Ellery Jane Doe: The Greatest Mystery of All - Part 1
- 3 days ago
- 9 min read
Updated: 10 minutes ago
Episode 16
Police And Catching Evil Have Teamed Up To Solve One Of America's Greatest Cold Case Mysteries.
The Answer Could Come From You. Today.
Somewhere in the world, someone reading this article knows who she is.
They may not know it yet. They may have spent 40 years wondering what happened to a woman they once loved — a friend, a sister, a daughter, a mother — who simply vanished one day and never came home. They may have made their peace with never knowing. They may have never made peace at all.
But today that could change.
Because today, homicide detectives from Chautauqua County Sheriff's Office in New York State and Catching Evil — the hit true-crime podcast with listeners in 146 countries — are joining forces to do something that has defeated law enforcement agencies, the FBI, Interpol and cypher experts for over four decades.
We aim, with your help, to solve the murder of an unidentified young mother police call Ellery Jane Doe. And give her back her real name.
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The Case That Has Defeated Everyone. Until Now.
She was found on the morning of December 6th, 1983. A utility crew driving to work along a remote stretch of highway near Ellery in western New York State spotted something in a ditch beside the road. When they went to investigate, they found the body of a young woman. She had been shot four times. Twice in the chest. Once in the back. And once — in an act of deliberate, calculated savagery — with the gun barrel placed directly in her mouth.
Detectives believe the killer deliberately posed her body in the flowing water, hoping it would destroy forensic evidence.
Given the moniker 'Ellery Jane Doe' after the township where she was found, the victim was wearing expensive European clothing. A raincoat, a skirt, a blouse. But no shoes. No underwear. It was December in upstate New York. Bitterly, brutally cold.
She had no identification. No handbag. Nothing.
For 43 years, she has lain in a grave marked by a small plaque that reads simply: Jane Doe 1983.
No name. No family. No justice.
Here is what makes this case unlike almost any other in American criminal history. Detectives are not starting from zero. They have a body. They have forensic evidence. They have DNA. They even have a prime suspect — one of the most savage serial killers America has ever produced.
What they don't have is her name.
And that is where you come in.
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The Suspect
His name is Christopher Wilder. Australian-born, wealthy, charming — a successful construction businessman and endurance racing car driver who moved in the highest social circles and was the last man anyone would have suspected.
He was also, in the words of cold case investigator Tom Tarpley of Chautauqua County Sheriff's Office, something else entirely.
"Christopher Wilder is just an absolute animal of a killer. It is in his DNA. He enjoys killing people. You and I wake up in the morning and figure out what we need to accomplish during the day.
He woke up in the morning thinking about how he could kill somebody."
Wilder had been sexually assaulting and murdering young women for almost two decades before he was finally stopped in April 1984, shot dead during a struggle with police at a gas station in New Hampshire. He died without ever being held fully accountable for the true extent of his crimes. Detectives have long believed there are victims of Christopher Wilder that the world still doesn't know about.
Ellery Jane Doe, they suspect, is one of them.
If you have been listening to Catching Evil from the beginning, you know Wilder better than almost anyone outside of law enforcement. Fifteen episodes deep, you know how he moved, how he hunted, how he chose his victims, how he disposed of them, the weapons he used, the routes he travelled, the racing world he inhabited, the modelling agencies he exploited. You are, in the most meaningful sense, an expert.
Which is exactly why Detective Tarpley and his team came to us.
"We have tried all the traditional methods," he says. "We're hoping that this podcast, with its global reach, can do what forty years of conventional investigation has not."
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What Catching Evil Listeners Have Already Achieved
This case was frozen solid for four decades. Then Catching Evil's listeners got involved. And in a matter of weeks, it cracked wide open.
First came Nicole. A now-retired Australian model who contacted the podcast after hearing our early episodes on Wilder. In December 1983, she was 20 years old, alone in New York City, trying to make it as a model, when a charming, well-dressed man sat down next to her in a McDonald's near Bloomingdale's department store. He had a business card and began showing her a photography portfolio. He was smooth. Unthreatening. Safe, she thought. He invited her on an out-of-town photo shoot, told her he'd pick her up at her hotel in his car — "you'll know it when you see it" — and arranged to collect her the following Saturday.
Nicole has never realised until now how lucky she was that day, and how close she came to becoming another victim of a serial killer who had been targeting America's most beautiful women for two decades.
Nicole identified Christopher Wilder from photographs without hesitation. And she had kept her receipts — meticulous records from that winter in New York. They place Wilder in New York City on December 4th, 1983. Forty-eight hours later, Ellery Jane Doe's body was found on a highway 300 miles to the west.
"Those days — the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh," says Detective Tarpley. "His movements were a complete mystery to us. Until now."
Nicole's information alone has transformed this investigation. But then came Regan.
Regan is a Catching Evil listener from Melbourne, Australia. A meticulous, brilliant analyst who took on the case's most baffling puzzle — a crumpled piece of notepaper found in Jane Doe's jacket pocket when her body was discovered. On it, three lines of seemingly random numbers and letters, scrawled on stationery from a Vancouver hotel. For 40 years, the FBI, Interpol, professional cypher experts and supercomputer code-breaking software had all failed to crack it.
Regan cracked it. Or at least, he has cracked enough of it to blow this investigation to a completely new level.
Because what Regan found in those numbers connects to a professor at Sydney University. To a Dutch racing car driver who competed alongside Wilder. And to an awards ceremony held at that very Vancouver hotel just three weeks before Jane Doe was murdered.
The full detail of Reagan's extraordinary discoveries will be revealed in a future episode. But this is what it means in terms of where Ellery Jane Doe may be from — and the answer may not come from where investigators originally expected.
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Where Did She Come From?
FBI forensic genetic genealogy revealed her DNA heritage traces to the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, with some Eastern and Middle Eastern ancestry. Her dental work — extensive gold restorations — is distinctly European. The intrauterine device found during her autopsy was not available in the United States at the time. It was manufactured in Holland. Her clothing was European.
But here is something that changes everything about where she might have been living.
When her body was found in the freezing upstate New York winter, her legs were tanned. Not the remnant of a summer tan. A recent tan. The kind you get from sustained exposure to genuine heat and sunshine.
You cannot get that tan in the northern United States in late autumn. You cannot get it in Canada. But you could get it in Florida or Australia.
Regan's discoveries connect Jane Doe's mystery note to a professor at Sydney University who died just two years ago. His telex number is encoded in the note found on her body. Tom Tarpley's team are now in contact with the professor's family.
And that Dutch racing driver — a Porsche driver, like Wilder, who won Driver of the Year at the Vancouver hotel where Jane Doe's notepaper came from, was alongside Wilder at the Daytona Beach season finale in Florida just ten days before her body was found. He may hold the key to everything. He is not a suspect. But he may know who she is. Detective Tarpley's team are speaking to him in Canada as this episode goes to air.
So, she has European DNA. She may have been visiting New York — on business, on holiday, in transit. She may have been living there. She may have passed through Australia. She may have known a Sydney University professor. She may have moved in the world of international motor racing. She was approximately 35 years old. She was a mother.
She was a real woman with a real life. And somewhere, in the Netherlands, in Belgium, in Germany, in Australia — someone knew her.
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The Photographs. Please Read This Carefully Before You Scroll.
What follows is important. Please take a moment.
Chautauqua County detectives have provided Catching Evil with photographs of Ellery Jane Doe. We have published them on this page because the police have asked us to — because they believe the key to this woman's identity lies in her physical features.
The first images are forensic facial reconstructions from the police — carefully produced images designed to show what she looked like in life. She was a striking woman. Long dark brown hair. Brown eyes. Petite. She had a tracheotomy scar on her neck and a scar behind her left ear.
The next two images are autopsy photographs. We do not publish them lightly, and we ask you to approach them with the same care and respect with which they have been shared with us. If you feel you may find such images distressing, please ask someone you trust to look on your behalf and describe to them what they need to look for.
Above her left eye, there is a small mole, approximately 4 millimetres across.
Behind her left ear — and this is the feature that Detective Tarpley says he has never seen before in his career — there is a raised mole, 15 millimetres across. Large. Prominent. Impossible to miss if you knew her.
"That mole behind the ear," he says. "I don't think I've ever seen that in my life on a woman before. Somebody that was intimate with her, or a family member — they would know it. That, I think, is the key to this case."
This is not a mole that appeared overnight. She had it for years. Decades. A mother would know it. A sister. A childhood friend. A former partner. Someone who held her, stood close to her, brushed her hair.
Look at the photographs. Look carefully, especially if you are a listener from Europe, the Netherlands, German or Belgium in particular.
HelpOnsHaarVinden
And if anything — anything at all — stirs even the faintest whisper of recognition, please do not scroll past it. Do not tell yourself you're probably wrong, or that it was too long ago, or that it couldn't possibly be her.
Contact us. Today.
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What To Do If You Think You Know Her
Email us at info@catchingevil.com
Chautauqua County Sheriff's Office +1 716 753 4578
or email Tom Tarpley at unsolvedchautauqua@sheriff.us
You do not need to be certain. You do not need to have all the answers. You need only a feeling, a memory, a face that matches a face you once knew.
If you had a friend, a family member, a colleague or a neighbour who went missing after December 1983 and was never found or fully accounted for, please contact your local law enforcement agency and ask them to reach out to the Chautauqua County Sheriff's Office cold case unit. DNA testing can be arranged quickly and discreetly. You can also contact Catching Evil directly through this website, and we will ensure your information reaches the right people immediately.
For 43 years, Ellery Jane Doe has had no name, no family, no justice.
Catching Evil's mission is built on a single belief: not all evil gets caught, but every victim deserves to be remembered.
You cannot remember someone who has no name.
Somewhere in the world, someone reading this can change that. The FBI couldn't. Interpol couldn't. Forty years of conventional investigation couldn't.
Maybe you can.
Listen to Episode 16 of Catching Evil — Ellery Jane Doe - The Greatest Mystery of All — wherever you get your podcasts. The forensic reconstructions, the autopsy photographs, the mystery note and full contact details for the cold case unit are all on this page. Please look. Please share. And please, if you know her, come forward.
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