Mount Vernon Jane Doe

Five minutes before midday on Valentine’s Day of 1988, the body of a young woman was discovered in an abandoned industrial estate. She was naked and deliberately posed on her back with crossed ankles and outstretched arms. This report states that she was “carefully placed on a set of used garage door springs”.

 Her neck was encircled with a deep red ligature mark- a clear sign of what would be determined as a homicide by strangulation. Her wrists and ankles showed signs of being bound and although sexual assault was ruled out, examination revealed that she'd had a sexual encounter before her murder. She had been dead for no longer than 12 hours before her body was found and traces of cocaine was found in her blood.
The girl could not be identified and came to be known as the mount Vernon Jane Doe.

Jane Doe looked no older than her early twenties and was quite possibly a teenage girl. Her hair was dark blonde / light brown and straight, her eyes were hazel with a spray of freckles across the skin underneath.  She had a distinguishing mark- a large circular smudged birthmark across the right side of her neck, just above the collar bone. The autopsy photo showed a large swelling across her forehead, probably due to blunt force trauma.

Originally authorities suspected that she had been the victim of a serial killer Acevedo Francisco. Although unidentified at the time, he was responsible for the murders of three other women in the NYC area between the late eighties and mid-nineties. However two decades later when he was finally charged with the crimes, it was confirmed that he was not responsible for the death of Mount Vernon Doe.

A PI involved with the case believes the unidentified victim is a missing girl named Cathleen Marie Martin. Martin went missing a year before the mount Vernon Jane Doe was discovered. Her Charley project page states that she was 110lbs and 5”8; however Jane Doe is reprtedly 105lbs and 5”3. The weight is similar but the height is off by a good few inches. Also there is no mention of the distinguishing birthmark on the neck.

(Cathleen Martin)

So who was the Mount Vernon Jane Doe?

And who killed her?