Lady of the Dunes

Discovery

A teenaged girl found the woman's body July 26, 1974. The remains were just yards away from a road, and had a significant amount of insect activity. Two sets of footprints led to the body, and tire tracks were found 50 yards from the scene. The woman may have died two weeks before her body was found.

The victim was face-down on half of a beach blanket. There was no sign of a struggle; police theorized she either knew her killer or had been asleep when she died. A blue bandanna and pair of Wrangler jeans were under her head. She had long auburn or red hair, pulled back into a ponytail with a gold-flecked elastic band, and painted pink toenails.

Police determined the woman was approximately 5'6" tall (initially believed to have been 5'8"), weighed 145 pounds, and had an athletic build. She also had dental work — including crowns — worth $5,000-$10,000; dentists call it the "New York style" of dental work. Several of her teeth had been removed. One hand and one forearm were missing. Most sources say she was between 25 and 40 years old. However, she could have been as young as 20 or as old as 49.

The woman was nearly decapitated, possibly from strangulation; one side of her head had been crushed with (possibly) a military-entrenching type of tool. This skull injury was officially what killed her. There were also signs of sexual assault, likely postmortem.

Some investigators feel the missing teeth, hand and forearm indicate the killer wanted to hide either the victim's or their identity.

The woman was buried in October 1974 after the case went cold. Currently, one of the case investigators is raising funds for a new casket because the original one has deteriorated.

Investigation

Police pored through thousands of missing-person cases and a list of approved vehicles driven through the area; no matches were found. At the scene, the sand and beach blanket were not disturbed. No other evidence was found (besides the jeans, bandanna, blanket and ponytail holder) despite extensive searches of the surrounding dunes.

The first facial reconstruction of the woman was created with clay in 1979. Her remains were exhumed in 1980 for examination; no new clues were uncovered (although the skull was not buried at the time). The body was exhumed again in March 2000 for DNA. In May 2010, her skull was placed through a CT scanner that generated images that were then used by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for another reconstruction.

Leads

In 1987, a Canadian woman told a friend that she saw her father strangle a woman in Massachusetts around 1972. Police attempted to locate the woman but were unsuccessful. Another woman told police the reconstruction of the victim looked like her sister, who disappeared in Boston in 1974.

Investigators also followed a lead involving Rory Gene Kesinger, who would have been 25 years old at the time of the murder (she broke out of jail in 1973). Authorities saw a resemblance between Kesinger and the victim. However, DNA from Kesinger's mother did not match the victim.

Another missing woman, Francis Ewalt of Montana, has also been ruled out.

"Jaws" Film Extra Possibility

In August 2015, speculation arose that Lady of the Dunes may have been an extra in the 1975 film Jaws (filmed in Massachusetts in 1974). Joe Hill, the son of horror author Stephen King, brought this to police attention. Hill had learned of the case after reading The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths are Solving America's Coldest Cases just weeks before. Hill told an FBI investigator that during the film's “July 4th Crowd Arrives” sequence, he saw a woman resembling reconstructions of the victim. She is wearing a blue bandanna and jeans.

Jaws was shot between May and October of 1974. Principal photography was mainly in Menemsha on Martha's Vineyard , about 100 miles south of Provincetown .

Although a lead investigator has noted interest in this, others have described it as "far-fetched" and "wild speculation."

Suspects

In 1981, investigators learned a woman who resembled the victim was seen with mobster Whitey Bulger around the time the woman presumably died. Bulger was known for removing his victims' teeth. A link to Bulger has not been proven.

Tony Costa, a serial killer in the area, was an initial suspect, but later eliminated. Costa died on May 12, 1974. The victim was found in July 1974.

Hadden Clark confession

Serial killer Hadden Clark confessed to the murder, stating "I could have told the police what her name was, but after they beat the shit out of me, I wasn't going to tell them shit. ... This murder is still unsolved and what the police are looking for is in my grandfather's garden." Authorities say Clark suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, a condition which may lead someone to confess falsely to crimes.

In 2004, Clark sent a letter to a friend stating that he had killed a woman on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He also sent two drawings: one of a handless, naked woman sprawled on her stomach, and another of a map pointing to where the body was found.

In April 2000, Clark led police to a spot where he claimed he had buried two victims 20 years before. He also stated that he had murdered several others in various states between 1970's and the 1990's.