Jane Doe Is Gently Laid to Rest

A butterfly clip clutched her brown hair. She wore a knockoff Tommy Hilfiger jersey, patterned pajama pants, and one white snowflake-dotted sock.

When her body -- stuffed in a green canvas bag -- was discovered May 1 behind a Carrows Restaurant in the Bay Area suburb of Castro Valley, even seasoned homicide detectives were pained. As the months wore on, something else happened.

Jane Doe, believed to be 12 to 17 years old, captured the heart of a community.

She was laid to rest this week at an elaborate funeral videotaped by Alameda County sheriff’s deputies -- who hope to one day turn the commemoration over to the family they have not yet found. Strangers streamed forward with contributions, raising $10,000 to shepherd the little girl from this world with dignity.

Deputies on motorcycles, in patrol cars and unmarked units escorted the small white casket adorned with pink roses. Fire engines lined Castro Valley Boulevard. The county lowered its flags to half-staff. More than 70 people attended the burial.

“That little girl, she touched my heart,” said Dave Woolworth, a 55-year-old gardener from neighboring San Lorenzo who launched the grassroots effort.

Investigators have for months tried to find the identity of the 5-foot, 1-inch girl, who was asphyxiated with a rag five to 10 days before her body was found, free of drugs, and with perfect teeth. Until they find out who she is, they are stymied in their search for a killer.

“It’s beyond frustrating,” said Sgt. Scott Dudek, a father of teenage girls who helped draft the headstone inscription: “Unknown Child of God. Female 12-17 Years of Age Found Murdered in Castro Valley on May 1, 2003.”

A Carrows employee on a smoke break noticed a stench that night. In the bushes, he found the canvas bag -- the kind that might have been used for laundry or to hold a tent and poles. The girl was double-wrapped in garbage bags. She was badly decomposed.

A team of scientists pieced together dental records and pored over the bugs found on the body to determined her approximate age and time of death, said Sheriff’s Lt. Greg Ahern. She appears to be of mixed race, and was wearing gold hoop earrings.

At Ahern’s request, a seamstress re-created the girl’s outfit as well as the green canvas bag. Investigators dressed a mannequin to look like her, and launched an aggressive media campaign in search of leads. The Mexican Consulate has been contacted (the label of the girl’s shirt was partially in Spanish). The FBI is assisting. About 1,000 leads have poured in, 300 of those regarding missing people. Of those, investigators have ruled out about 265, “and we’re searching the others as we speak,” Ahern said.

Usually, anonymous victims are identified within 48 hours. Children rarely remain unidentified that long. The last Alameda County Jane Doe case was in 1991, the most recent John Doe in 1997. But they weren’t children.

“We knew it was going to be difficult,” Dudek said. “We didn’t know it was going to be this difficult.”

With no identity, all detectives have to go on is the green bag dumped at Carrows. She was probably not murdered at the scene. She and her assailant could have come from anywhere.

“Somebody has to have a reason why they put her back there,” Dudek said. “Some event made them think it was time to get rid of that green bag with the body of a child in it.”

Dudek contacted the Carole Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, which agreed to post a $5,000 reward for anyone who tells investigators the girl’s name. The nonprofit group founded on behalf of the three slain Yosemite tourists has posted more than 190 rewards in 34 states -- totaling $1.7 million -- but this marks the first one offered for an identity alone, said Executive Director Kim Petersen.

As investigators spread the word, they set off a chain reaction of small blessings.

“I called the coroner,” said Woolworth, who had been following media accounts of the case. “When he told me they would cremate her and put her in a memorial crypt with 200 people, I thought ‘Uh-uh.’ This child had already been through hell.”

Checks flowed in. One came from a 90-year-old San Francisco woman who told Woolworth, “Sonny, if you need any more money you just call me.” Another woman sent an angel, to be placed in the casket. Yet another offered to buy burial clothes, but the girl’s body was too decomposed to be embalmed. The notes poured in: “Please take care of the little girl for us.”

On Wednesday, the crowds filed in to Lone Tree Cemetery in Hayward to pay their respects. Among them were the parents of other murdered children -- part of a group headed by Alameda County Supervisor Gail Steele.

Alameda County has lost 200 children under the age of 18 to violence since 1994, said Steele, who placed flowers on the casket. Many of those were not anonymous, but received only a brief media mention and were quickly forgotten.

“Nobody has claimed her,” said Steele, whose group donated a flowering cherry tree to be planted near the grave. “That is what’s so awful here. But they’re all awful.”

For Woolworth, who was badly abused by his father and is estranged from his children, the experience was moving -- and cathartic. He plans to seek counseling and believes it may help him resolve his own childhood pain.

“It was the most beautiful funeral I’ve ever seen for somebody that nobody knew,” he said. “I cried for her. I feel for her. If this was ever to happen again, I know what to do now and I would not hesitate to do it.”

Investigators have retained DNA samples from the girl and remain committed to the case.

“Originally we didn’t really want to do this because some people were going to interpret that we were giving up,” Dudek said. But “what we gave her [Wednesday] was about as respectful as anybody could imagine. It’s better than sitting in some coroner’s office.”

As for the $10,000 raised for the burial, it turned out not to be needed: Castro Valley’s Deer Creek Mortuary paid for half the casket. The cemetery donated the plot. Instead, $9,568 of it will be donated to a San Leandro nonprofit group that works with abused children.

And while one family somewhere awaits devastation, others are mending.

As runaway youths got word that investigators had contacted their parents, they called home to allay fears. Altogether, 17 teenagers have been reunited with their families during the search for Jane Doe’s identity, Dudek said.

“There’s been a lot of good, a lot of good really,” said the Rev. Terry O’Malley of Hayward’s All Saints Church, who led the burial service in his heavy Irish brogue. “We always say God draws good out of evil. We kind of wish he hadn’t let it happen in the first place. But that’s another big mystery in life.”