When somebody googles ‘what happened in Nevada 1980’ or ‘Nevada in 1980,’ one would see results for the election of Ronald Reagan, the MGM Grand fire, and geological records. If someone asked me about Nevada in 1980, I think of a teenage girl who doesn’t have a name other than Jane Doe. A girl who has been lost to time.
There’s as many as 40,000 unidentified decedents in the United States alone. Nevada, ‘the Silver State,’ has only a fraction of this number, including a young female who is known as the Arroyo Grande Jane Doe, or as I call her, the Silver Doe.
On the night of October 5th, 1980, am off duty officer was traveling home on State Route 146, near the Arroyo Grande car wash. The moon was a little less than a sliver in the pitch black sky, so only the officer’s headlights illuminated the corpse form abandoned on the pavement.
Within minutes, the scene was taped off by yellow caution tape. The investigation began with a fiery start. Her body lay face down on the cold pavement. Coagulated blood matted in her dark caramel hair, a large wound gaped at the base of her skull. Seven puncture-like stab wounds from the girl’s left shoulder to the bottom of her spine. In the report from first responders, she was posed. Face down, arms directly outwards, legs together and straight, assumed to symbolize the crucifix.
When the Silver Doe was turned over, to be put on a spinal board, there was blunt force trauma to her face. The coroner found one of her teeth had been knocked out, and she likely swallowed it. The coroner determined the cause of death was from an unidentified two prong instrument, something roughly three to four inches long.
The girl had been hit in the face first, based on the bruising, likely passing out from the impact. She was then transported to another location, where she was stabbed, and then beaten over the head to do her in. The coroner believed she had still been alive when she was dumped on the road. She died slowly. She was scared, alone, and in an immense amount of pain. To die like that, disposed of in the middle of the night, facedown so she couldn’t even look at the sky for some sort of peace in her last moments; it is something that breaks my heart.
She was five foot two inches, and amount 100 pounds. She had dental work done, two wisdom teeth had been removed, two others were impacted. There was evidence to suggest she might have had braces at one point, and fractured her jaw in her early years of life. Her ears were pierced. Her nails were painted silver. She has light blue eyes, and wore silver eyeshadow. She had a small tattoo on the inside of her right forearm, an ‘S’ in blue ink. It was done within three days of her death. One might not think these things to be ‘important’ but it shows not only was she an average teenage girl, she had a life. She was somebody. She wasn’t just another unnamed body in the system.
She went unclaimed. She went unnamed. No one to bury her, no one to say goodbye to her. Her DNA was tested but failed to supply any answers. Her information was plastered all over the news, flyers, and radio stations, and still there were no answers for the Silver Doe. The officer who had found her body paid for her burial. The officer and his wife routinely visit the gravesite and place flowers on the plot.
The body has been exhumed four times. The first exhumation was in 2002, 2003, 2009, and lastly in 2016. She is someone’s daughter, she could be someone’s sister, a friend, a loved one. No one deserves to die unnamed, lost to time.
When I think of Nevada, I think of a girl who needs a name. I think of an officer willing to be a family for the unnamed girl. I think of the stories that end too soon, people who try to find all the answers, of people who give their all in an effort to give justice to unnamed girls and boys.
Sources Podcasts: Last Podcast on the Left Unsolved Murders. Other: https://www.clarkcountynv.gov/coroner/Pages/unidentified.aspx
Musing Murder Mysteries 