- [Announcer] "Real
Stories Tapes True Crime" is your new true crime podcast fix. In our first season we'll explore the suspicious deaths
at a California hospital and a skydiver landing
dead on a suburban driveway with a bag containing guns,
drugs and night vision goggles. To join our investigation, search and subscribe to "Real
Stories Tapes True Crime" on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts (dramatic music) - [Narrator] Source of life. And cause of death. Water can wash away clues, dilute evidence and conceal corpses. For investigators, water
can be a cunning opponent. For criminals, a most accommodating ally. For the perfect crime, just add water. Three successive lead investigators have tried for over 10 years to solve a potential Jane Doe murder case. There are no reports,
no witnesses, no leads. Not even a name. All they have are human skeletal remains that were washed ashore
and scattered around Gilbert Island near
Fredericton, New Brunswick. Fall 1992, a duck hunter
travels to the island to build a blind. It's a wild, uninhabited place, isolated from the rest of the world by the waters of the St. John River. Suddenly in a pile of dead
branches and driftwood, the hunter makes a grizzly discovery. Unaware of the consequences
for the investigation, he moves the skull and
goes to notify the police. - [Dave] I'm already beginning to think, "How did it get there?" Along the St. John River system, there have been occasions
that the old burial grounds were close to shore and
we have had occasions where some of them have washed away. You have to think that, you have to think is it
that a missing person? You have to think is it foul play? - [Narrator] RCMP Corporal Dave Brown and Joseph Hine, a forensic technician, accompany the hunter to the island. If the hunter really
has found human remains, the investigation is
liable to be complicated. - [Hine] The skull was actually in the crotch of a branch of a tree. The gentleman that had
founded had picked it up and put it there so he would
be able to find it again. - [Narrator] The skull is not complete. The entire lower jawbone,
or mandible is missing along with several teeth. There is nothing left on the
bone, not a shred of flesh. Joseph Hine takes the
skull to the forensic lab. - [Hine] We still don't know what we have. We don't know if this is a suicide or an accident or a murder. So you treat it like a murder until you know otherwise. - [Narrator] The hunter
shows the investigators where he actually found the skull. - [Hine] It's quite a big island. They put a cows on there
in the summertime to graze. So it's fairly big. I'd be taking a wild guess but I'd have to say 30
or 40 acres any way. But it floods almost
completely in the spring. I would say virtually the entire island is underwater in the spring. The three of us just had a look around, just a cursory look about
100 yards around the skull to see if we could find any other bones or any other indication of a body. And we didn't find anything. - [Narrator] Moira McLaughlin
is a forensic anthropologist from St. Thomas University in Fredericton. Investigators assist her in the search of the
island for more remains. - [Moira] This river is deceptive. It looks very wide and
peaceful and beautiful. And yet the actual channel
of the river is quite narrow. Most of what we see is overflow. The current in the channel
is exceptionally strong. Remains a body could be
carried very, very rapidly. Many kilometers in hours. - [Narrator] The island
is subject to flooding. It's possible the water either
deposited the skull there or carried the skeleton down river. - [Moira] And as we were coming up to the backside of the island I saw a nesting pair of eagles. And I think that will always remind me. And in retrospect, it
was a rather prophetic. - [Narrator] Before starting the search, the team examines the island
and discusses a plan of attack. The search team consists
mostly of volunteers. They received clear instructions
to protect the scene and preserve the tiniest
pieces of evidence. - [Dave Brown] In an area that we thought perhaps would be outside of the area that we might have to concentrate on, we started locating small bones. And as the search progressed,
as we're going down the grid we noted that we were
finding more and more among the bones. - [Narrator] The search team also finds tattered remains of clothing. - [Dave Brown] The underwear and the sock were in such a condition that they really told us very little. Other than bones were found in them. We were able to deduce that they were on at the time of death. That's an important clue. - [Narrator] After several days, the team discovers what looks like a little ball of animal fur or human hair. The little hair will
be carefully retrieved and sent to the forensic laboratory. - [Hine] And as we walked
upstream along the island this scattering of bones
became more and more narrow until we found an area where there was a lot of dead branches and debris. And in that pile of dead
branches and everything else we found some of the larger bones. In the area where the skull was found, was quite a distance
from this fanning out. So the water had moved it
quite a distance, actually. (indistinct shouting) - [Narrator] Finally, an
almost complete skeleton has been collected. - [Moira] Maybe 80% of it. There was, the feet weren't there but they're very small bones and they're so light that
they could be carried away. Where the post-cranial body was, that is, everything below
the cranium was found had been flooded many times. And those little bones of
the hands and the wrist and of the feet and the ankles would easily have been swept away. - [Narrator] The water has hidden a key piece of the puzzle, the lower jawbone. Without that it will be next to impossible for a forensic expert to
determine the shape of the face. - [Dave Brown] We did several
searches of the island. We never did find the jaw
because water took that away. It took away the important thing. - [Narrator] The police have not found any distinctive marks on the bones. No personal items other than clothing. No concrete evidence that could help them identify the victim. - [Hine] There's a very
big challenge here. - You're not only challenged as a police officer to
determine was there a crime? And if so, who committed it? The challenge is also the identification. Who is this person? You have a mystery. - [Narrator] Identifying
the victim is crucial. Once that's done, the investigators will be able to construct
probable scenarios to explain how the skull
came to be on the island. - [Moira] The person could
have come out by themselves by boat, died there by whatever means and the boat floated away or whatever. Or somebody could have brought
the individual out there and maybe killed the person there. Or a body could have floated
up there out of the water. There were all those possible scenarios and you can't dismiss one or
the other so early in the case. - [Narrator] Moira
McLaughlin tackles the job of examining the bones to try and build a biological
profile of the victim, a kind of preliminary
sketch for the police. She starts by delicately
cleaning the bones, just enough so that she
will not miss any clues, like the marks of trauma
that might point to a murder. - [Moira] I'm always quite careful about how much cleaning there should be, especially bones that I know have been immersed in water for a while, because bones can soften and if they're in water
for a long period of time. So judicious cleaning, laying it out in anatomical order, and then doing an
inventory of the remains. - [Narrator] Investigators
ask her to determine if the skeleton is male or female. - [Moira] None of these
determinations are 100% because the traits that
we use for determining sex appear at puberty and
develop during puberty, and there have been cases
where there has been such an imbalance in the hormones that somebody who was actually
biologically a female, skeletally looked to be a male. We were fortunate in this
regard to have the pelvis. All of the traits pointed clearly
towards it being a female. - [Narrator] McLaughlin compares
the skeletons measurements to standard human growth patterns to determine how old
the woman may have been. - [Moira] In adult skeletons and the skeletons that have
completed their growth, we tend to find ages in decades, or even in 20 years to say somebody who's between
40 and 60, for example. In this particular case, there was just an indication
that this individual was at the end of their skeletal growth. And so we were able to say
that we could put the skeleton in the area of early to mid 20s. - The next thing to determine is the woman's racial background. This is done by measuring the
size and shape of the skull, particularly around the eyes and nose. Identifying race from skeletal remains is not an exact science. Nonetheless, after taking
dozens of measurements, Moira McLaughlin arrives at a conclusion. - [Moira] In the first analysis, the morphological traits pointed towards this individual being Caucasian. - [Narrator] The
examination of the skeleton has revealed one particular
feature of the victim that should make it much
easier to identify her. - [Moira] The left humerus, that is the upper arm bone
was smaller both in length and in thickness than the right humerus. It would have been
noticeable in the individual. And in fact probably would
have reduced the ability of that individual to use their arm. Every indication was that she
was probably born with it, that it was a genetic abnormality. - [Narrator] Police use the information collected by McLaughlin to produce an identification record for the victim. Then she'll be added to the
missing persons database. Not only is she added to the database, but she is compared to all the other women who have been reported
missing in the country. Dave Brown can use these characteristics to shine new light on
the local investigation. Leads slowly begin to come in that may help identify
this woman with no name. Dave Brown gets calls from investigators in New Brunswick, Quebec and Maine. Investigators now look
at the woman's teeth for more clues to her identity. Dr. David Sweet is a
forensic odontologist. He will examine the teeth that have remained in the
skull and create a profile. It can be used much like a fingerprint to help identify someone. - [Dr. Sweet] We do an
examination of the person's teeth and we produce a dental record much the way a dentist
would in a private practice. - [Narrator] This dental
profile of the victim can be compared to the dental
record of a missing person. - There is no national database for missing persons dental records. That would be very helpful,
but it's not present. And so instead, what we use
is circumstantial evidence found at the scene of the crime. There may be some clue
that leads us to believe that this certain person
is the one that's dead. Then we can go to their medical
record, their dental record and we can obtain from their dentist, any records that might be
useful to compare to the teeth that are present in the victim's body to see if those records match. - Dr. Sweet can only make a partial report because he only has the upper jaw. But he observes that the victim has had intensive dental care to correct major problems with her teeth and that her front teeth protruded. Dave Brown looks at the clothing found during the search of the island. Although the black jeans and white blouse are in poor condition, they
will produce some facts. - [Dave Brown] There was very little left of the blouse and the jeans. They were mostly rotted. But we were able to find the labels. One of the things that I wanted to do, and that's getting back to
where's the person from, is there any clue that is going to help us was to look to determine
where were these bought? Are these something that
are available everywhere? Are they even Canadian? - [Narrator] The Canadian
Garment Association refers Brown to a number of
manufacturers and retailers. He systematically contacts each one. It's a slow job that requires
patience and perseverance. - [Brown] Through many attempts and photographs that were sent to them, I was able to determine that the blouse was made by a Montreal company and it was only out to
one chain of stores, which was a Bargain Harold's stores. And I was able to determine
when they were shipped and at what time. And it was actually
only a two month period that those blouses were shipped
out to the Bargain Harold's. So therefore that gave me some idea of, okay does that person
live around those areas that have Bargain Harold's? It's a way of just narrowing
down the search somewhat. - [Narrator] Moira McLaughlin
once again examines the bones. This time she will try to
determine a cause of death. Even without organs and tissue, the bones can reveal many clues. McLaughlin looks for signs
of trauma, healed fractures and even teeth marks that may
have been left by a predator. - I was also looking for
evidence of perimortem trauma. Bone breaks in different ways. If the bone is fresh and it still has all the fat and water
in it, it will break. It will bend. It will react, respond
in a very different way than if the bone is dry and it has been out on the
surface for a long period of time and all the fat and
water has gone from it. I should be able to tell the difference between a fresh bone response
and dry bone response. And if it's fresh bone and
it's shows no sign of healing, that's what we refer to as perimortem. - [Narrator] McLaughlin notices
marks on some of the ribs. She can't be certain if these marks were caused by the teeth
of an animal like a coyote, or by the point of a weapon like a knife. Was it suicide, an accident or homicide? The cause of death remains a mystery. The results of her
examination are inconclusive. - Years in the river have done a good job of blurring the facts. Damage caused by the water continues to keep the
woman's identity a secret. The forensic lab has completed
the analysis of the hair. Will the results prove the hair is from the victim or predatory animal? It's been a year since
the skeletal remains have been recovered from Gilbert Island in the St. John River. The investigators have established that the victim was a
white woman in her 20s with an underdeveloped
left arm and an overbite. Her identity remains a mystery. Hair analysis from a sample
recovered from the island show some positive results. - [Dave] They were able to
tell me actually quite a lot from that particular hair. When it was examined and straightened out, it turned out to be 35 centimeters long. They were able to tell me the
color was enhanced with a dye. It had been worn in a ponytail style because there was an elastic that had metal threads wrapped around it, and that metal had rusted away. But the rust marks remained 20 centimeters down on the ponytail. - [Narrator] Despite this information, they still don't know what
the victim looks like. A sketch would allow them
to ask the public for help. But without the lower jawbone, creating a composite drawing
is nearly impossible. - [Dave] That's a big facial feature and it really determines
what someone looks like. Do they have a small jaw? Do they have a big jaw? Did they have a long face, a round face? That was a key element
that we didn't have. How can we do a facial reconstruction? At the time there was also the
computer regeneration program that was being developed in Toronto. - [Narrator] Dave Brown asked the Center of Forensic Sciences in Ontario to create a composite drawing based on the information collected. A few weeks later, Brown is
transferred to another province. RCMP investigator, Philippe
Houle takes over the case. He knows it will not be easy. He starts by coordinating
another search of the island. - [Philippe] I was hoping
to find that lower mandible. We don't have much to go on. We were left with not
knowing who this person is, where she came from. And also, how did she
come to be on that island? - For two days a team 30 people conduct a large-scale operation. They searched the island
with a fine tooth comb. - [Philippe] Each square inch. Each blade was turned over and we found some small bones. Several But we did not find the
part we were looking for. The lower mandible. - [Narrator] Moira
McLaughlin tries to determine how the skeleton got onto the island. - [Moira] We couldn't figure
out how the skull got there without understanding the river movements and the water movements. And that's one of the things I have to do as a forensic anthropologist, is do what we call taphonomy. Everything that happens to a body, from the moment the individual
dies until it's found, and that could include water movements, movements of the current, the flood movements in the spring, what the vegetation is like, has there been any human intervention, were there any scavengers? Part of this taphonomic analysis was learning about the river. - [Narrator] McLaughlin studies
the flooding water levels of the St. John River. She believes the body could have traveled from as far as Fredericton,
over 20 kilometers away. As the spring flood subsided, the body could have become
hung up on the island. As it decomposes, it would
naturally disarticulate and could become scattered by predators. Moira McLaughlin's taphonomic study will also answer other questions. - We also had to know about temperature, because the temperature of the
water affects decomposition. I want to try to figure out how long the person has been dead. How long does it take for a body to become
completely skeletonized - [Narrator] In winter, the
water temperature of the river is around zero degrees. In summer, it can get
as warm as 18 degrees. McLaughlin estimates that the body has spent between one and two years at the mercy of the water. During this time, the body
is battered by the currents and pulled back and forth by the tides. The face arms, hands,
and knees have been torn as they were dragged over the rocks. After a few months in the water, it decomposed and would
naturally disarticulate. The skin would gradually
come off the body in shreds. The Fredericton RCMP received
the composite drawing done by the Center for
Forensic Sciences in Ontario. Moira McLaughlin feels
that even though the sketch is based on photos of the
skull, it's not a good match and should not be used
for a public release. Philippe Houle decides to
take the skull and bones to Toronto and create a
new composite drawing. McLaughlin begins to doubt her conclusions regarding the victim's race. She takes advantage of the fact that the bones are in Toronto to ask another forensic
anthropologist to examine them and to confirm whether or
not the victim was Caucasian. The center takes a strong
interest in this mysterious case and offers to do a diatom test as well, to try and determine whether
the victim had drowned. Diatoms are microscopic
algae that are found in all bodies of fresh water,
such as lakes and rivers. When a person drowns, the
diatom swallowed with the water are collected in the bone marrow,
particularly in the femur. Because of the age and
condition of the bone samples, the results don't conclude
that the victim drowned. Philippe Houle turns to the Canadian Police Information Center. - [Philippe] I made a request
of every case available for the maritime area of missing persons. And there was 300 names that came up. And we have to manually go
through this and review them. - [Narrator] Houle receives
the new composite drawing based on the victim's skull. It seems to confirm that
the victim is Caucasian. For the very first time the
police organize a press release. The composite drawing is
published in newspapers throughout the Maritimes and
also in Maine and Quebec. The police receive a few leads. They compare them with
Jane Doe's dental profile but they don't correspond to the records of any missing persons. The case is reclassified
as a major unsolved crime. Once a week, the police update the file. But as weeks and months go
by, no new elements are added. Another year passes. The major crimes unit investigators enlist the help of Michel Fournier. He is one of the best forensic
artists in the country. They ask him to do a facial
reconstruction of the victim. (speaking French) - [Fournier] Obviously,
when you get to the point of having someone do a
facial reconstruction of a deceased person is
because all the other parts of the investigation have come up empty. Trying to identify the
person through fingerprints or dental records or
physical descriptions, they've all drawn a blank. So you've almost reached
the end of the road. - [Narrator] Michel
Fournier has just returned from the FBI Academy. He's been studying a brand
new identification technique. Three-dimensional reconstruction. (speaking French) - [Fournier] As a first case, it was a pretty complicated one because the skull wasn't complete. If you take away the lower jaw
and most of someone's teeth, that will change the shape of their face. So that made my job a
little more complicated because I had to do a
projection of the jaw. As a general rule, it's not
something you do randomly. You take account of what you already know. So for example, even though
the teeth were missing, we could use the roots to determine the projection of the teeth. - [Narrator] For facial reconstruction, the artist uses 23 markers. These are points on the skull
that indicate what the minimum and maximum thickness of the tissue is. The placement of the markers is the first in a long series of
steps that requires time, skill and painstaking work. The muscles, tendons, and
fat on the face take shape. Up to this point, the work
has been purely scientific. (speaking French) - The final touch is the artistic touch that gives some life to
the facial reconstruction. - [Narrator] The final touch
to complete the reconstruction is the hair. The investigators call
on an expert wig maker. They've also bought a white blouse like the one Jane Doe was wearing to make the drawing as
authentic as possible. It's a revelation for Philippe Houle. - [Philippe] It cried out it
was a person, not just a skull. And based on that, I was enthusiastic that this may come to
a successful conclusion by identifying this person, who she was, what was her history? How did she come to be on the island? - Investigators expect a lot more from this more human and
lifelike reconstruction. Days and then weeks go
by and no one calls. It's a hard blow for the investigation. - [Philippe] Dejected
that I wasn't able to identify this person. But again, for some reason, the public wasn't coming forward. - [Narrator] Now it's
Philippe Houle's turn to be transferred. He is reassigned to Ottawa. The Jane Doe case is still open but it seems doomed to become a cold case. Strange circumstances bring
a new player to the case. He will restart the
investigation from square one. Breathe new life into it. And send it into the newspaper, radio and television headlines. This time with a new hypothesis. It has been over 10 years since a human skeleton was discovered on Gilbert Thailand in the St.
John River in New Brunswick. Two successive lead investigators
have worked on the case. Now a third will try to solve the mystery of the woman with no name. RCMP Analyst Gilles Blinn
is a specialist in ViCLAS, the Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System. He is attracted by the
challenge and asks for the file. - [Gilles] I went through the box. I went through every piece of paper and every statement and
every photograph in the box. Remembering that the
case had not been solved or we didn't know the
identity of the person or what happened to the victim. And I wanted to keep an open mind. I was puzzled for the fact that this victim was
found near a large center, had a smaller left arm, a female and we had a description of her clothes. Actually, we knew where the
clothes were even bought and yet it remained unsolved. I found that very intriguing. - [Narrator] Why have all the
efforts to identify the victim failed over the last 10 years? Gilles Blinn tries to find an explanation. - [Gilles] There was a
couple of possibilities. A, the person was never reported missing. Two, she was from another country. She could have been from the United States but we checked that as well. Now she was missing from, for
example, Germany or Europe, we would check with Interpol to see if they had a
person reported missing matching the description of this victim. What I did is I took her poster, or her photo and I had that
by my desk all the time. And some people might think this is corny, but I felt throughout all of this that she was guiding me
through the process here. And I felt that eventually
I was gonna get an identity. - [Narrator] Gilles Blinn calls a meeting with Moira McLaughlin and Michel Fournier. He asked them to go back to square one, nearly 10 years later. - [Gilles] There's a new energy. We're gonna formulate a new plan. We're gonna start investigating this case and see if we can't resolve it. - [Narrator] Blinn has an
advantage over his predecessors. Forensic science has
progressed dramatically in the past 10 years. Today there are completely
new, effective techniques like DNA analysis. - [Gilles] The first one was DNA. That's the big one. We didn't have that in 1992. The best source of DNA if
you have a skeletal remain, is a tooth. - [Narrator] Gilles Blinn
sends the skull to the BOLD Lab at the University of British Columbia. He hopes they can extract
DNA from the teeth, despite the fact that
they have spent many years in the waters of the St. John River. - [Dr. Sweet] The teeth,
because of the armored coating, can protect the DNA over a period of time from the influence of water. When we received the skull, I selected two teeth that I
thought would be important sources of DNA evidence. We extracted them and crushed
them using liquid nitrogen and a machine called a freezer mill. We take the whole tooth and decontaminate the outside surface
using special chemicals that will destroy DNA. But then we put it into a closed system, so none of the DNA from
the tooth can escape, but more importantly, no DNA from a person
who's analyzing the sample or any other source can get
access inside that area. Now we know that when the
DNA result comes in the end, we've got that from the
tooth and from nothing else. - [Narrator] Doctor
Sweet is able to create a DNA profile of the victim. It's a huge step. But it means nothing if they
don't have a family member to compare the results with. - [Dr. Sweet] Forensic
analysis is a comparison between two samples. And many people believe
that when you have a body or when you can collect
a sample from a body, you can solve the crime. In fact, you might be able
to obtain a DNA profile, but it doesn't actually solve the crime until you come up with a
suspicion who that person is and then you can compare a known sample that's taken from them to be sure that you've
identified the person. - [Narrator] The identity
of the woman with no name remains a mystery. But Gilles Blinn believes that the science had taken him down the wrong track with regard to the victim's race. - [Gilles] I worked in this
area for several years. And I've worked with First Nation's people on numerous occasions. As a matter of fact, there's
several First Nations community in the area that I patrol, and there is no specific
reason why I can say this, but my feeling, and deep in my heart, I felt she was from First Nations. Looking at her, the
reconstruction Michel had made, it's a strong feeling that I had that she was a First Nations person. - [Narrator] When he shares his intuitions about the victim's Aboriginal background with Moira McLaughlin, she brings him back to
the scientific reality. - [Moira] During the whole
course of this investigation, two other physical anthropologists independently had an opportunity
to analyze the remains and all of them saw the same
morphology in the cranium, and that is a morphology that's
indicative of a Caucasian. - [Narrator] Blinn is persistent. And McLaughlin agrees to
completely revisit her analysis of the victim's race. - [Moira] I went back
over the bones again. New eyes, fresh eyes. After several years,
a lot more experience. Many more cases. New methods have appeared, particularly in the microscopic area. A new system called
ForDisc had been developed. A computer database. - [Narrator] This software will give her a new biological profile
to compare with a database of skeletal measurements of modern humans. - [Gilles] The person was a
living human being at one point. She had a life, she had parents, perhaps people that loved her, perhaps children. And it's sad that someone met her fate and floated down a river by herself and stayed there for two years. It's a terrible story. And I felt really sad for this victim. - [Narrator] As long as the
victim remains unidentified, the investigators cannot begin to explore the probable causes of her death. Will McLaughlin's new analysis prove Gilles Blinn's
hypothesis is correct? (dramatic music) Over a year has passed since Gilles Blinn reopened a 10 year old Jane Doe cold case. Doctor David Sweet has created a genetic profile of the victim. Moira McLaughlin has
reanalyzed the skeleton using new techniques
in order to once again, confirm the victim's race. The results from the
ForDisc software arrive. And much to Gilles Blinn's frustration, they again suggest the
victim was Caucasian. Moira McLaughlin doesn't
know what to think. - [Moira] How can we look at this? Here on the one hand, I've got the science telling me that it's a Caucasian female, and we should be able to, in a small area like
the Maritimes, find her. And we thought about the fact that in the Atlantic provinces, for over 400 years, Mi'kmaq and Maliseet and Europeans have been living
intimately with each other. Marrying, raising families together. And sort of collectively as a group, we said, "Let's broaden it. "Let's broaden this biological
profile and open it up." Let's look at her ancestry
being Mi'kmaq and Maliseet. And that was the starting point. - [Narrator] With a new approach, Gilles Blinn does another search in the Canadian Police
Information Center Database. He searches from 1991 to 2001. And this time he includes
people of Aboriginal origin. - There was an excess of
5,000 missing females. I think I had 300 and odd
pages up of missing women on those printouts. So I had quite a few to go through. But you got to remember, not all of them are victims of foul play. Some of them are missing
for some odd reasons, runaways and so on. There's a great number that
are missing due to foul play, but not all. - [Narrator] Months of
laborious work yield nothing. 5,000 missing women are checked and 5,000 are ruled out. - [Gilles] The conclusion
was there was no match. Simple. I looked at them and then looked at them and looked at them again in
the hopes of finding a match. And I didn't find any. - [Narrator] Gilles Blinn
decides to call on the media throughout the country. One of the largest
television networks in Canada agrees to do a special report
on the reopening of the case. (speaking indistinctly) - [Gilles] Well, two things can happen. Number one, we're gonna get a lot of tips and it's gonna keep me
busy for a long time. Or number two, we're not
gonna get any tips at all. - [Narrator] Thousands
of posters are printed and sent to all the police
agencies across Canada and the North Eastern United States. Gilles Blinn also contacts
police forces overseas. Days turned into weeks
and weeks into months. And once again, there is
nothing but false leads. - [Gilles] Thinking back,
I had a lot of tips. But they were all vague tips. They didn't pan out. I was asked numerous times, "Do you get discouraged when a lead "doesn't pan out?" I said, "No, I don't get discouraged. "I just get more determined." - [Narrator] That year,
the fall in Fredericton is dreary and wet. Many people find the
atmosphere depressing. The suicide rate hits an all time high. - [Gilles] There was a rash of
homeless people from the city throwing themselves in the
river to commit suicide. Those events triggered
these thoughts I had. I want to say a light bulb
came on, or I had an idea. There's a local soup kitchen where homeless people, people are down on their luck, they go in and have their meals. And that was the first place I went. - [Narrator] Blinn hopes that
someone will remember her. He calls the manager, George Piers. Piers has an excellent memory. He remembers a strange solitary woman, who regularly came to the
soup kitchen in the 1980s. He says the drawing is not quite right. Her face was rounder, more wrinkled. He also remembers that
the woman had one arm that was shorter than the other. It was her left arm. - [Gilles] I felt good about it. I said, "Okay, we're on the right track." I felt that was the
first solid lead we had in several years. - [Narrator] Piers told
him something else. The woman always had a
pair of very long scissors. She seemed to carry them for self-defense. George Piers can still clearly remember the last time he saw her. It was in September of 1990. She was hitchhiking next to the highway. Since he was driving in
the opposite direction, he didn't stop. After that, he often wondered
what had happened to her. Gilles Blinn calls the forensic
artist, Michel Fournier. He says he would like to modify
the drawing of the woman. George Piers explains that
the lower part of her face was fuller and that she had buck teeth. And more importantly, the
skin on her cheeks and neck were more wrinkled. With this new sketch, Gilles Blinn again notifies the media about the case. In a very short time, the police receive a phone call from the owner of an
old building downtown. He believes he recognizes the woman they are looking for. Gilles Blinn pays him a visit. - [Gilles] He has not seen
this person for several years and he didn't know where she was. And by viewing the composite
drawing, he felt that perhaps this person was the victim
that was found on the island. - [Narrator] She was a
solitary, quiet woman who lived on social assistance. He said she never cashed her last check. The owner remembers her name and knows where her parents live. - [Gilles] And Constable
Cole followed up on that, met with family members and
obtained some genetic material for DNA testing and a match occurred. And the victim was identified. - [Narrator] The victim
was in fact, Aboriginal. Her parents, who lived on a reserve a few kilometers from Fredericton had never reported her missing. They thought that she had simply left and hoped that someday she would return. - [Moira] I knew we were
going to find something. I knew that it was going to be important and that these eagles were connected in some way with that individual. And as it turned out, they were important
birds to this woman too. In her cultural life. Whether they were looking after her, whether they were bringing
us there, I don't know. But for me, there's a connection and I'm glad they were there. - [Gilles] I can't
explain the feeling it is when the victim, all of a
sudden we know who it is, we're able to bring that victim home. Now spiritually, that victim
is now able to rest in peace. Gilles Blinn has finally put a name to a decade old case file. Out of respect for her family, we will leave her secret in the waters of the St. John River.
