many adulterous Affairs so she's she's not
know if she's robbed any banks though I don't know do we don't know we we didn't
see her we didn't see her rob a bank but we didn't see her not rob a bank I can't
say she didn't Rob aank I didn't see you not rob a bank so maybe it just didn't make the final cut I don't know but
either way it wasn't Rory Gilmore okay and it wasn't this Rory because in 2002 DNA from her mother they used like
familial DNA uh compared to the unknown body proved it wasn't her you know I didn't think it was her I didn't either
but a lot of people thought it was because the other thing was you see a picture of Rory um and you see a picture
of this on the composite of this girl they do have a striking resemblance to each other so it is interesting
[Music] now one of my favorites and one that I think has a little bit of legs here okay
is that James Whitey Bulger did this and do you you think this has a lot of legs
I think it has legs okay I don't I'm not sold okay but I think I I I'm it's one of those that I can see that it
definitely could be him and I can also be like so it's just like it's one that I just will keep over in a corner well
and if you know anything about Whitey like in the whole beginning of this thing said like this is clearly somebody
who's killed before in my opinion at least ex well in you know we especially if you're in massachus like everyone
knows Whitey buer if you're in Massachusetts you definitely know Whitey buer yeah you're probably his cousin
your grandparents are probably telling you that they should have just let him keep being on the lamb cuz cuz he's a
harmless old person yeah yeah sure Papa that makes sense sure uh so Witnesses said that they saw cuz people would see
Whitey buer all over the place he he was existing among everybody everyone was just letting him do his
thingy was a vibe in a house he was scary so Witnesses said that they did see him with a woman who matched the
lady of the dun's description in Ptown at this time interesting he was known at this time to be in P toown um he what
the [ __ ] was Whitey Boulder you want to know what he was doing he was frequenting a bar in the area uh called
the Crone and anchor I mean it makes sense but like yeah I Ptown is just such a chill Vibe and white is such a chaotic
Vibe he is I think he's chaotic in Boston and I think he chills in but if he did this then he's chaotic everywhere
so it'll erase my view of him being chill and P toown um but yeah so this this bar the Crone and anchor that he
loved frequent down here was very close to where they found her body oh that's weird his thing was to remove his
victim's teeth right he did have a thing for that um Sandra Lee the crime writer
thinks she may have that this woman may have been an Irish immigrant and that she was groomed by
Bulger to be forced into sex work oh no because he was also a human trafficker like he was in all that [ __ ] he's a real
bad guy he's a real bad guy I feel like some people kind of like he his he gets glossed over as just like I feel like a
lot of these like mob bosses and like crime families they become a thing you know you watch The Sopranos you see The
Godfather and you see how terrible it all is but somehow it just everyone just kind of is like but that's a cool crime
family you know what I mean like I it's just I think it's like a weird human thing that that a lot of people do and I
think he's one of those characters that's so Infamous that people just are like WHYY bul you know what it is it's
like Hollywood makes it is it's very it's he's he's become a Hollywood figure so I think it glosses over the true
atrocities that he did like he murdered his own girlfriend he did and he murdered his own right-hand band's
girlfriend like made him help him do it is that what I'm thinking of yeah I mean he definitely like murdered women
and he did it in pretty and he would like strangle them too which is again they think she may have been strangled
um she so she thinks this this could be that and maybe that's why we're not identifying her because she's not from
here right um The New York Times reported quote Tales of his exploits were learned from childhood there how he
shot men between the eyes stabbed rivals in the heart with ice piics strangled women who might betray him and buried
victims in secret graveyards after yanking their teeth to thwart identification that is 100% true if you
grew up here you grew up hearing Tales of Whitey Bulger literally like there was like a Whitey Bulger like a book
about like him on my summer reading oh yeah yeah Black Mass probably I maybe was it Black Mass I don't think it was
it was I don't know I'll I'll think of it later um but yeah so Sandra Lee actually thinks he's the guy she thinks
that's did I mean I think you're right it does have legs it's never been proven that she isn't one of his victims they
haven't been able to prove she isn't they also haven't been able to prove she is people hoped he would confess to it
but when he was arrested but like he was beaten literally to an unrecognizable pile of meat by inmates in West Virginia
October 30th 2018 when he was 89 years old he literally entered prison and they literally just beat him to [ __ ] yeah so
he didn't exactly get a chance to admit it which is kind of a bummer kind of a bummer and actually kind of interesting
that like inmates beat him to death because there is like you know that like how there's a hierarchy in prison you
would think a mob boss would be on top you would think I don't know he was so horrific like I don't know it's a weird
it's a weird uh it's a weird Flex there I don't know it is but I mean he's a really bad guy so like yeah he was I
mean he was 89 at the time he had also been on the lamb for so long maybe it was like they were pissed that he got
with it for so long I don't know who knows either way he really got it got got but I really would have preferred
him to be able to maybe get convinced to like admit a few things I just feel like
he would have had many things to there's some families that would I think would have liked to hear some closure and
stuff so it's like that's a bummer yeah exactly that's why like prison Justice sometimes you're like okay but like I
would have liked to get some information like you know it works when you're like
throwing hot water over Daniel morom killer exactly or like tattooing tooing Katie's revenge on that guy's forehead
when he killed I've ever heard I'm like all right do that they can still talk feel free but like yeah this is just
tough but yeah so that's that's possibly who it could be okay there's another one
um in 2000 a serial killer named uh Hayden Clark confessed to the murder of the ladies of the dunes okay he
confessed from prison while he was serving two 30-year sentences for the murders of a 6-year-old girl named
Michelle door and a 23-year-old woman named Laura hotelling oh my goodness he claimed he killed up to 12 women and he
said he buried some of the evidence on his grandfather's property like in his garden on the cape that's a dick move
and Clark explained that he had buried evidence from the lady of the dunes crime in his grandfather's Garden on the
cape so did we go there and he said he knew the woman's identity but he was not going to tell authorities because he
said were mean to him so he's not going to tell them it's really not their job to like make you feel super welcome just
so you know yeah so he led police on December 15th 2002 his grandfather's former property and they did dig in the
garden and did find a big plastic bucket filled with more than 200 pieces of jewelry interesting among these things
were Laura hotelling's High School class ring wow so he was telling the truth that he buried some of his murder
victims things in there he said they were literally trophies to him like he did that for a reason of course s [ __ ]
they couldn't connect anything to the lady of the dunes cuz they don't know who the [ __ ] she is so any of that
jewelry could be her jewelry and we don't know police don't believe him though because one there's no physical
evidence that they can connect to him and then also he was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and so it's hard
for him to tell reality from fantasy and he has moments where he is telling a story and spinning a yarn and it becomes
a fantasy sure so they think maybe this was just him just it happens all the time that these people in prison who are
there for atrocities will confess to other crimes like um uh Henry Le Lucas Otis tool they they did the same thing
they just like honestly it's just a [ __ ] with the investigator it's just a [ __ ]
with people and it's like mental illness and it's like so they were like this just isn't really credible so they were
like yeah we're not going to be able to really do with that this whole [ __ ] case is so frustrating and then there's
my favorite Theory oh okay in 2015 Stephen King's son Joe Hill had a theory mhm he wrote in a blog post that
he believed that the lady of the dunes can be seen alive as an extra in Jaws oh my God how did I forget about this I
literally knew that this was a thing but the entire time we were doing this my brain just forgot that piece life and he
said in his blog post what if the young murder victim no one has ever been able to identify has been seen by hundreds of
millions of people in a beloved Summer Classic and they didn't even know they were looking at her and he said what if
the ghost of the lady of the dunes haunts Jaws that freaks me the [ __ ] there is a woman who looks just like the
sketches and composits and is wearing Wrangler jeans and a blue bandan I mean hello but there's a lot of women at that
time that dressed exactly like that yeah um so he said quote this particular woman Bears a shocking resemblance and
appearance and wardrobe to the murder victim suddenly I tingled all over and came halfway out of my seat and for the
barest of a moment I thought I had seen her now Jaws had been filmed 2 hours away from the crime scene so not that
far away they had never recorded the names of their extras oh [ __ ] and a lot of locals were extras like they would
just show up and agreed to appear in the Final Cut yeah so police are skeptical but they said they are not going to say
it's not possible that that is her I mean of course a lot of women dress like that at the time but the fact that this
woman looks like her looks like her in the blue bandana that's a big one um and did they ever find like a bathing suit
top or anything no they didn't find anything like that I know that's what's weird um and and so Joe Hill said quote
part of me thinks that my subconscious mind is so programmed so to quickly generate ghost stories that that's all
I've done here cuz he is Stephen King's son I was going to say that is true but jaw's screenwriter Carl gotle uh checked
his production notes and he said this scene number 130 with the extra that they're talking about was filmed May
25th 1974 two months before and only a 100 miles away from where she was found interesting so she would have been alive
right two months is like a long time before like but I mean she could have been she was there she could just been
there right I know I'm thinking of her as like a vacationer yeah and she she might have just been living there well
and then in 2019 investigators said that they were going to reexamine the case trying to use new techniques um they
were going to use DNA analysis and genealogical family building sites to try to do it uh this is the same kind of
thing they used with the Golden State killer case it's becoming a real like valuable thing for these kind of cases
um and Cape and the island da Michael o'keef said quote we're going to examine everything we can with respect to the
the remains now I'm just going to leave you with one exciting possible thing American Horror Story season 10 is being
filmed in Massachusetts and it has hinted at a lady of the Dune storyline [ __ ] possibly as a subplot oh my God so
I did I like combed Reddit for some theories about this too cuz they are really good at like finding these things
um they are filming in P toown they are filming in P town you think Lord is in Fe is in P toown yeah I think she was
and Murphy Ryan Murphy said quote he like put something on his social media that said quote something's washing up
on the shore girl something like that and then teased a photo with two hands on the beach and as we said a big part
of this was her missing two hands right and Murphy has teased out more teasers that have teeth in them interest I mean
if if it's not like the main thing cuz either way this is set in Massachusetts so I'm excited in P toown excited to see
what it is like I wonder if there's like a Tony Chop Chop part or anything but either way it could
definitely be like a subplot they always put those little like nods well then you
have to wonder like is it going to be in the 70s because oh my God I love to watch [ __ ] that is said in that time
period I bet it is I wonder I need to know so I'm excited to see I love American Horror Story so good I would
love to see it and that is the very frustrating t of the lady in the of the dunes that we
don't know who she is someday I think we're going to update you guys I'm going to manifest it I I think we're going to
do it I think we're going to solve it I think we so far we have a good squad uh we got Johnny and Tyler up in Canada
Sarah turny y girl come on Squad I know you can get [ __ ] done Bailey seran Bailey seran get over here make me look
good while we investigate this please yes uh and yeah we're I think we're going to do this let's get it friends
we'll add some more don't worry for sure who else should be on the squad everyone
is going to volunteer oh you know what Jordan from the nighttime podcast he's up in Canada too we got him maybe he can
find the woman Canada a squad all right I'm ready for this guys if you're in you're in we'll tag you see you soon and
uh we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but it's weird that you don't sign up to be part of our
Squad to finally solve this case thank you good night [Music]

This episode was that was originally published as Episode 240. We are revisiting it as a refresher before we update the case next Monday! We hope that you have a happy and safe holiday!

We’re bringing you to one of our favorite vacation spots: Provincetown Mass. Only we aren’t sunbathing and playing volleyball on the beach, we’re here to solve a cold case, y’all. The Lady of the Dunes, as she’s known, was discovered on July 26, 1974, in the tall grass at the Race Point Dunes. Throughout the past 47 years investigators have worked tirelessly following up on leads and exhuming her body every time some kind of new technology comes up. To this day they still don’t know who killed the woman, or more importantly, who the woman even is!

Connect with Wondery http://wondery.com/shows http://facebook.com/WonderyMedia http://twitter.com/WonderyMedia http://instagram.com/WonderyMedia

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