Officially referred to as Incident No. N3-27244 by detectives, the story of this particular Jane Doe could very well be the most grim in contemporary American crime history. This woman was nine-months-pregnant when she was violently raped, tortured and murdered. Detectives say that Beth Doe was shot in the neck by her assailant, before she was meticulously dismembered and stored in three separate suitcases. Evidence also indicated that she had been strangled over the course of her murder.
Those suitcases, detectives believe, were thrown over the side of a bridge, with hopes that they would land in the water and wash away all evidence of the horrifying crimes that were committed. However, none of the suitcases made it into the water. Two of them burst open upon hitting the ground, and another remained closed.Perhaps one of the most horrifying details of this crime, is the fact that the perpetrator removed the full-term fetus from Beth Doe's body. The female fetus was placed inside a suitcase containing the unidentified woman's head.
Who was Beth Doe?
There have been several attempts at identifying this slain woman. Unfortunately, none of those attempts have been successful. The woman's fingerprints and dental charts are on file with White Haven authorities, but those identifying factors have never found a match.
All that is known about her is that she was a European-American woman, under the age of 40, and she was heavily pregnant at the time of her murder. She (or her killer) may have had ties to New Jersey, but this was only speculated due to pieces of newspaper that were found with her remains. Medical examiners believe that she may have been right-handed, which was evident by a set of numbers that were written on her left hand (presuming she wrote the numbers herself).
Forensic science was incredibly limited in the 1970s, but over the years her body has been exhumed and more attempts have been made at identifying her. So far, approximately nine women have been ruled-out in regards to naming this Jane Doe. Some of those women went missing from the other side of the globe.