Reba Dawn McCoy (Attempt to Match) -- Missing Since March 28th, 1999 (Sunday)

Missing Person: Reba Dawn McCoy


Details from a government source (might be paraphrased): Family last saw Reba in March 1999 in Columbus, Ohio. She had a possible destination for travel being New York (note: presumptively NYC as opposed to New York state).

Last contact: March 28th, 1999 (Sunday)
Last location: Columbus, Ohio (one source said the Southfield area of Ohio)
Age when Reba Dawn McCoy disappeared: 32
Sex: Female
Height in inches: 62 (which is 5'2")
Weight in pounds (lbs): 110
Ethnicity: White/Caucasian
Hair color: Brown, long
Eye Color: Green
Scar or distinctive characteristic: Tattoo on upper left arm (in the picture, it looks like the tattoo is of a word that starts with a "D" and maybe "Da".

Link to Government Source: MP137310 (right click to open) 
Websleuths discussion page: Reba Dawn McCoy (right click to open)

BMI means body mass index. It is meant to describe someone's healthy body weight relative to the individual's height. It is only food for thought because it does not account for all body types. Reba Dawn McCoy had a BMI of 20.12. She was at a healthy weight by BMI standards at the time of her disappearance.

Commentary and Research

By: Shane Lambert 
Original time of writing: January 28th, 2025

Has Reba Dawn McCoy been found?

I started to research the missing person case of Reba Dawn McCoy tonight. I was disappointed to find that there were not many details available on her case. 

This missing person did use some aliases. In cases like this, it can be hard to find information. However, I did locate her picture associated with a Facebook page under the name Reba Williams McCoy. Her NamUs page also has "Reba Barry" and "Rebbie" as potential aliases.

It was my understanding that someone who knew and cared about Reba created the Facebook profile for her. It only featured old photos.

I had a lot of questions in this case. Mainly, I wondered why anyone thought that she was going to New York. Then, I wondered what her method of transportation was. Was she known to be a hitchhiker? I did find someone online who identified as the MP's daughter.



In place of being able to find any solid information online, I contacted some people on her Facebook profile. Furthermore, I decided to look at the Jane Does in NamUs for some potential matches.

Reba Dawn McCoy - Attempt to Match to Unidentified Jane Does

Based on the limited information there is concerning this missing person, she could be the following Jane Does:

Reba McCoy vs #UP6054


NamUs #UP6054 is a white-female Jane Doe who was found dead in Brooklyn, New York on a shoreline. She was estimated to be 100 lbs and 5'5" tall, which is in the ballpark of Reba Dawn McCoy. Furthermore, the Jane Doe had long brown hair. Lastly, the Jane Doe was found in Brooklyn, which is in the New York City area, the area that Reba was thought to be traveling to. 

This Jane Doe was found on June 17th, 2000, a year and three months after Reba was last seen. The Jane Doe was thought to have died in the year 2000. Furthermore, she was given a broad age range of 18-35 years old. Reba was 32 years old when she went missing and would have been at the upper end of the age range on June 17th, 2000.

The Jane Doe had a size 32B bra size, which is not busty. I don't know if that is a match to Reba, but only going by her circulated photos, she didn't seem voluptuous.

In summary, the date of death, the sex and race, the location in New York, the close height and weight estimates, the hair color, and the figure between Reba and Jane Doe #UP6054 do reasonably match up.

Reba McCoy vs #UP6124

#UP6124 is the most likely match, in my opinion, of all the unidentified Jane Does in NamUs. This Jane Doe is also a white female, like Reba.

She was found on May 8th, 1999, which is only 5-6 weeks after Reba was last seen. The Jane Doe was thought to have died sometime in 1999. The Jane Doe was estimated to be 5'3" and 125 pounds, which is also reasonably close to Reba's height and weight. Furthermore, this Jane Doe had straight brown hair. The Jane Doe was estimated to have an age of 25-35 years old. Lastly, the unidentified woman was also found in New York, New York.

In short, #UP6124 checks all the boxes. She was the same race, the same sex, and had comparable height and weight to Reba McCoy. Reba had similar hair to the Jane Doe. The unidentified woman's age has an estimated range that would include Reba's age. Furthermore, both Reba and this Jane Doe have cases that are associated with New York. 

I consider this one to be stronger than the previous one because the timeline matches up better. Assuming that Reba died close to her date of disappearance in late March 1999, you would think that a Jane Doe found in early May 1999 would be a more probable match.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Missing Kids and Their Bicycles - Cases of Dario Cicolecchia, Janice Pockett, and Others

Image
By: Shane Lambert Season 2 of the hit TV show Forensic Files  included an episode (Episode 12) that contained information that those who work on missing person cases should note. The episode tells of the missing person's case of Dario Cicolecchia, a boy in Switzerland who went missing in 1993. Importantly, this boy was found, his murderer was apprehended, and this murderer also made statements to the police about how he operated. I think there's a nugget of information that's worth extracting from this case and using it as food for thought in similar cases. Dario Goes Missing Dario went missing after departing his home on a bicycle to go fishing. He was later found dead and mutilated in a Swiss cornfield. Forensic Medicine, the branch of forensics that deals with the body, was used in this case and it was discovered that the boy had been drowned. In the water in the boy's lungs, investigators found diatoms, which are simple one-cell organisms that are only found...
Read more

Jerry Strickland, Melissa (Missy) Munday -- What Happened After the "Unsolved Mysteries" Episode

Image
By: Shane Lambert (@UncoolNegated on Twitter) Amazon Kindle author of THE SUIT IN THE BACKPACK - PART 1 DOWN AND OUT IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES Time of writing : December 5th, 2020 If you are a fan of the old "Unsolved Mysteries" episodes that Robert Stack hosted in the 1980s and 1990s, then you might remember Episode 2 of Season 1. That program opened with a murder case, one that saw Elmer DeBoer brutally killed, allegedly at the hands of one Jerry Strickland. Wed, Feb 19, 1992 – Page 22 · Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan) · Newspapers.com The story of Strickland, his girlfriend Missy Munday, and the murdered DeBoer ended with viewers learning about the arrest of Strickland after the episode aired. For those wondering what happened next, here's a rundown. According to an article in the Detroit Free Press from August 17th, 1988, Munday testified against Strickland and named him as the murderer of DeBoer. She claimed that Strickland confessed to the murder. Charges a...
Read more

Beverly Sharpman (NamUs MP #7034) - Case details

Image
By: Shane Lambert Tonight I looked at the mysterious case of Beverly Sharpman, an individual who was last seen on September 11th, 1947 in Philadelphia. NamUs has her listed as 16 years old at the time of her disappearance. However, all the newspaper articles I looked at indicated that she was 17 years old at the time. The case stands out to me because of the huge effort that individuals in Beverly's family made, especially her mother Nettie, in attempting to find her. Furthermore, I'm not convinced that Beverly Sharpman died at a time close to her disappearance. Lastly, I'm not convinced that the love that Beverly's family felt for her was entirely reciprocal. My opinion in this cloudy case is that Beverly disappeared voluntarily. Have a look at the photograph below. The face from this photograph is commonly used as the missing-person's photograph of Beverly. I think there might be a clue in the entire photo, a matter that I will return to. "Got m...
Read more