IDENTIFIED: Midtown Jane Doe

0:00Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is about a gruesome discovery in a New York City basement. One that set off an investigation weaving together threads that you would never expect to find in a single case. A shadowy suspect. A tangled family tree filled with deception. An iconic rock club. The September 11 attacks mob shakedowns tied to a gangster who would later find fame on The Sopranos. Like you name it, it is in this case. and at the heart of it all is a teenage girl and the decades-long mission to restore her identity. But even though she finally has her name back, justice still remains out of reach and police need your help to find out what really happened to her.

0:45This is the story of a woman who for more than two decades was known only as the Midtown Jane Doe.

1:03Thank you.

1:29from a basement of a rundown five-story building on West 46th Street in Midtown Manhattan, a neighborhood known as Hell's Kitchen. Now, this place is in pretty bad shape, and the only reason the workers are even down there is because the restaurant next door arranged to rent part of the basement just for storage. So they're doing their thing when one of them notices something weird in the corner behind this old boiler. It's this big rectangular concrete slab, like six feet wide, five feet long, taller than your standard cinder block. And it looks just all kinds of wrongly. It definitely doesn't belong here.

2:07And in a place like New York, where lifers have seen it all, that is saying something. So a worker takes a sledgehammer to this thing. And instead of the solid thud that you would expect to hear when you like hit concrete, there is this echoing sound that tells them it's hollow inside. And with the blow, the cement starts breaking apart until they see brown fabric poking through. And when they pull on it, a human skull starts popping out. Now, the worker notifies the NYPD and Detective Gerard Gardner, who just started his shift and is next up in rotation to catch a case, heads straight to the scene.

2:47Now, he knows right away that this is not going to be a routine investigation. New York City has more than its fair share of homicides, don't get me wrong, but cases involving skeletal remains are rare here. So he calls in the city medical examiner's forensic anthropologist, and when they dig through that concrete to the dirt below, they find a skeleton, like curled up in the fetal position, all wrapped up in a rust-colored carpet. This was literally a concrete coffin. Mm-hmm, and more like a tomb. I mean, there's no bottom to it per se. Like whoever did this might have put the body down or maybe even dug into the floor a little bit.

3:24And then what they did was they poured cement right over the top, almost as if they were building some kind of foundation. Now, at first glance, investigators don't see any obvious signs of trauma on this skeleton. They have no doubt that this is a homicide. Well, yeah, someone encased in concrete kind of speaks for itself. Yes, but theoretically, I mean, they could have died from something nonviolent like an overdose and then whoever was there like panicked and covered it up, whatever. But that's not even a consideration here because the victim was hogtied with pantyhose and an electrical cord, which is also wrapped around this person's neck.

4:00But even though they have a huge potential clue about the cause of death, like with these things, they've still got their work cut out for them. The concrete might have helped to preserve the skeleton, but what they're dealing with is just that, bones. There is no flesh, there is no muscle, nothing. And even the bones aren't in great shape. Like the outer surface starts like peeling away on them, kind of like old paint chipping off of a wall. So an ID is going to be difficult. However, they do find some pretty promising clues. They discover that this person had long fingernails and the victim is wearing a tan bra.

4:37There's also a glittery fabric with red and yellow sequin that they think might come from some kind of clothing, which all hints to them that this might be a female. Now, the anthropologists can also get a pretty good sense of this person's age. The victim's wisdom teeth haven't totally come in yet, which usually happens between like 17 years old and 25 years old. And their collarbone isn't fully fused, meaning that this person's bones were still growing when they died. And while they don't find a purse or ID, the victim is wearing two pieces of jewelry that could be huge for identification. So there is a 1966 Bolivar watch on their wrist and a yellow metal signet ring on their right pinky finger with the initials PM lowercase c g.

5:23Now, everything gets hauled into the lab, and a couple of days later, Detective Gardner gets an update on the findings that starts painting a clearer picture. They can now confirm that this definitely is a female victim, a young woman between 15 and 21 years old, somewhere between 4 '10 and 5 '4. She had a narrow face, petite build, and reddish-brown hair, some of which was still attached to the skull. According to America's Most Wanted, her pointy chin and the shape of her skull and the eye sockets led them to believe that she was likely white. Now, looking at her pelvic bone, the anthropologist thinks it's unlikely that she ever had children.

6:03Although they can't be sure, but it is her teeth that really tell an interesting story because she had expensive dental work done on her back teeth, but her front teeth were starting to rot before she died. It makes me wonder if she left home or was somehow taken from family or caretakers well before she died. At some point, somebody cared enough to get her that expensive dental work, but then somewhere along the line, something changed. Right. Now, investigators theorize that she might have been one of the kids who maybe ran away to New York City chasing big dreams or something. But whatever she was looking for, I mean, obviously she found something very different.

6:42And that idea isn't totally out of left field. So the detective who's working the case now, Ryan Glass, he told our reporter Nina that this part of Hell's Kitchen specifically, like including this very building, which is 301 West 46th Street, was known for drugs and sex work. It's right by the Port Authority bus terminal, which is often the first stop for young people coming into the city. But that also makes it a magnet for predators looking for vulnerable teens. Cops even nicknamed the area the Minnesota Strip because so many of the girls being trafficked there were runaways from the Midwest.

7:19And the basement that she was buried in has its own interesting history. So it was home to a speakeasy in Prohibition, then a rock club in the 60s. Okay, but at least with this watch being from 66, we know that this body's at least from like the 60s. Oh yeah, it's definitely not like that old. Okay. But they can tell that she has been there for a while. So her skeleton is mostly intact, but some bones were missing, like smaller ones from her like hands, feet, stuff that could have maybe been carried off by rats. And speaking of rats, when lab techs process the scene, they find this like whole little ecosystem that developed around her remains, maggot casings, rodent bones, a nest.

8:01And there were also animal and human hairs in the carpet that she was wrapped in. And then there's like this random collection of items that they find mixed in with everything. Pieces of Sears brand feed and weed bag. Scraps of rat poison wrapper, like a plastic green toy soldier. Some duct tape. And a dime from 1969. The dime is so crusty and corroded that they can barely make out the date, but they do. Was that all buried with her or did it just like end up with her over time? Right. So, okay, that's hard to say. Some of it was definitely in the mix with her remains, like the Sears bag and the toy soldier and that dime were actually in the rug with her, which makes me think that maybe they were just kind of lying on whatever carpet that like she was ended up being rolled up in.

8:47Or, I mean, it's also possible that she had those things on her. Like, who knows? But the other stuff, like the rat poison wrapper, probably that stuff came, like, it was more in the concrete. I mean, it's really, like, kind of a show down there. But all of this stuff still helps create kind of a rudimentary timeline. Like, those little green army men, they became huge in the 50s when everyone got freaked out about lead poisoning from the metal ones. But then the dime tells us that she couldn't have been killed before 1969. Then the rat poison wrapper, that brand didn't even exist until the late 70s.

9:22So taking everything into consideration, they think she was killed sometime in the 70s, maybe the 80s. But they're leaning more toward the 80s given the history of crime in that stretch of the city. Now, even after the medical examiner, whose name is actually Dr. Happy, even after Dr. Happy checks everything out, he can't find any injuries that definitively show how this person died. But given the electrical cord around her neck, Dr. Happy is thinking that it was probably strangulation. And while they don't know for sure if she was sexually assaulted, nothing seems to point to that, actually. Her bra was still properly in place, not like pulled down or messed with.

10:03and they also find scraps of dark fabric near her hips and legs that might be from pants or shorts along with some buttons. So right now, they have no name, no suspects, and no motive, and they're like two decades behind. All they can do for now is try to build a profile of what kind of person could have done this.

10:28Police believe the killer had to be someone who knew that building inside and out, probably a regular in the neighborhood. They would have needed to know their way around concrete as well and that particular basement. And there's actually a few ways to access this basement from inside the building, plus a steel trap door that opens to a neighborhood parking lot. But they don't think that this was just some random person who wandered in. I mean, think about how much time it would take to construct something like this tomb, as we're calling it. But this is a place that her killer felt comfortable in.

11:02Well, and it's not just about burying her, right? Like, unless this basement already had concrete stored in it, they'd have to haul that down there, making multiple trips in and out, like make the concrete. Yet Detective Glass estimates that they would have needed at least 50 bags of concrete to basically make this thing that she's encased in. And what was this building in the 80s? So it's a little hard to tell at first, but it might have just been a regular basement back then, like, TBD will kind of get there. But this building in general, like, investigators at the time quickly realized that it was never a kind of place where people would stay long.

11:38Like, by the time they're canvassing in 2003, the place is practically empty. There aren't any long-term residents. Even the superintendent is fairly new. And the first floor is just an adult video store, and some of the upper floors are completely blocked off. And they do end up finding one guy who worked in the area back in the 80s, but he can't tell them anything useful about the space. So with no witnesses to work with, Detective Gardner shifts focus to the physical evidence, starting with that Bolivar watch. He's hoping that the serial number might lead them to whoever bought it. But according to New York Post reporter Al Gwart, that is a total dead end.

12:18It turns out that Bolivar just randomly assigns serial numbers for insurance, like they don't actually track the purchases at all. So they move on to what they think is actually their best chance at identifying her, that ring. So Gardner teams up with the FBI and starts searching nationwide for missing persons with PMCG in their initials. Now, based on their timeline and what they know so far, they look for people born on or after 1958, and they get 11 names back. But after comparing things like race and age and other characteristics, they have to eliminate every single one. So next, they dig into arrest records, checking out every woman with those initials who's been charged with a crime across the country.

13:04And they're doing this thinking that maybe she could have been involved in sex work or maybe drugs. And if that's the case, maybe she had a run-in with law enforcement. So that search gives Gardner another 500 names to chase down. But still, even with those 500 names, he gets nothing. You know what doesn't make sense to me about the sex worker theory, though? Like, in so many cases we've covered where the victims were sex workers, the killers just dumped them somewhere on the side of the road, in an alley, ditch. They didn't even try to hide what they've done or what they did. And, like, if they did do that, like, Lisk, like, they did try to hide.

13:42The victims were like super, super hidden, close together, or at least buried outdoors. But this guy, he went to extreme lengths to try to make sure like she would never be found, not even by accident. Right. Like to your point, there are serial killers. Even that MO is a little off. But there actually was one of the first potential suspects, at least that we know of, that they look into was someone who targeted sex workers. and someone who took elaborate steps to hide their bodies or at least make sure that, like, these bodies couldn't be tracked back to him. Now, this guy is among New York's most notorious serial killers, Joel Rifkin.

14:20Rifkin terrorized women all over the city in Long Island from the late 80s into the early 90s. And the only reason he stopped was because he got caught driving with a missing license plate, of all things, like, that he could have gotten caught for. And when he did get caught, police found a decomposing body in his pickup. Now, he ended up confessing to killing 17 women, though he was only ever convicted technically of nine murders. Now, what we know about him is he strangled his victims, all of whom were sex workers or women struggling with addiction. And he was super calculated about disposing of their bodies.

14:54And the thing about him is he used different methods each time, which made it really hard for investigators to connect these crimes. And get this, according to biography.com, with his second victim, he actually put her dismembered head, arms and legs into buckets and then filled those buckets with concrete and dumped them into the East River and a Brooklyn canal. Now, only catch is that Rifkin was known for leaving bodies outside, in water, in woods, near highways. Sometimes he put them in oil drums, but as far as we know, he never stashed anyone away indoors. And I'm not exactly sure how or if they ruled him out back then.

15:36I know Detective Glass interviewed him years later after he inherited the case. But in 2003, even though they're interested in him, they don't seem to really focus on him. Gardner tells Al Gwart that there's time, Rifkin isn't going anywhere, like he's serving over 200 years in prison. Yeah, but anything could happen. Like, what if he dies? I guess, in my opinion, why wait? Well, at the time, I think they were wanting to know more about their victim, who the press is calling Midtown Jane Doe. I think they want to figure that part out before going to him. And we've talked about this before, right?

16:09Like, you try and get, like, all your ducks in a row so you know when someone's lying, you have all the facts. Like, they might get only one shot at those interviews, and without solid information about who she is, they would be at a huge disadvantage. I mean, truthfully, they still don't even know when she was killed. But according to America's Most Wanted, they do catch a break with that when they send crime scene soil samples to the lab. Mixed in with some dirt, they find a torn up clothing label. And after techs like clean it up and look at it under a microscope, they can see seals showing that it was made by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

16:47So Detective Gardner reaches out to them, hoping that they can date this label. And when he gives them the numbers and the letters and all the things on the seal, they tell him that it could not have been made before December of 1987. So like late 80s or even the early 90s. And that's making sense to investigators. I mean, at the time, like 80s, 90s, New York was in the grip of a drug epidemic that was driving violence to levels that they'd never seen before. We're talking like 1 ,900-plus homicides a year. Except, like it's feeling great. Except, that timeline might not be accurate. It takes a while, but they eventually end up learning that the estimate was wrong.

17:30The clothing label, the dates that they were given, were completely off. Manufacturing records show that it could have been made as early as the 60s. So we're back there. That adds almost, what, three more decades to the estimated time frame of her death? Yes, but for some reason, even though they're putting the label at the 60s, police still seem pretty set on the idea that this victim was killed in the 80s. I don't know why, but that's their thinking at the time. So what they do is they have an artist create a reconstruction of her face using detailed measurements from her skull. They get her featured on America's Most Wanted, which was like prime back then, but no one recognizes her.

18:13Now, they managed to determine that the human hairs in the carpet belonged to a blonde male, probably a white guy, but they can't say who that guy is. Was there like a lot of hair? Detective Glass described it as like a pinch, like about what you would clean out of a hairbrush, but they don't know, I mean, if it's the killers or if it was just like mixed up with everything else. Like, it's not going to be, like, the nail in the coffin for someone, right? Like, that's not going to be the clencher. So fast forward a little bit. Over the years, the Emmy's office checks Midtown Jane Doe against various missing people.

18:46And at least one possibility does gain some traction. In August 2011, a woman named Maureen is online when she comes across the sketch of Midtown Jane Doe. And as she later tells Long Island press reporter Jacqueline Gallucci, it stops her in her tracks. because she thinks it looks just like her missing sister, Judy O'Donnell, who vanished in 1980 while pursuing her dreams of becoming an actress and a singer in New York City. And it's not just her looks that strike Maureen as similar. She knew that Judy had been living on the streets in Hell's Kitchen. She knew that she'd been arrested for sex work, which, remember, is the going theory about Midtown Jane Doe.

19:28Plus, they both had expensive dental work that just seemed to stop like their lives took a sharp turn. But what about the ring? Judy O'Donnell doesn't match the initials. Not hers, but those are Judy's grandmother's exact initials. And Maureen knows that Judy and their grandma were super close. And like, there's nobody in her family that remembers a ring like that, but Maureen thinks that it would be like probable that Judy might have like found it somewhere and kept it to honor their grandmother. Like, who knows? So that October, a forensic specialist compare Judy's dental records to Jane Doe's.

20:05But they can't say if it's a match, one way or another. And after being encased in concrete for God knows how long by this point, her bones are so degraded that getting a viable DNA profile is like trying to get blood from a stone. So all told, they submit 33 different samples for analysis. But it's not until 2015 that they're able to get any sort of profile from Midtown Jane Doe. And it's not until the following year that they can confirm that Jane Doe is not Judy O'Donnell. Which is shocking, a surprise, and like disappointing. But at least they have DNA that they can work with now, right? Yes, and they are even able to put it into CODIS.

20:51But the sample is so small that scientists can basically only use it for direct comparison. But either way, you're right. It's progress. And in 2017, there is this renewed push to finally figure out who she is once and for all after a detective rediscovered the case while reviewing old unsolved files. And he decided it was time to take a closer look. What they do now is they try to do isotope analysis, which basically looks at the chemical makeup of hair, teeth, bones, all of that to figure out where a person might have lived. And based on what they do, the results point pretty strongly to one region, the Midwest.

21:32The Minnesota Strip. Yes, it's got a name for a reason, right? But the Midwest doesn't like narrow it down, right? It's not specifically Minnesota. When they checked missing persons reports, were they checking from the Midwest or just like New York and the surrounding area? They were checking everywhere, all over across the country. So, obviously, the isotope test didn't really move things along. So when Detective Glass is assigned the case in 2022, he comes with totally fresh eyes. No preconceived notions about who she was or where she's from or how she got there. And what do you know? It gives him a different take.

22:10His gut is telling him that Midtown Jane Doe wasn't a sex worker and that he thinks she was killed way before 1980. And this theory might have just stayed a theory, but then something huge happens. A lab called Astraea Forensics, which specializes in analyzing low-quality samples, they managed to get a genealogy-grade DNA profile from one of her foot bones. So the NYPD's new genealogist, this woman named Linda Doyle, she is brought on board. And when they upload the sample, they quickly get two crucial hits. They get a first cousin on her dad's side and a first cousin once removed on her mom's side.

22:53That kind of match right off the bat is... Unheard of almost. Yeah, really rare. Yeah. And thank God though, right? Like they are long overdue for a break. And this is a big one because the paternal cousin's surname is McGlone. The uppercase M, lowercase C, uppercase G from the ring. Yep. So Linda starts doing what genealogists do best. She's like digging into public records, old newspapers, obituaries, court documents, anything she can dig up and get her hands on that might show her where these two branches of Jane Doe's family tree intersects. And after all of this research, Linda can only find one person who fits the bill.

23:3616-year-old Patricia McClone. She wasn't born after 1958. She wasn't a sex worker, as far as we know. And she wasn't from the Midwest. She actually lived right there in Brooklyn until she disappeared. Except Patricia was never reported missing. And here's just a random twist. So Patricia's paternal cousin, who died a couple of years before genealogy, tracked the family down, he was actually a retired NYPD cop and had worked as one precinct away from where they found her body. Now, I doubt that they even knew each other. It doesn't seem like they were very, like, the whole family was like a super close-knit family, but it was just, I thought it was so weird.

24:17I don't know. So while detectives have this tentative answer to the question that's haunted them for so long, they're now facing even bigger ones. Like, who was Patricia? What happened in her final days? And how does a teenage girl just vanish without anyone looking for her? So as Detective Glass and Linda dive into the investigation, they begin to uncover a story that has been buried literally for decades. And to even try to understand it, we have to go back to the beginning. Patricia's dad, Bernard McGlone Sr., was a busy man, to say the least. By the time he hooked up with Patricia's mom, who was also named Patricia, but let's just call her Pat, he had already been married twice.

25:04He and his first wife had two sons before they split. Then he remarried to this woman named Helen. They had a son. But while he was still married to Helen, Bernard and Pat got married in Virginia. Now, he knocked about five years off his age on their application, saying that he was 45 when he was nearly 50. And for some reason, Pat added a year, saying she was 21, but she was really only 20. Now, Patricia is born on April 20th, 1953. So this is about 10 months after her parents' so-called wedding, if you can call it that, since he's already married. And at the time, Bernard is still living with Helen, the other woman he's married to.