The Severed Head: Embalmed Woman's Head Found in PA

[drew790]

In 2014 a woman's severed and embalmed head was found in the bushes near a roadway in PA by a teenager. Someone had removed her eyes and replaced them with red rubber toy balls.



I didn't have much of a takeaway from this one other than seems likely that the guy across the street had something to do with it. Between failing the polygraph, his weird hate for the teen that would end up finding the head, and his eventual suicide, seems open and shut on that end.

[TheCars1986]

I am probably in the minority in thinking that the Jay guy didn't have anything to do with the head being placed there, was mentally ill (clearly), and IIRC the show mentions he was diagnosed with something shortly before he committed suicide. For one, he was a railway worker, not some experienced mortician or embalmer. How would he know how to precisely remove a head from a body with "surgical" precision? And how would he know exactly where to find the dead bodies ditched in a dumpster?

[Jediknight1823]

A standard "Who is this person? Was she murdered" episode. And then the reveal of Ginger and it became a "What in the actual **** is this" episode.

[Labonte18]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

I am probably in the minority in thinking that the Jay guy didn't have anything to do with the head being placed there, was mentally ill (clearly), and IIRC the show mentions he was diagnosed with something shortly before he committed suicide. For one, he was a railway worker, not some experienced mortician or embalmer. How would he know how to precisely remove a head from a body with "surgical" precision? And how would he know exactly where to find the dead bodies ditched in a dumpster?

Jay is the best suspect. I don't think he removed the head. I think he went to one of these hotel expos and.. Found the head in the trash or grabbed the head or similar.

So.. He's the leading suspect in my mind, but.. The investigators on this case.. Some of the best I've heard on any.. The biggest question here is.. Who was this woman?

Now.. I'm quite confused about the inability to get a DNA sample. While I can totally buy that embalming would destroy DNA from flesh.. She had a full head of hair.. I can't see the embalming chemicals getting into hair after death. If not that.. Teeth. If not that.. The skull itself. I just have a real problem believing that there was no way to get DNA.


Anyway.. My best guess.. You may have multiple guilty parties here. First, whoever removed the head. I suspect that might not have been done via legal means.. It's possible that she donated her body to science and that is legit.. But, if that was the case, would they embalm? I'd say we'd need a mortician to answer that. Then you have whoever left the head there, which.. I would suspect was Jay. I see him as having motive, opportunity and knowledge. Plus, circumstantial evidence that he was watching the spot where it was found and that EXACT spot was visible from his house. But he didn't remove the head. His part was opportunistic. Still guilty of desecrating a body most likely, but, he didn't remove the head, he just planted it.

The teen.. he's the one that's totally innocent.

All that.. Still.. To break this.. You must know who she was. Nothing else really matters at this point. You need to figure out who she was. I suspect at that point, everything else falls into place. I just find it so difficult to believe that there was ZERO recoverable DNA. I think that head goes to the right lab, you have a profile.. Then with GEDMatch, you can narrow it down.

[TMC]

https://screenrant.com/unsolved-myst...story-updates/

Unsolved Mysteries season 4 takes on a particularly gruesome case involving a severed head found in the woods in a rural Pennsylvania community.

[drew790]

I wondered too about the hair but assumed they would have tried to get it from that if they could have.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by Labonte18

Jay is the best suspect. I don't think he removed the head. I think he went to one of these hotel expos and.. Found the head in the trash or grabbed the head or similar.

So the body parts selling ring decides to throw away a potentially valuable head in the dumpster...because why exactly?

Originally Posted by Labonte18

So.. He's the leading suspect in my mind, but.. The investigators on this case.. Some of the best I've heard on any.. The biggest question here is.. Who was this woman?

Leading suspect for what? He was not a suspect at the time of his death. That reporter who was interviewed wrote an article about the woman in 2017 and makes no mention of Jay.

Originally Posted by Labonte18

All that.. Still.. To break this.. You must know who she was. Nothing else really matters at this point. You need to figure out who she was. I suspect at that point, everything else falls into place. I just find it so difficult to believe that there was ZERO recoverable DNA. I think that head goes to the right lab, you have a profile.. Then with GEDMatch, you can narrow it down.

Finding out who she was is priority #1, but they still need to find the person who put her head there and why. A busybody neighbor who inserted himself into the case when he saw a huge police presence across the street from his house should not be a serious suspect unless a connection can be made between the dead woman and him.

[blacksymbiote]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

I am probably in the minority in thinking that the Jay guy didn't have anything to do with the head being placed there, was mentally ill (clearly), and IIRC the show mentions he was diagnosed with something shortly before he committed suicide. For one, he was a railway worker, not some experienced mortician or embalmer. How would he know how to precisely remove a head from a body with "surgical" precision? And how would he know exactly where to find the dead bodies ditched in a dumpster?

I don't think he removed it himself, he just knew how to acquire it. He has a convenient freezer to store it and the area it's found in near his house looked very much out of the way. His anger at the teenager is strange as is his overall demeanor. I think he specifically meant for the kid to find the head and then he even tries to claim this kid murdered the woman.

[Labonte18]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

So the body parts selling ring decides to throw away a potentially valuable head in the dumpster...because why exactly?



Leading suspect for what? He was not a suspect at the time of his death. That reporter who was interviewed wrote an article about the woman in 2017 and makes no mention of Jay.



Finding out who she was is priority #1, but they still need to find the person who put her head there and why. A busybody neighbor who inserted himself into the case when he saw a huge police presence across the street from his house should not be a serious suspect unless a connection can be made between the dead woman and him.

Well, Jay was the one who said they'd just throw these things in the dumpster. He knew about those conventions, knew about the body parts there. Perhaps he didn't pull it out of the dumpster, just took it off a table at one of them. They likely had an idea that the parts they were getting might not have been fully on the up and up.. So.. They don't report it. and.. How many uses would you get our of one of those body parts at one of those conventions? I'd think you'd be replacing them each time.

It's not really the part that he inserted himself.. It's the inserting himself and trying to push suspicion off towards someone else. If he hadn't come out there and pointed the finger at the kid who found it.. He wouldn't be suspected at all. Not sure where you think he wasn't a suspect seeing as most of the people interviewed defined him as such.

As for what he'd be suspected of.. Placing the head there to be discovered. He would have known that the kid walked that path.. Would have known exactly where to place it where the kid would find it. And.. It just so happened to be placed in the one spot along the route that could be seen from the window of his house.. Which just so happened to have a telescope pointed towards it.

People who come out and try to point suspicion at someone.. That's kinda suspicious in and of itself. There's no evidence to tie him to it. But.. Suspicions, unlike charges, don't require evidence.

You find out who she was.. That's going to make finding out what happened to her easier. Because, you find out who she was, that tells you who the funeral home that handled her funeral was.. you find out who her family was and whether they agreed (or she agreed) to donate parts of herself to research.

That's one thing that they didn't touch on in the episode which is probably important. You donate your body to science / medical research.. Most people have this image in their head that their body will be treated with care and respect and think students might learn by watching them be dissected or use them to learn to sew sutures or something.. Well.. We've seen news stories.. Sometimes, you get a bomb put on your lap and get blown up.. Sometimes you're dumped in a field so people can study insect reproduction on your corpse.. Or, you might wind up decapitated with your head on display for a bunch of medical students.

While this could be solved by figuring out who put the head there.. Finding out who the person was has a much higher probability of answering all the questions.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by Labonte18

Well, Jay was the one who said they'd just throw these things in the dumpster. He knew about those conventions, knew about the body parts there. Perhaps he didn't pull it out of the dumpster, just took it off a table at one of them. They likely had an idea that the parts they were getting might not have been fully on the up and up.. So.. They don't report it. and.. How many uses would you get our of one of those body parts at one of those conventions? I'd think you'd be replacing them each time.

Jay made up the part about the body parts being thrown in the dumpster. You would think that the author of said body parts ring article would have mentioned this in his article that he wrote back in 2017. Jay knew about the conventions because it was newsworthy back in 2015 when the FBI raided a for profit human tissue donation firm on these exact allegations.

Again...nothing makes any sense to have some weirdo who worked his career as a railway worker magically going dumpster diving and finding a "perfectly" and professionally embalmed head.

Originally Posted by Labonte18

It's not really the part that he inserted himself.. It's the inserting himself and trying to push suspicion off towards someone else. If he hadn't come out there and pointed the finger at the kid who found it.. He wouldn't be suspected at all. Not sure where you think he wasn't a suspect seeing as most of the people interviewed defined him as such.

He's a weirdo who really thought the kid stabbed his horse. He obviously had an agenda against the kid and wanted to blame him repeatedly because of it. Him going dumpster diving and finding a head and then thinking, "I'll frame that 15 year old with this!" is less believable than satanic panic.

Originally Posted by Labonte18

As for what he'd be suspected of.. Placing the head there to be discovered. He would have known that the kid walked that path.. Would have known exactly where to place it where the kid would find it. And.. It just so happened to be placed in the one spot along the route that could be seen from the window of his house.. Which just so happened to have a telescope pointed towards it.

So he has the idea to frame this 15 year old by placing a head he found in a dumpster with the hopes that the cops will think the 15 year old boy randomly decapitated someone? Within a day the 15 year old was ruled out. What's more likely here? That once he found out the kid he thinks stabbed his horse found the head he decided to go insert himself into it and say that the kid probably put the head there, or that he found the head in a dumpster and came up with the idea after that?

Originally Posted by Labonte18

People who come out and try to point suspicion at someone.. That's kinda suspicious in and of itself. There's no evidence to tie him to it. But.. Suspicions, unlike charges, don't require evidence.

Yes, and it happens all the time with "well meaning" busy bodies in virtually every case. Doesn't mean that the person giving information over a "suspicion" is involved in the case.

Originally Posted by Labonte18

You find out who she was.. That's going to make finding out what happened to her easier. Because, you find out who she was, that tells you who the funeral home that handled her funeral was.. you find out who her family was and whether they agreed (or she agreed) to donate parts of herself to research.

And once the identity of the person is known, then you can either show a connection to Jay or not. Because he did not find that head in a dumpster.

[Labonte18]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

Jay made up the part about the body parts being thrown in the dumpster. You would think that the author of said body parts ring article would have mentioned this in his article that he wrote back in 2017. Jay knew about the conventions because it was newsworthy back in 2015 when the FBI raided a for profit human tissue donation firm on these exact allegations.

Again...nothing makes any sense to have some weirdo who worked his career as a railway worker magically going dumpster diving and finding a "perfectly" and professionally embalmed head.



He's a weirdo who really thought the kid stabbed his horse. He obviously had an agenda against the kid and wanted to blame him repeatedly because of it. Him going dumpster diving and finding a head and then thinking, "I'll frame that 15 year old with this!" is less believable than satanic panic.



So he has the idea to frame this 15 year old by placing a head he found in a dumpster with the hopes that the cops will think the 15 year old boy randomly decapitated someone? Within a day the 15 year old was ruled out. What's more likely here? That once he found out the kid he thinks stabbed his horse found the head he decided to go insert himself into it and say that the kid probably put the head there, or that he found the head in a dumpster and came up with the idea after that?



Yes, and it happens all the time with "well meaning" busy bodies in virtually every case. Doesn't mean that the person giving information over a "suspicion" is involved in the case.



And once the identity of the person is known, then you can either show a connection to Jay or not. Because he did not find that head in a dumpster.

So.. Your theory.. Is that some random person.. Chucked the head out of a car while driving down the road. Just so happened to be in front of this guys house, where the kid he was mad at walked every day.. Right where he could keep an eye on it.

And you leave no possibility open that he was involved.

[TheCars1986]

Originally Posted by Labonte18

So.. Your theory.. Is that some random person.. Chucked the head out of a car while driving down the road. Just so happened to be in front of this guys house, where the kid he was mad at walked every day.. Right where he could keep an eye on it.

And you leave no possibility open that he was involved.

I've left the possibility of his involvement if the dead woman can somehow be tied back to him.

Someone with "anatomical knowledge" removed the head and placed it there for reasons unknown. It's highly unlikely that that person was Jay. The police also said that the head could have been sitting out there "for weeks". This wasn't as if a head magically appeared on that exact day the teenager found it. Who knows how long it was sitting out there?

[Labonte18]

Originally Posted by TheCars1986

I've left the possibility of his involvement if the dead woman can somehow be tied back to him.

Someone with "anatomical knowledge" removed the head and placed it there for reasons unknown. It's highly unlikely that that person was Jay. The police also said that the head could have been sitting out there "for weeks". This wasn't as if a head magically appeared on that exact day the teenager found it. Who knows how long it was sitting out there?

There is zero evidence that the person who removed the head is the one who placed the head.

I would argue as well that the head being there for three weeks.. I struggle to see that being a possibility. I don't care how well someone is embalmed.. The only reason I can halfway buy that idea.. It was December and in PA. Temps probably would have been close to freezing which would help preserve it. I still don't think it would have been in that good of a condition if it had been there for three weeks.

I did find this Reuters article on the case, which has some information that wasn't put out there in the UM episode.. Here's a quote that's troublesome from it..

Two years ago in Texas, police found an entire cadaver lying by the side of the road. It had fallen from a van on the way to a body broker in Colorado. The driver, Reuters reported at the time, hadn’t noticed that the body was missing.

Something else, the episode said that the dental work dated to the 80's or 90's as I recall.. however.. this article says

Using one of three teeth they pulled, the dentists also found what they believe to be a filling compound that wasn’t available to dentists before 2004, meaning the woman likely died sometime thereafter. Based on their examination, dentists Raymond Miller and Peter Bush were able to posit a possible profile of Jane Doe: a lower-income woman who had many cavities and may have grown up where the water wasn’t fluoridated.

This is also interesting..

They examined isotopes from oxygen molecules that remained in the woman’s teeth and hair to determine where Jane Doe may have spent her last few months. The answer, not surprisingly, included the region near where her head was found and stretches into surrounding states, including West Virginia.
But the analysis of the isotopes also indicated that she did not live in Beaver County in the months before her death. Toxicology tests also suggest the woman may have suffered from chronic pain and that paramedics tried to resuscitate her around the time of her death. Authorities believe she was older than 50 when she died.

Seems they found indications of pain meds.. And indications of resuscitation efforts.. Though.. I'm not exactly sure how they'd see that from a head and not be able to get DNA.

There's also info in the article where the reporters actually went out and purchased two heads. Which were received in very similar condition.. Specifically with regards to the cervical spine.

The biggest question I have here.. Was this.. Legit? Was she an organ donor, did she donate her body.. Or.. Was this some kind of black market thing? It seems logical to assume that she was probably the last member of her family, or didn't have contact with any other family.. Perhaps she wound up being an unclaimed body.. Which certainly could make it easier to 'disappear' her or take parts with no one knowing.

To me.. Honestly. That's the only 'real' possibility of a crime here. Anything else.. Whoever placed the head out there.. at worst.. That's a fairly minor crime comparatively.

The Reuters article also talks about the dentistry done.. That.. Seems like it would be a good lead. I'd probably have sent out information about the dental work to every dentist in PA and surrounding states to see if anyone recognized the work.

[Zero]

I don’t remember ANYWHERE in the episode cops saying the head was there for weeks. In fact they mentioned the opposite. There were no leaves on the head, but there were leaves everywhere else, so it hadn’t been there very long.

Weeks?

[Labonte18]

Originally Posted by Zero

I don’t remember ANYWHERE in the episode cops saying the head was there for weeks. In fact they mentioned the opposite. There were no leaves on the head, but there were leaves everywhere else, so it hadn’t been there very long.

Weeks?

I don't recall it, either. I was replying back to TheCars on that part, and.. Probably misread where they said 'there for weeks' as three weeks, which is why I said that specifically.

but.. yes, I take issue with any thought that the head was out there for.. Even a week. Not saying it's impossible.. But.. This is another reason I suspect the Jay person.. I think he plopped it out there just before the kid in question would come along.

The Reuters article, specifically the part regarding dentistry.. Makes a whole lot of sense. The teeth being maintained in a 'patchwork' method, indicating someone who had work done when it was absolutely necessary and that work being just enough to fix the problem and perhaps not a 'proper' fix that would be more expensive.

Of course.. It seems the woman being the age she was, still having her natural teeth is.. Rather impressive. and, if she was at the higher end of the age estimates.. She probably didn't have much income.

I kinda wonder.. Was the brain still in the head? Not that it'd be a case solving clue.. But.. Does it strike anyone else that maybe this woman was an alzheimers patient in a nursing home? Just a guess as to someone who.. Wouldn't overly be missed, perhaps.