NamUs description: "White female was found on banks of Black Warrior River. She had been beaten severely about the head and body, and sexually assaulted. Despite extensive investigation at the time she was never identified and a suspect was never developed, leading to belief she was not from area."
Find-a-grave: She has an online grave memorial but the photograph might be of a different Jane Doe (spelled "Jayne Doe") as the date of February 18th, 1982 on the gravemarker would not match this person. She goes by the name Mrs. X at find-a-grave.
Sex: Female Estimated Age: 30 to 40 years old; once source estimates 35 years of age Hair: Brown or black, shoulder-lengthed Eye color: Brown Estimated height and weight: 5'4" and 110 pounds
Dental: Upper teeth were dentures, she was missing some teeth Clothing:
light blue button up long sleeve shirt "Preppy" brand
This Jane Doe, who was found by three fishermen, was thought to have been dead for about four days prior to her discovery on April 18th, 1982. That would make April 14th, 1982 the likely day of her death. She is thought to be a murder victim and a victim of an assault that was sexual in nature. She was thought to have been beaten and strangled.
She was buried on December 9th, 1982 as a Jane Doe. A refined age estimate that was offered at about that time gave a range of 34 years old to 38 years old. It was then thought that the body had been "in the river" for "two to four days." Her fingerprints were checked against FBI files, however, this did not lead to her identification.
Thu, Dec 9, 1982 – Page 35 · The Anniston Star (Anniston, Alabama) · Newspapers.com
I find some forum-chat evidence that this Jane Doe may have been exhumed in 2013. The following link is dead but you can still read the URL. There seems to be a reason to believe that this woman had a stuck vehicle with a man she was traveling with a couple days prior to the discovery of her remains.
Author: Shane Lambert Time of publication: January 29th, 2021
On this web page, I highlight cases of Unidentified Persons (UPs) who are deceased. What unifies all the UP profiles on this page is that a great photo of them is provided with their profiles from a time when they were alive. The photos of the unidentified persons are of good enough quality that these are cases where the only thing that is required to solve them is both media exposure and a person who is willing to simply state their names.
Besides the mystery of their identities, there is the extra mystery of how they can be unidentified despite the clear pictures of their faces. I am not talking about media exposure when I state that. Rather, how did the authorities get the pictures of them alive without someone coming across their names? Did the decedents have pictures of themselves in their wallets?
This is a web page that is always a work in progress: I will add to as I come across more cases that fit the category. Minimally, please scroll through this page and look at the faces even if you don't feel like reading that much. If a link is, pardon the pun, dead, then please report it in the comments.
Shane Lambert
February 2nd, 2025
I looked at the following case tonight and it also looked solvable. However, a lot of time has passed. But you would think this case would be solved if only enough people looked at the photo. Currently, she is known only as #UP127230.
January 13th, 2025: Update! This one was solved! At least, they removed the profile (which usually means the person was unidentified.
This fellow was found dead in the Arizona desert on October 26th, 2020. He was believed to have been dead for about 36 hours. His height was measured to be 5'4" and his weight was estimated to be 125 to 135 pounds.
The reason they have a photo of him from life is because they were able to take a fingerprint off of his corpse. The print matched an apprehension from March 2020. The photo is an apprehension photo from that time.
He gave the name Gregorio Cota Valenzuela in March 2020, however, this may be an alias. That detail is something I find strange as I didn't think getting away from the authorities when they are fingerprinting you was as simple as giving a fake name, however, I guess there are scenarios where that is possible.
This individual was found by the USPB (United States Border Patrol). Individuals found in remote desert locations in Arizona by the USPB are often Mexican nationals that may be walking to Phoenix. However, that this person was fingerprinted seven months before he died may suggest that he was in the USA for a long time.
Still, I would not be surprised if he is a Mexican national. If you are working on this case, fluent English and Spanish may be useful in order to look at the missing person websites in Mexico.
January 25th, 2025 update: This case does not seem to be active anymore as the link no longer contains information. It says it was updated on May 10th, 2023.
This case comes from Canada. The man on the right is thought to be an Albertan. He was found deceased in Ontario on October 15th, 2016.
At some point, he identified himself as Mitchell Nelson. At some point, the photo of him must have been taken, maybe by police.
If you visit his UP profile with Canada's Missing using the hyperlink above, then you'll see that they have composite sketches of him too.
This is truly a strange UP profile. It's the only unidentified person profile I've looked at where they have a composite sketch AND a photo of the UP from when he was alive. There also appears to be a sidelonged photo of him riding a bike and pulling a huge canoe, which is a really weird photo. If they found these photos of him on the John Doe, then why do the sketch?
In another strange twist, this man is given an age range of 40 to 67 years old. I don't see how anyone can look at that photo and see someone who is as young as 40. I see someone who is at least 50 and probably 53 to 63 is I was to give a ten-year guess.
Height and weight: no estimate provided for weight; journalism from 1980 says she was 5'5" to 5'8"
Body found: May 26th, 1980; estimated to have been there about five months or less
Location: Des Moines River, southeast Des Moines, Iowa; south of Carlisle Road near Hubbell Park
Hair: maybe red, not sure
Eyes: not sure
Other: deformity, severe lumbar curvature at L5
Clothing: close to the body a tube top was found (not really summer clothes which might be a clue that this Jane Doe went missing in the winter); also a ring and cross necklace and hairpins
On May 26th, 1980, Maynard David Jr., his younger brother, and Rick Kimmel were walking in the area of Hubbell Park in southeast Des Moines, Iowa. They were taking their dogs to some water in a wooded area when one in their party thought that he saw a skull. It turned out to be the Jane Doe with the details above. A bullet was found near the body.
Tue, May 27, 1980 – 8 · Des Moines Tribune (Des Moines, Iowa) · Newspapers.com
Candidates for ruling out
I have not yet looked at the following cases too closely. However, they are cases that other amateurs or Websleuths might do some research on for this Jane Doe as any one case might be a match.
Brenda Sue Black went missing sometime in 1980. Her NamUs profile says she was last heard from on January 1st of that year. However, last-contact dates of January 1st often mean that they don't know what time of year she went missing and just filled in the first day of the year to fill in the data fields. Black is in the height range, she is the right race, she is the right sex, and the right year. There's a remark at NamUs that this person was moving from Ohio to California and that might go through Iowa. No mention of the jewelry.
January 10th, 2025: A websleuth (kara1218) recently attempted to match this Jane Doe to a missing person named Julie Ann Derouin.
All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.
Unidentified Jane Doe in Carbon, Alberta
Who: Jane Doe found roadside near Carbon, Alberta, Canada
When: Discovered on April 20th, 1995 or April 21st, 1995
Post-mortem period: Thought to be dead for 10 to 15 years, meaning missing people last seen in April 1980 to April 1985 are all in play. However, missing people outside of this range cannot be ruled out based only on the post-mortem period's estimation.
Ethnicity/Race: Uncertain. Appears aboriginal by the construction; could be other ethnicities for sure but does not look Caucasian. One source says she may have been of north African descent but that dark skin color does not come through in the bust above. Mixed background possible.
Sex: Female
Age at time of death: 22 to 35 years old, estimated. Broadened range 20 to 40. Height: 5'0" to 5'4" (combined range from Service Canada and the Youtube video below which is of a press conference that was held, in part, for this Jane Doe)
Other: she had suffered from a disease called brucellosis
Case Details and Indigenous Connection
This is a case that doesn't have a lengthy profile with Canada's National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains. However, the Youtube video posted above will help deliver some case details.
I thought, at first glance, that this individual was one of the missing aboriginal women of Canada, a group that some think doesn't get a lot of police attention. However, I'm not sure this Jane Doe is actually in any missing person's database. Part of me wonders if no one at all is looking for her.
Be warned, this isn't an article for the weak-stomached. I don't apologize. If you are seeking out articles on missing people or Jane Does then you have to be ready for some topics that aren't exactly those for the pleasure reader.
I think she is aboriginal but my basis for designating her as such is tenuous. Firstly, she was found in the Albertan plains and that area has plenty of aboriginals. Secondly, she looks aboriginal to me in the police recreation but she could be of other groups. I've wondered if Indian reserves of Alberta might be alerted to this case. However, I really have low confidence that this person will be identified. I don't think there's a soul out there that is looking for her.
Websleuths or amateurs looking at this case should know that Carbon, Alberta is tiny. It's a village northeast of Calgary by about an hour. If she was from Carbon then she would have been identified, I think. Her roadside location sounds like a body dump to me and a person doing that would be looking for somewhere far away from where people knew her, I think.
Media Coverage and Grave Site Mystery
It was hard to find news that covered this Jane Doe. However, I believe that the following article from the April 25th, 1995 Calgary Herald might pertain to her. There is a statement in this news article that brings bizarreness into play.
Note, that the "last Thursday" that is referenced in the article would actually be April 20th, 1995 as opposed to April 21st, 1995 (the date that Service Canada reports as the date that the Jane Doe was found). Furthermore, the age range in the news article is different.
Both inconsistencies can be explained: dates are often a tad off in reporting and age ranges that are based on estimates can change over time. The reason I think that the reporting pertains to the Jane Doe pictured at the start of this article is just that Carbon, Alberta is puny. I don't think two Jane Does pop up in consecutive days but it's possible.
The news article says something that's very unique when it comes to Jane Does. According to the news article, this Jane Doe "may have been removed from a grave site."
What does that make you think? The RCMP might have been able to study the body and conjectured that it had been serviced by a mortician? That's what I think when I read that. Maybe there was a presence of embalming fluid. However, maybe they had different reasons for believing that she was previously buried. A lot more information is needed about the grave site that this person came from.
Was it a marked grave?
Was it a clandestine grave?
If it was the latter, then it's hard to think of a way to generate leads. It's also perplexing: why would someone unearth an individual in a clandestine grave and leave her on the side of the highway? If her grave was of a clandestine nature, then one would conjecture that the grave site was a better hiding spot than on the side of the road. However, the article also said that foul play was ruled out. That suggests that her original resting place was not clandestine in nature.
Timeline and Identification Challenges
If it was the former (ie. she was in a marked grave), then leads are possible. The timeline with this Jane Doe could be as follows:
a death between April 1980 and April 1985
a burial in a gravesite assumingly near her time of death
removal from the gravesite at some point
then she ends up roadside near Carbon, Alberta
discovered there on April 20th or April 21st, 1995 after laying dead outdoors for maybe 10 to 15 years
If all that is true then this Jane Doe case isn't going to be solved through any conventional means. Conventionally, when an amateur or websleuth is working on a Jane Doe's case, that person would cross reference the Jane Doe against missing person's reports.
That's worked in the past for many cases but if this particular Jane Doe died and was buried in a marked grave, then maybe she wasn't missing at the time of her death. Maybe the family and friends had a funeral for her and had a sense of closure. If that's true then it brings the following into consideration: maybe nobody that encounters this Jane Doe's profile, that actually knew her in life, will ever think to connect her to the person that she/he knew. This truly is a problematic Jane Doe when one considers that she was unearthed from a grave.
In this peculiar case, identifying the Jane Doe might involve looking for an empty grave in the region, one that belongs to a woman who died between the ages of 20 and 40, one who matched the height range, and someone who died between 1980 and 1985. I'm not sure how a Websleuth or amateur investigator goes about checking graves for empty coffins without stepping on a whole bunch of toes. But I do have ideas as to why someone would dig up human remains from a grave.
One understandable reason is exhumation for a legal reason, a historical one, or a scientific one. However, exhumation is not a good explanation in this case so long as you accept the following. Someone in charge of exhuming a body would be someone responsible enough to put it where it belonged afterward. The authorities, if they exhumed this person, wouldn't discard her remains on the side of a highway.
Another reason someone would dig up human remains borders on the bizarre and the grotesque: necrophilia. If you find it difficult to accept that someone would dig up a body for that purpose, then the definitive answer is that such acts are known to have happened before.
Furthermore, another reason why someone would take a body from a grave for clandestine purposes is to fake a death. That's believed to have happened before as well.
I think another reason someone might dig up a body from a marked grave is one that's less sinister in nature: extreme mourning. Somebody who is psychologically changed due to someone's death might have an insane episode and seek out the remains. I didn't find any historical news article about that but, I think, it can happen. Read the poem "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allen Poe. It tells a tale of a man who sought out his wife's tomb for comfort.
I really don't see this case as probable to be solved due to a lead from a missing relative. Firstly, there's hardly any news coverage that I could find. Secondly, there is barely anything in her profile. Lastly, I don't think there is anyone looking for her. If her grave was a marked one then the people that knew this Jane Doe might have buried her according to their customs and they might already have closure -- for decades. They might not know at all that she was removed.
The only point to take away is that if you ever come across any news from Alberta about an empty grave then think of this Jane Doe and cross-reference her particulars with that of the relevant grave marker or obituary.
Brucellosis Outbreak in Alberta
In the YouTube video, Staff Sergeant Jason Zazulak of the RCMP made the following statement:
"She may be or appeared to have been of north African ancestry or possibly of indigenous or mixed ancestry. She was approximately 5-foot to 5-foot-three inches in height...She had suffered from a disease called brucellosis and repetitive fever. Brucellosis is not a disease commonly found in Canada and may suggest that this person was born abroad."
I do not think that this person was born abroad.
Alberta’s 1980s Brucellosis Context
It's important to note that brucellosis might not be a common disease in Canada in modern times. However, the Jane Doe in question is believed to have died in the early 1980s and her remains were found in Alberta. It's important to note, I think, that there was a brucellosis outbreak in Alberta in the 1980s. The balance of my research on this outbreak makes me think that this individual was an Albertan and that she had some kind of exposure to a farm or farm products.
Lethbridge Outbreak and Potential Leads
The second snipped article below is interesting. It says that there was an outbreak that affected people in Lethbridge in 1980. Note, that you didn't have to work on a farm to get brucellosis. It seems like any work related to cattle could expose you to the disease. It's also interesting that this outbreak is within the range of the Jane Doe's estimated death.
The second snipped article above is interesting. It says that there was an outbreak that affected people in Lethbridge in 1980. Lethbridge is not particularly close to where the Jane Doe was found, however, nor can it be considered out of range for someone who owned a vehicle. According to Google Maps, a drive from Lethbridge to where the body was dumped in Carbon would be just under three hours.
The six employees in the news article might know something about who this person is. They had the disease she had and they may have transmitted it to people they knew. Furthermore, it's not impossible that the Jane Doe was one of the six employees, yet, that would seem like a fluke if it was so.
Note, that you didn't have to work on a farm to get brucellosis. It seems like any work related to cattle could expose you to the disease. It's also interesting that this outbreak is within the range of the Jane Doe's estimated death.
Alberta’s Agricultural Link to Brucellosis
Farms in Alberta are very common. You will find them across a huge range of the province and the province itself is enormous. The only place in Alberta where you won't find many farms would be in the mountain parks on the province's western border.
Accordingly, that she might have worked or lived near cattle or their products isn't necessarily going to be a case-breaker. However, I would reject the opinion that she was of foreign originations based on her exposure to a disease that's not common in Canada. At the time when she lived and in the province where her remains were found, brucellosis was part of life.
Author: Shane Lambert Original Time of Writing: January 3rd, 2021; updated February 18th, 2021; updated October 15th, 2024. All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.
I spent several hours working on the case of Saskatoon's "Woman in the Well" on January 3rd, 2021. This was a woman who was found in a long-abandoned well in 2006, and at that time, she was believed to have been long dead. There was a hotel at the site of this well, known as the Shore Hotel, in decades past.
Researching the Shore Hotel generated some names affiliated with the property and even some real-estate news from nearly one hundred years ago. However, while researching the hotel I didn't find anything of interest that connected to this case so I took a different angle on it, an angle that may have yielded something. Firstly, here are the Lady in the Well's specifications.
Unidentified Remains: Saskatoon Jane Doe, the so-called "Lady in the Well" or "Woman in the Well"; reference number 2012020100 with Service Canada's Missing. Remains found: June 29th, 2006 Date of death: This Jane Doe's date of death is not clear but she is unequivocally believed to have been dead for decades at the time of her discovery; a range is given from 1920 to 1924 in an article that appeared in Victoria's Times Colonist on March 9th, 2007 (immediately below). Others have given different ranges. For my research purposes, I decided that any missing person from pre-1935 would be in play.
https://www.services.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/missing-disparus/case-dossier.jsf?case=2012020100&id=4 Fri, Mar 9, 2007 – 1 · Times Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) · Newspapers.com
Ethnicity/Race: White
Sex: Female Age at time of disappearance: Estimated to be 20 years old to 35 years old Hair: Brown Height and weight at the time of disappearance: 5'0" and slim build Clothing: as pictured below
Forensic work circulated with this case.
The Jane Doe, by contemporary analysis, is considered to have been at least middle-classed in life (she had a gold chain). That is important because sad as it may be, it's a fact of life that the more money your family has the more likely you are to be on the radar when you go missing. I think that's a universal truth and not just for contemporary society.
That the Saskatoon Jane Doe was not a transient was something I considered to be a clue: whoever she was, if she was from the Saskatoon area then there should have been some media coverage of her disappearance in the Saskatoon newspapers around the 1920's. With that in mind, I assumed that any missing person cases from 1910 to 1930 for the Saskatoon area might have been picked over and examined already, at least cases that there are surviving records of.
My assumptions and research led me to think that the Jane Doe simply wasn't a local. Sutherland, the area near Saskatoon where she was found, was a railway stop according to Jeff O'Brien, a man cited as an archivist in an article I read and someone that I have exchanged emails with regarding the Jane Doe (same article as the one snipped below). He pointed out that she could easily have been "anybody riding the rails" in a newspaper article that appeared back in 2006.
Cases involving Jane Does that were "riding the rails" a hundred years ago or so is actually something I have experience researching. I actually did some work on a similar case a few years ago. If you are interested in the Lady in the Well from Saskatoon, you might also take interest in the Rahway Jane Doe. She wasn't found in a well several decades after her death but rather she was found in the street the night after her murder. She was thought to have alighted a train in the minutes or hour preceding her death. Like Saskatoon's Lady in the Well, the Rahway Jane Doe remains unnamed.
Lady in the Well: A Traveller to Saskatoon?
When I decided, for the sake of proceeding in a guided way, to assume that The Lady in the Well was someone who didn't come from Saskatoon, I next decided to look for a presumptive person who looked for her. I assumed that the Lady in the Well, the Saskatoon Jane Doe, would have had relatives after her death who would have wondered what became of her.
On this matter, I discovered one "Mrs. A.G. Mcintosh" who was of 4644 Bader Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio in 1938. Mrs. A.G. Mcintosh was also named Isabelle Pearson, someone who appeared in the American census of 1940. A.G. Mcintosh was Isabelle''s husband and the sister of one Agnes Goodall Pearson. It is this latter name that probably belongs to the Jane Doe in Saskatoon, in my opinion. It seems that Isabelle Pearson identified herself under her husband's name (ie. "Mrs. A.G. Mcintosh"), which some wives used to do.
My Procedure for Finding a Potential Match to the Jane Doe
One way people looked for people they lost touch with in the past was through classified ads. I've worked on so many hundreds of missing person cases, either individually or at Websleuths.com, that I know the keywords that appear in classified ads when someone is looking for someone. Phrases like "the whereabouts of" or "anyone knowing" or "anyone with information" or "missing since [year]" are examples of common phrases that appear verbatim in countless classified ads where the poster is looking for someone who is missing. They are not as popular anymore but these kinds of classified ads often appeared under "Missing Persons" columns in the past.
In looking through old classifieds, I started with "missing since 1910" and then explored the hits that came up. Finding nothing I went to "missing since 1911" and so on and so forth -- always with a focus on classified advertisements that appeared in Saskatoon. I would have considered classifieds for Calgary, Winnipeg, Regina, and Edmonton too. Most of the hits were of missing men, especially in the WWI years.
Finally, "missing since 1922" hit something that remains promising. The Lady in the Well might be named Agnes Goodall Pearson. I plugged that name into Google and didn't find any identical previous guess of her name, so I think this is an original guess. Since the original publication of this article, her name has been mentioned in some forums but with links back to me.
A classified advertisement appeared in Saskatoon's Star Phoenix on August 9th, 1938 but the individual who placed the ad, Mrs. A.G. McIntosh of Cleveland, Ohio (ie. Isabelle Pearson), was looking for someone who went missing 16 years earlier -- so in 1922. I will note that 1922 is dead-smack in the middle of the 1920 to 1924 range that was given as the possible year of the Jane Doe's death.
Missing person as of August 1938: Agnes Goodall Pearson
Last seen or last contact: sometime in 1922
Age at time of last contact or last seen: about 52 years old (born about 1870)
I will note that the age of the missing person doesn't match up with the estimated age of the Jane Doe. This is a point that has to be dealt with.
The Jane Doe is estimated to be 20 to 35 years old while Agnes was about 52 years old when she went missing. However, age estimates can be way off for Janes Does -- even ones that are found deceased for only a short time. When it comes to the long-deceased, one might think that the estimation process just gets all the more difficult.
I don't think Agnes' age of "about 52" rules her out as this Jane Doe at all. The Lady in the Well was found in an environment that was different than where most human remains are found and she was there for decades and decades. I think that those who gave an age estimate for this Jane Doe were working with facts surrounding her remains that were unique to their careers. Accordingly, I don't know how accurate their guesses are going to be.
One thing that I found interesting about the classified advertisement was that the person who posted it was from Cleveland, Ohio. The advertisement only appears in Saskatoon's Star Phoenix by my efforts. What that makes me think is that Mrs. A.G. McIntosh of Cleveland had reason to believe that Agnes Goodall Pearson went missing in Saskatoon, not further east nor further west. Someone from Cleveland, Ohio wouldn't advertise a classified for a missing person in Saskatoon without good reason.
I have very good reason to believe that the person who placed the advertisement was actually named Isabelle McIntosh. She appears in the 1940 United States Federal Census with the matching address of 4644 Bader Avenue (Bader Avenue can be seen in the original source, below is just a snippet).
Her husband was named Andrew McIntosh (in fact, he was Andrew Grieve McIntosh). Thus, the "Mrs. A.G. McIntosh" in the classified advertisement from 1938 is the wife of the household. She is writing in her husband's name as many married women used to do.
Here's what I know of Isabelle McIntosh, the lady that placed the classified advertisement:
she was born in Scotland in 1887 (she was 53 at the time of the 1940 census); I think she was born in Kilmany, Fifeshire
her maiden name was Pearson
she is the sister of Agnes Goodall Pearson, the person she was looking for
the family was caucasian and Scottish
Ella Ogilvie, widowed, is a 30-year-old daughter with two children, children that might be alive at the time of writing. It would be interesting if one of them knew something about the details of Agnes Goodall Pearson. Did she reply to the advertisement? Did she come for Christmas one year? Or was Agnes' last known communication forever more the year documented in the classified ad (ie. in 1922). That would be expected if she was the Jane Doe in Saskatoon.
Agnes Goodall Pearson: Never Accounted For
I didn't find any other information on Agnes Goodall Pearson using online newspaper databases: the classified ad above is the only thing I note. Furthermore, a Google search (see below) for the quoted name contained no hits in written work on January 3rd, 2021. That search would cover forums and websites for missing people in addition to blogs and news websites.
The only hit, before the publication of this blog post, that you are reading right now, was for Ancestry.com where I did find evidence of someone named Agnes Goodall Pearson. However, this was someone who died in Scotland in 1915. According to our classified ad, our Agnes Goodall Pearson was alive in 1922.
One way to rule out Agnes Goodall Pearson as the Lady in the Well is to find her, Agnes', grave. If you find a grave of Agnes Goodall Pearson (b. abt. 1870), then it rules her out as the Jane Doe in the well because the Jane Doe was in the well until 2006, not in a grave. I did not find a grave at FindAGrave.com for an Agnes Goodall Pearson, born in 1870, that matched. This is a exercise that could be revisited from time to time.
I did find a grave for an Agnes Pearson that died in 1937 (b. 1869). She was buried in Red Deer, Alberta and this is a small city on the Canadian prairies. I considered the possibility that this was Agnes Goodall Pearson but ruled this out. The Agnes Pearson that died in 1937 married into the name. Her husband, one Nels Pearson, is referenced in the grave marker. Agnes Goodall Pearson, by my research, didn't marry into the Pearson family name but rather she had it from birth through her father.
Regarding an Agnes Pearson that resided in Saskatoon, on that matter, I emailed Jeff O'Brien, Saskatoon archivist. He claimed to have evidence of an Agnes Pearson in and around Saskatoon in the 1910s and early 1920s. However, he could not find a grave for her in the Woodlawn Cemetery. O'Brien said that this was the place where people from Saskatoon were buried if they died before 1950.
Her address in Saskatoon may have been 279 3rd Avenue North according to Jeff O'Brien, Saskatoon Archivist. That address would be from the 1913 Henderson directory. Jeff O'Brien also said "Agnes Pearson is in the 1923 and 1924 Saskatoon Henderson directories living in rooms at the Colonial Apartments, a rooming house at 525 20th Street West." These could be different Agnes Pearsons than the one sought out in the classified advertisement or they could be the same.
I think the person, Agnes Goodall Pearson, that was the target of the classified advertisement was at this link at ancestry.com. She appeared in the 1901 Scotland Census. She has a death date that is unknown according to one profile.
Her unknown death date is promising when it comes to corroborating her ID as the Jane Doe in the well. Someone who ended up down a well for decades as a victim of foul play would likely have a death date that's unknown to those who cared for her. In fact, none of the public family trees had her date of death as per the public ones at Ancestry.com. That's a bit of a clue too because it shows that no one has great information on when she died, which is what you'd expect for a missing person.
Right now, what I have on Agnes Goodall Pearson is this:
She was definitely born in or around 1870 in Forgan, Fife, Scotland
Her name definitely appears in a newspaper classified ad in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on August 9th, 1938 with a reference to the year 1922 as her last-heard-from time
Possible connection: an Agnes Pearson appears in the Henderson (near Saskatoon) directory in 1913 (could be a different person)
Possible connection: an Agnes Pearson appears in the 1923/24 Saskatoon directories (could be a different person)
She then disappears from the records (challenge: prove this wrong)
She doesn't have a grave marker (challenge: prove me wrong, please)
She has no obituary in any newspaper (challenge: prove me wrong, please)
Whoever works on her family tree at Ancestry states that the circumstances surrounding her death are unknown -- which is a trademark of a missing person
Possible connection: maybe she ended up in the well with her last contact to her sister Isabelle coming in 1922; a lot seems to fit with the assumption and nothing to contradict and yet no smoking gun
Without a grave marker or a proven date of death that rules her out, this missing person remains a candidate as the Woman in the Well.
For further leads, use the name Agnes Goodall Pearson (born in or around 1870 as per her age of 52 in 1922). This woman is never married and was born in Scotland. When did she come to Canada? It seems sometime between 1901 and 1913. Her father is Alexander Pearson and her mother is an Isabella Pearson, an Isabella that's not to be confused with the classified ad poster of the same name.
If you can, try and find a picture of Agnes Goodall Pearson so that it can then it could be compared, as food for thought, to the sketch of the Jane Doe. But we definitely want to try and rule Agnes out as the Jane Doe. If we can't do that then we can hold on to the opinion that she could be the Jane Doe.
The main way to rule her out, I think, is to find her documented date of death (ie. an obituary) or gravemarker. With many angles to consider, you can see how there is a lot of work to be done in investigating this lead. Furthermore, I have leads on living relatives if DNA on the Jane Doe in the well is ever available.
By: Shane Lambert Original Time of Writing: December 11th, 2020
The Hartford Circus Fire was a fire disaster that occurred during the WWII years when, in July of 1944, a small fire broke out at a live circus show. The tent that housed the circus had a coating on it that was meant to waterproof it. One side effect of that was that the tent was hardly fire retardant. In fact, it was a very flammable material as were many of the fixtures used to house the show.
What resulted when a small fire broke out, which may have been due to arson or from a discarded cigarette, was a quickly spreading fire that led to immediate panic among thousands of attendees and performers. Most of these attendees escaped to safety but a combination of chaos, trampling, asphyxiation from smoke inhalation, and burning to death killed 167 people and injured hundreds and hundreds more. The headline below, which is taken from journalism from the day after the fire, states 139 were dead but this was just the preliminary number. The number increased to 167.
Not all of the victims who died in this tragedy were identified. In fact, there was a famous missing person case that resulted from this fire. A young girl, who was trampled to death in the panic, went unnamed for several decades. Once known as Little Miss 1565, she was believed to have been Eleanor Emily Cook.
At least five people remain unidentified at the time of writing. They are #UP59498, #UP59500, #UP59502, #UP59503, and #UP59504. If you are looking at a missing person's case with a lead that points to the Hartford, Connecticut area on or in the days leading up to July 6th, 1944, then keep these Jane and John Does in mind. If you are interested in a decent video that reviews the fire, then I watched a good one on Youtube and have it embedded below:
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