Hope for Neosho’s Grace Doe as her her case may be televised nationally. “McDonald County sheriff’s detective Lori Howard said Thursday that she received a call last week from a producer of the TV show America’s Most Wanted about doing a episode on the cold case that Howard reopened several years ago.”
Grace’s skeletal remains were found on Dec. 2, 1990, in a weeded area near an abandoned farmhouse on Oscar Talley Road, east of Lanagan, in McDonald County. Det. Howard found out that a 10-year-old boy had actually found Grace’s body about month before she was “officially” discovered by a couple picking up cans along the road. By that time, the body was already decomposed to a large extent and wild animals had gotten to it as well. A month earlier, it would have been mostly intact, however, as Grace is thought to have been murdered on Halloween night, based on the report of a witness who said she heard a woman scream and then a noisy pickup truck drove by.
A few days after Halloween, the unknown 10-year-old reportedly told his parents about seeing a woman’s body near the abandoned house he played in but they didn’t believe him. It was only after media reports came out in December on the murdered Jane Doe that the parents realized their mistake and came forward about their son’s early discovery.
The boy, who would now be in his early 30s, is the only known person to have seen Grace’s body intact. Frustratingly, neither the boy’s name nor that of his parents was ever recorded, and nobody remembers who they were.
It would be a great advancement for the case if we can find that boy, now of course a man. This is not about anything he might have done wrong. This is about everything he remembers. A tiny details can make a big difference in a cold case.
The green parachute cord used to hogtie Grace Doe more than 20 years ago was military issue.
“Detective Lorie Howard has stated that she believes the bindings are the key to solving the case. Last week, she told the Daily that she has untangled at least some of the mystery with the discovery that the paracord used to bind Grace was not available commercially. This improves the chances that it came from a military base.
What she found out was that it isn’t the common 550 paracord, as had been thought. It is actually a MIL-C-5040H Type II cord. That’s military issue. What makes this type different, Howard said, is that instead of the normal seven strands, it has four. As with most military issue paracords, this one has a color code on the inside of one of the strands that helps identify the manufacturer. Howard believes she has tracked it to a company called Continental, which in the early 1990s sold pretty much exclusively to the U.S. military, according to Howard. That tells her something she has already long suspected. “It tells me I need to look locally (for the killer),” Howard said.”
If you recognize Grace, please contact Detective Lorie Howard at 417-223-7430.
