If you've followed this blog's corresponding YouTube page for awhile, you probably know that I started out doing list videos. I stopped doing them almost a year ago because I came across so many cases that I couldn’t delve into as much as I wanted without the videos being hours long. But for every case with tons of information on it, there are dozens about which we know very little. I thought I’d talk a little about some of these cases today, in the hopes that someone out there will know something about them. So let’s talk about a few lesser known John and Jane Doe cases.
Lakewood Jane Doe
This Jane Doe doesn’t have an official nickname and, other than her NAMUS profile, I couldn’t find much about her. She’s also the most recent, dying only a couple of months ago as of this recording.
In Lakewood, California on the morning of November 15, 2019, a woman was struck by a car while crossing the street. (WARNING: Link contains graphic imagery.) But so far, nobody has been able to figure out who she is. She’s believed to be a transient with the first name ‘Mindy’ — or at least that’s the name she goes by. I’m not sure how this is known.
This Lakewood Jane Doe was female, either white or hispanic and between the ages of 40 and 65. She had long, thick brown hair and blue eyes. She was about 5 ‘ 1 “ and between 110 and 120 pounds.
At the time of her death, she was wearing a multicolored paisley jacket size medium, gray tank top size extra small, a pink tank top which I assume was the same size, dark blue and gray corduroy pants size 9 slim, and pink slippers size 7-8. She had three tattoos: Hibiscus flowers and a hummingbird on her upper back, a butterfly on her lower back and barbed wire with a flower on her right ankle.
If you have any information about this woman’s identity, you can contact the Los Angeles County coroner at (323) 343-0512.
Boone County Jane Doe
This Jane Doe also has no official nickname. I’m only calling her this because she was found in Boone County in Kentucky.
There wasn’t much information I could find on her either — just a NAMUS profile and a web sleuths page. Her body washed up on the Ohio River in Boone County, Kentucky on March 21, 1982. The body was thought to be of a white female, between 25 and 50 years old, approximately 5 ‘ 5 “ and 135 pounds. The body had decomposed to the point that it was unrecognizable. It was also found under some debris, which might have caused it to stay hidden and not be found for awhile.
No hair was found on her head, and the only hair description listed was “dark public hair and one gray.” I assume this means she had one gray pubic hair, which is a very odd thing to note. Her eyes are thought to be brown, and she had one piercing in each earlobe. She also had a 2 1/2 inch scar on her left big toe, a linear scar on top of her foot — it wasn’t noted which foot — and stretch marks on her abdomen. She also had “large breasts,” another very interesting thing to note. Maybe they were unusually large in proportion to her height and weight.
The websleuths thread has some pretty interesting theories on the case. One person speculates that the Jane Doe was a victim of a flood, and recalls flooding in the area around that time. Maybe this woman was a flood victim from the region and her body was carried to this part of the river by one of the other bodies of water that flow into it.
If you have any information on this woman’s identity, you can contact the Boone County Sheriff's Department at (859) 334-2175.
Precious Joe
This case is the one that inspired me to make this video. I heard about this case several months ago when I was researching for my video on Erica Green. If you haven’t seen that video, Erica Green was three years old when she was killed by her stepfather in 2001. Her body was found a few days later, but wasn’t identified until 2005. In the meantime, she was given the nickname ‘Precious Doe.’ Because of their similar nicknames as well as both cases taking place in Kansas City, Missouri, you can see why the two might be mentioned together.
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Precious Joe’ was found by electric workers at the Kansas City Power and Light Company on April 26, 2004. He was a white male newborn who was found on the side of a road, either in or under a plastic Wal-Mart bag, depending on the source.
The body had been partially eaten by animals, and a hoop earring was found nearby. Part of the umbilical cord and placenta were also found at the scene, which seemed to indicate the baby wasn’t born in a hospital.
At first, investigators thought the hoop earring would be a lead, but it turned out to be a dead end. They interviewed women they thought might be connected, but that also led nowhere. In the meantime, the infant John Doe was given the nickname ‘Precious Joe,’ partly inspired by Precious Doe.
It’s not clear just what happened to ‘Precious Joe.’ Investigators aren’t sure if he was already dead when he was put on the side of the road, or if he was abandoned there and later died of exposure. According to the Doe Network, he’s thought to have been dead about three days before being found.
In 2005, the year after Precious Joe was found, Precious Doe was identified as Erica Green. In October 2008, her stepfather, Harrell Johnson, was found guilty of first degree murder and, the following month, was sentenced to life in prison without parole. After this murder was solved, hope seemed to be renewed for answers in the Precious Joe case as well. In 2007, Kansas City Police Department’s Cold Case Squad took over the case.
The case got a bit more coverage in 2014, possibly due to the 10 year anniversary. But by this point, the cold case squad seemed to have exhausted all possible leads. The area where the body is found is pretty different now, forest and trees having given way to construction — at least at that point. So it’s not likely there’s much evidence left behind. There was also a cross at the scene, but it’s no longer there either.
This is speculation on my part but, at this point, it seems like investigators are hinging their hope in this case on someone coming forward and giving them new information. Said Platte County prosecutor Eric Zahnd: "My guess is there's somebody out there who knows about someone, who maybe was pregnant around 2004 and maybe that baby never came. Or somebody who was acting strangely in that time period.”
If you have any information about this case please contact Detective David Ross at the Kansas City Police Department at 816-234-5136 or by e-mail at missingperson@kcpd.org. You can remain anonymous when submitting information.
Little Lord Fauntleroy
This is the oldest case on the list by far — it’s been unsolved for almost 100 years. At first, it seems like it’s the one with the most information, but it’s hard to verify many of the details. Most of the sources I tried to look into for this case were broken links or unreliable. Some of the information was more speculation and legend that concrete fact — possibly because the case is so old and some details have been forgotten.
In February 1921, an employee at the O’Laughlin Stone Company in Waukesha, Wisconsin was approached by a man and woman in a car. One of them asked the employee if they had seen a young boy in the area. The woman was crying.
Then, a few weeks later, on March 8, another worker found a body floating in the company’s quarry pond. The body was of a little boy, thought to be between the ages of 5 and 7. He had been hit in the head and thrown into the water. His death would later be listed as homicide.
The boy was dressed in “good quality” clothes — leather shoes, a Bradley sweater, blouse and stockings — which led people to believe he was from a wealthy family. Possibly due to this, he was given the nickname “Little Lord Fauntleroy.”
It’s also been speculated that this nickname came from a book of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of The Secret Garden. The book is about a middle class boy who finds out he’s actually the heir to an earl. He goes to England to “embrace his new fortune” and has to win over the heart of his bitter grandfather to heal the rift in his family. There have been at least two movie adaptations, one in 1936 and one in 1980.
“Little Lord Fauntleroy” was laid out for viewing at a funeral home, in the hopes that someone would identify him. A $1000 reward was offered in exchange for information about him. But these things led nowhere.
At one point, police thought the boy might be Homer Lemay. I couldn’t find out a whole lot about Homer either, but his father reportedly said he was living with acquaintances in South America when he was killed in a car accident. But there was no record of Homer’s death and apparently no connection to Little Lord Fauntleroy because there’s no more information about this.
Another theory was from a man who apparently said the boy was his nephew, who had been killed by the boy’s father — the man’s ex-brother in law. This lead went nowhere either.
You may have noticed I’ve said “apparently” and “reportedly” quite a bit here. Like I said earlier, it was difficult to find reliable sources or information on this case. A lot of it comes across more as legend or at least rumors rather than facts. And the last few pieces of information on this case definitely fall into that category.
In 2017, an article was published on Bustle about Little Lord Fauntleroy’s possible connection to Dear David. If you don’t remember Dear David or are unfamiliar with it, it was a Twitter thread started in August 2017 by author Adam Ellis in which he detailed how he believed his apartment was haunted by the ghost of a malevolent little boy. The thread went viral, and there’s plenty of information and speculation about it online. In this Dear David speculation, some people thought this ‘David’ who had been (allegedly) haunting Adam Ellis was the ghost of Little Lord Fauntleroy.
Ellis’s apartment he lived in at the time was in New York, but people suggested Little Lord Fauntleroy could have lived there and somehow been transported to Wisconsin, or ended up there somehow, whether through kidnapping or travel.
I know not everyone believes in the paranormal, and honestly, I’m not sure I believe the Dear David story anyway. But I thought this was worth sharing.
According to findagrave.com, Little Lord Fauntleroy was buried in Prairie Home Cemetery in Waukesha after a local woman raised money for his gravestone. There’s a story of a woman in a veil who would show up at his grave from time to time and place flowers there. Theres’s also speculation that she knew this boy’s identity. Even if this woman existed, there’s not really evidence to back up the rest of the story — it’s all speculation.
Little Lord Fauntleroy was a white male, found in March 1921 and thought to have died several months earlier. He was between five and seven years old and about 3 ‘ 6 “ tall, with blond hair and brown eyes.
I know this case is old, but with modern technology I’d like to think we could at least get some answers about it one day. If you think you have information on the identity of Little Lord Fauntleroy, you can contact the Waukesha Police Department at 262-524-3762.
So that’s all the information I have for you today on these cases. Hopefully I can shed some light on them and we can one day find answers.