I-75 Serial Killer??

Tent Girl

January 17, 2002

by John Wesley Brett

Two years ago, the skeleton of a woman was found in Lexington. She still has not been identified. Some are now wondering if she might be linked to more than a dozen other women who've turned up dead in the last decade.

This story begin in the rural Tennessee woods just over the Kentucky border...where it's rare you find a body. Rarer still that police have found two in two years within two miles of each other. You figure the odds that both were women, both nude, both stabbed and both unidentified.

The latest is a native American with tattoos: "Mom 77" on the right shoulder, a peacock on the left, "Delilah" on her leg and "Ricky" on her hand. Last week experts put a face to the skull of the first woman found near Jellico in Campbell County, Tennessee...and African American lady who bear an uncanny resemblance to another unidentified woman found during the same time line.....but more than a hundred miles north in Lexington.

"We have all of her clothing, we have all of her teeth, we have her hair." said Dr. Emily Craig, Kentucky Forensic Anthropologist.

But there are few other clues to who she is or why she was found two years ago dumped two years ago in a wooded area just off I-75. Or is there?

"We think we have a serial killer type thing going on." said Todd Matthews of the DoeNetwork, a volunteer organization that catalogues hundreds of "John and Jane Does" across America and beyond. Four years ago, Matthews helped put the name, Barbara Ann Taylor, to another unidentified woman found in Scott County Kentucky, back in the 60's called, until then, the "Tent Girl."

He now believes that the body found in Lexington and those found in Tennessee, and along other areas of I-75, maybe be related.

"The fact that the body was found near I-75 as well is a possible tie-in. At least it is something to be considered," Matthews said.

The basis for his theory is found on the DoeNetwork's database which shows a startling new picture. In the the last couple of decades not three but 12 bodies of women still unidentified found along the I-75 cooridor.

Matthews believes the police could be helped by taking a more regional approach to their investigation; as the bodies found in Tennessee might well have been from Kentucky or other states.

"They were found just inside the Tennessee border and it's associated more with Tennessee and the south that possibly the northern are where she could have been from, " adds Matthews.

The Sheriff investigating the Tennessee women believes Matthews' theory deserves more attention. After all, he says, taken separately all of these cases have gone nowhere for years.


email me at
J.ToddMatthews@gmail.com

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You can read the rest of the Tent Girl story in the links below

Related Links...

1969 issue Master Detective featuring Tent Girl
2001 issue Master Detective featuring the identification of Tent Girl
Court TV article - Campbell County Tennessee Unidentifieds
Court TV - Tent Girl comes home
MYSTERIES article about Tent Girl case
Kentucky Double Homocide
Names for the Nameless
NamUs.gov
ColdCases Group
The Outpost For Hope
The Lost & The Found
Kentucky Post Online-Tent Girl links
1976-77 Oakland County Child Slayings
Cybersleuths match evidence to ID Kentucky woman missing since 1992
Wired News article - Web Helps ID John and Jane Does
They Find The Lost...When Everyone Else has Given Up
48 Hours video - Never say Never
The Mysterious Death of Vickie Bertram, Livingston
DoeNetwork
Old Mystery Is Cleared Up - Or Is It? 160 Year Old Missing Person Case

Todd Matthews