The Trail Went Cold - Episode 313 - The St. Louis Jane Doe

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 January 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

February 28, 1983. St. Louis, Missouri. The body of an African-American girl is found in the basement of an abandoned apartment building. She is believed to be between eight-to-eleven years old and has her hands tied behind her back and it turns out she was sexually assaulted and strangled to death before she was beheaded. Since the victim’s head is never recovered and she cannot be identified, she becomes known as the “St. Louis Jane Doe”. Over the years, investigators explore a number of different leads, but they are unable to determine the girl’s identity or figure out who was responsible for killing her. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore one of the most horrific and tragic stories you’ll ever find about the murder of an unidentified decedent, who has also been known by such as names as “Little Jane Doe” and “Precious Hope”. If you have information about this case, please contact the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department at (314) 231-1212. Additional Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Louis_Jane_Doe http://www.doenetwork.org/cases/54ufmo.html https://unidentified-awareness.fandom.com/wiki/St._Louis_Jane_Doe_(1983) “Our Precious Hope: St. Louis’ Little Jane Doe Revisited” Documentary https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/the-case-that-haunts/Content?oid=2460475 http://fox4kc.com/2013/06/17/authorities-try-to-locate-body-of-girl-killed-beheaded-30-years-ago/ http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/new-hope-in-cold-case-of-decapitated-girl-found-in/article_ef7aca67-2f9f-5c76-9516-4285802f338f.html http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/research-unlocks-some-secrets-about-decapitated-girl-for-st-louis/article_36de5a5c-b615-5292-b5aa-abb99a888a6c.html https://fox2now.com/news/true-crime/little-jane-doe-grizzly-1983-st-louis-child-death-remains-unsolved/ https://www.foxnews.com/us/who-was-she-new-technology-brings-hope-to-identifying-headless-girl-killed-30-years-ago https://www.riverfronttimes.com/movies-tv/new-documentary-digs-into-st-louis-cold-case-of-headless-child-38416649 https://www.stlamerican.com/arts_and_entertainment/living_it/unsolved-mysteries/article_297141c6-43c2-11ec-b8af-db4f4c92958b.html https://www.newspapers.com/image/151783522/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Brown_(murderer) https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/10456sw/st_louis_jane_doe_documentary_gives_a_lot_more/ “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. “The Trail Went Cold” is doing a weekly livestream show on Vokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website. “The Trail Went Cold” is going to be appearing on podcast row at “Crimecon UK” at the Tower Bridge, Leonardo Royal Hotel & Spa in London on June 10-11, 2023, as well as “Crimecon” at the World Center Marriott in Orlando, Florida on September 22-24, 2023. To get a 10 % discount on the purchase of tickets to either event, please use our specialized promo code, “COLD23”, by visiting https://www.crimecon.co.uk or https://www.crimecon.com. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

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0:00.0	February 28th, 1983, St. Louis, Missouri.
0:06.1	The body of an African American girl is found in the basement of an abandoned apartment building.
0:11.6	She is believed to be between 8 to 11 years old and has her hands tied behind her back, and it turns out she was sexually assaulted and strangled to death before she was beheaded.
0:21.0	Since the victim's head has never recovered and she cannot be identified,
0:25.6	she becomes known as the St. Louis Jane Doe. Over the years,
0:30.1	investigators explore a number of different leads, but they are unable to figure out the girl's identity or who was responsible for killing her.
0:38.0	After that, the trail went cold. I'm not. Oh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
1:05.0	uh, okay.
1:07.0	Oh, uh,
1:08.0	uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of the Trail went cold.
1:21.0	I'm your host Robin Warner and today we're going to be covering the
1:25.2	unsolved 1983 murder of a young girl who has never been identified. The
1:30.0	St. Louis Jane Doe. Ever since the inception of this podcast, this has probably been one of my
1:35.9	most highly requested cold cases involving an unidentified decedent, which I have yet to cover.
1:41.9	Out of the thousands of cases out there involving John or Jane Doe's,
1:46.0	this might be one of the most horrifying because of the circumstances of how the victim was murdered.
1:51.5	The victim was an African American girl estimated to be between 8 and 11 years old who was
1:57.0	discovered inside the dark basement of a vacant apartment building.
2:01.2	Not only was the victim sexually assaulted and strangled to death, but the killer went to the trouble of decapitating and disposing of her head. As a result, there has never been a facial reconstruction or a composite sketch created for this girl in order to showcase what she might have looked like.
2:17.0	Even though the story has gotten extensive publicity over the years, no one has ever come forward to claim or identify the St. Louis-Jane Doe, which has led to speculation that her killer may have been a parent or a caregiver.
2:29.0	So I decided that now would be a good time to cover the case, not only because we're nearing the 40th anniversary of the crime, but because of the recent release of a documentary titled Our Precious Hope Revisited St Louis's Little Jane Doe.
2:44.0	Directed by Ed R. Bird Sosa, the film is currently available for streaming, and not only
	...

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