This episode was that was originally published as Episode 240. We are revisiting it as a refresher before we update the case next Monday! We hope that you have a happy and safe holiday! We’re bringing you to one of our favorite vacation spots: Provincetown Mass. Only we aren’t sunbathing and playing volleyball on the beach, we’re here to solve a cold case, y’all. The Lady of the Dunes, as she’s known, was discovered on July 26, 1974, in the tall grass at the Race Point Dunes. Throughout the past 47 years investigators have worked tirelessly following up on leads and exhuming her body every time some kind of new technology comes up. To this day they still don’t know who killed the woman, or more importantly, who the woman even is!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the Lady of the Dunes case?
And she followed him, as I would. And when she ran off the beaten track after the dog, she quickly noticed a motionless form laying in the dunes.
Oh my goodness.
And it was surrounded by tall grass. Now, she said she thought the body initially was a deer at first. Not a mannequin this time. Not a mannequin. She thought it was a deer. And she said, you know, she was upset enough about possibly running into a dead or hurt deer.
Yeah.
That's still shitty. Of course. But then she saw the form completely... She made out some legs and feet, and she saw hair tied up into a ponytail and caked with blood. Oh, my goodness. And she realized that she was looking at a human body. This poor little 12-year-old finding that. She could also smell the scent of decomposition nearby.
Like, you know, she had been there for a while in the summer sun. So she was baking. I was going to say. Now, what had happened, though, was... It was really hot. It's hot summers here and on P-Town. And it's right next to the... It's on the beach, right next to the water. Massachusetts water is not like crystal clear Caribbean water. Love that dirty water.
So that smell of like the ocean and all that can be gnarly. But it's something you just expect here.
Yeah.
That you're going to have that beach smell. You just get hit in the face with like red tide smell.
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Chapter 2: Who discovered the Lady of the Dunes?
Gotcha. Luckily, Leslie didn't see that the head was almost decapitated. She said she seemed like she almost looked like she was asleep and sunbathing in the nude. Did it seem like she was face down? She was face down.
Gotcha.
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They never returned to the dunes again because they were so disturbed by this whole thing.
I mean, yeah.
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Chapter 3: What were the circumstances of her death?
Now, now we're going to get into her teeth. Okay, because I'm interested. She had lots of teeth missing, but they are fairly sure that this was from the murder or circumstances, but not circumstances before the murder. They think that this was on purpose that her teeth are missing. She had a lot of gold crowns in her teeth. Huh.
estimated between $5,000 and $10,000 worth of dental work in her mouth. They actually sent out her dental records to dentists all over Massachusetts and the country. Also the FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Wow, and they didn't get anything? Nothing. What? That is nuts to me. Nothing. I'm like, what? And they think that the missing teeth were pulled out forcibly. Right.
That they pulled them out intentionally. I remember hearing that. How? Are there, I don't know if you know this, are there certain teeth that are better for identification? I don't think so. I think it's more dental work. Just in general. Unless, all I can think about is if she had some kind of, like, maybe she had...
one tooth that severely overlapped another one right like that would be like very identifiable like if she had some really really identifiable specific to her thing that they wanted to remove for that yeah but like to just the teeth themselves there's i think that it's just really the dental work that you're looking for well and then does that say to you that this is probably somebody who's like killed before because they know that and they're like that like callous to freaking pull a tooth
Yes, because when we get into the hands, those hands were definitely taken off to take away fingerprints. Right. So this is somebody who knows how to take away identification and did a great job because we can't identify her. So clearly has probably done this before. I feel like that. I feel like that. I think so. I don't think this is a one-off. That's a very experienced level of moida.
And we're going to get, at the end of this episode, we'll talk about the theories, who has been brought up over the years, and maybe talk about who we think could be it. She was also sexually assaulted with a wooden block, but they think it was done post-mortem, which is terrible regardless. But her hands were cut off, like I said, one at the forearm and one at the wrist.
So no fingerprints to identify her, obviously. Wow. Where her hands would have been, whoever placed her there had piled on pine needles, like intentionally. The left side of her head had been crushed in like an eggshell, they said. The medical examiner said it looked like the blow had happened from someone lying next to her or when she was asleep. There wasn't any signs of struggle.
She was on one side of the blanket, so it seemed likely that she may have known her killer or was at least slightly comfortable with them and was asleep and didn't see it coming. Yeah. So it's either she was asleep, didn't see it coming, and didn't know the person, or she was on that blanket with someone, and she fell asleep or was just lying there, and they took her out.
She was almost decapitated. They thought this was due to a combination of multiple strangulation attempts and also that blow to the head. It was done with a tool, which is called a military entrenchment tool. And that was actually the cause of death was the blow to the head. Yeah, I would think so.
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Chapter 4: What evidence was found at the scene?
um she had estimated to have been dead for at least 10 days but possibly as long as three weeks whoa dude uh they believe she was they were thinking that she was possibly killed somewhere else if it's not the theory of her being asleep okay just because of the lack of stuff at the crime scene right there was blood but like I think it wasn't as bloody as you would think it would be. Right.
At that scene. And then when you get into the insect activity, does that kind of like skew it even more? It's honestly, it doesn't, but it's like, I think they just can't figure it out.
Yeah.
They can't figure this out. It's like, she looks like she could have been asleep on that towel, on that towel. Or it could have been all set up to look like she was sleeping on that towel. Because it almost does seem like too perfect. Like posed. Right. Yeah. But it's like she's on. The other thing is she's on her. She's face down. Right. So it's like you would sunbathe that way.
Yeah.
Like, you know what I mean? Like you would do that. But then it's like, would somebody place you face down? Yeah. Or would they place you face up? Maybe they would place you face down to make it look like you had been sunbathing. Exactly. Right. So they probably just don't want to rule out anything because it could be anything.
Yeah, they have no evidence to say exactly what is going on here, which is so frustrating. I can't imagine working on this case. Even just like listening to it is frustrating. So frustrating. So no missing persons matched that description. None.
They searched all local motels and hotels, asked if someone had seen someone matching that description or if someone had not returned to their room matching that description. Nothing. Like, how is she not connected to anybody? That's the thing. And again, no fingerprints. So we can't even try that. I know.
Now, a detective named Detective Flynn said, quote, It's certainly unusual that no one misses her. She must have had a husband, boyfriend, parents, someone. She had been pretty well taken care of. We know that. So she was, like, in a state where, obviously, she had almost $10,000 worth of dental work in her house. Yeah, right. She was not just, like, floating around homeless. Right.
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Chapter 5: Who were the key investigators in the case?
Well, and she probably had like some ounce of hope. Yeah, just that there would be some kind of closure. The crime scene now is, and at the time was, I guess in the 70s was the biggest tourist attraction was that place on the dunes. And even now it's a big pull for people to go look. I get it, but I'm also like,
i know it's it's one of those things that it's like it's you can have a million opinions about it but it's one of those things that like it's never gonna stop that kind of like and you know it's seeing a place like that it's like going to the lizzie borden house you know it's like it's it's not gonna it's like going to the cemetery in salem exactly it's it's morbid curiosity definitely go to salem it's amazing oh my god i love salem so much salem
It's also, like I said in the other episode about it, I think it's a profound experience going to Salem. Absolutely. When you go to the historical places. Well, and there's so many historical sites. We went to at least 42 when we were there the other day. Massachusetts has a lot of good history. Guys, come to Massachusetts. If you're from here, you get it. Hello, I'm from the Board of Tourism.
I can't speak. I'm from the Board of Tourism.
I'm on a board.
In Massachusetts, come. Visit Massachusetts. come little children yeah that was in massachusetts too see we have tons of shit all right so they did exhume her body in 1980 2001 and 2013 that makes me i know they have to but it makes me so sad i know but i'm one of those i think it's like the science in me i'm like nope bring them up Absolutely. But then you're just like, who are you?
Well, that's the thing. She can't rest.
She's being so disturbed. Yeah, you just want her to rest in peace. But advances keep happening in science and forensic science. So every time something comes up, they're like, let's bring her up and see if we can use this. Exhuming her is eventually to get to the goal of her resting in peace. Exactly. And that's always the goal with exhuming a body is to eventually get them to rest forever.
But honestly, nothing's come up. Every time they brought her up, nothing is moving forward. This is the strangest case. Now, a woman who people might know named Sandra Lee, she's a crime writer. She said when she was nine years old, she actually discovered the Lady of the Dunes first with her sister, but was too horrified to tell anyone at nine years old. Hmm.
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Chapter 6: What theories exist about the identity of the victim?
It's like Hollywood makes it a thing. It is. He's become a Hollywood figure. So I think it glosses over the true atrocities that he did. He murdered his own girlfriend. He did. And he murdered his own right hand man's girlfriend, like made him help him do it.
Oh, maybe.
Is that what I'm thinking of? Yeah. I mean, he definitely like murdered women and he did it in pretty and he would like strangle them, too, which is again, interesting. She may have been strangled. So she thinks this this could be that and maybe that's why we're not identifying her.
because she's not from here right um the new york times reported quote tales of his exploits were learned from childhood there how he shot men between the eyes stabbed rivals in the heart with ice picks strangled women who might betray him and buried victims in secret graveyards after yanking their teeth to thwart identification that is 100 true yeah if you grew up here you grew up
hearing tales of whitey bulger literally like there was like a whitey bulger like a book about like him on my summer reading oh yeah yeah black mass probably i maybe was it black mass i don't think it was it was i don't know i'll think of it later um but yeah so sandra lee actually thinks he's the guy she thinks that's right i mean i think you're right it does have legs
It's never been proven that she isn't one of his victims. They haven't been able to prove she isn't. They also haven't been able to prove she is. People hoped he would confess to it, but when he was arrested, but like he was beaten literally to an unrecognizable pile of meat by inmates in West Virginia, October 30th, 2018, when he was 89 years old.
He literally entered prison and they literally just beat him to shit. Yeah. So he didn't exactly get a chance to admit it, which is kind of a bummer. Kind of a bummer and actually kind of interesting that like inmates beat him to death because yeah, there is like, you know that like how there's a hierarchy in prison, you would think a mob boss would be on top. You would think.
I don't know if it has to do with.
He was so horrific. Like. i don't know it's a weird it's a weird uh it's a weird flex there i don't know it is but i mean he's a really bad guy so like yeah he was i mean he was 89 at the time he had also been on the lam for so long maybe it was like they were pissed that he got away with it for so long i don't know who knows either way he really got it he got got
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