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episode discusses alleged intimate partner violence. It

0:42

includes discussion of recovery scenes and

0:45

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0:48

parties discussed are assumed innocent unless proven

0:50

guilty in a court of law. This

0:59

is the follow line. Over

1:04

the past two episodes, we've covered the

1:06

1976 disappearance of Patricia

1:08

Patti Otto, a 24-year-old wife and

1:10

mother from Lewiston, Idaho. Her

1:13

husband, Ralph Otto, was publicly identified

1:15

by police as a suspect in her

1:17

missing persons case. But there

1:19

wasn't enough evidence to formally charge

1:22

him, not with anything directly related

1:24

to Patti. And when Ralph died

1:26

in 1983, so did the chance

1:28

to further question him about Patti's

1:30

disappearance. His young daughters,

1:32

Natalie and Suzanne, were raised by his

1:35

sister. Natalie believed in her father's innocence

1:37

and wanted to find Patti. She

1:39

began research into Patti's case that would span the

1:42

rest of her life. Until

1:44

her death in 2006, Natalie

1:46

tracked down files, dental records, court

1:48

transcripts, interviews, anything and everything that

1:51

you could think of. And

1:54

she amassed it all into a huge collection of

1:56

evidence. Now, her sister Suzanne used to

1:58

be a victim of the murder of a

2:00

woman. is that same wealth of information plus

2:03

what she's gathered on her own but toward

2:05

different ends. She's not trying

2:07

to prove Ralph Otto's innocence. In

2:09

fact, she believes that he is the

2:12

strongest suspect in her mother's disappearance and

2:14

she's been trying to retrace his steps

2:16

since that night in August to discover

2:18

what became of Patti. Patti

2:21

Otto has received a fair amount of

2:23

media coverage more than most people featured

2:25

on our show. Much of

2:27

that press is a direct result of

2:29

the work of her daughter Suzanne and

2:32

the advocates that light the way and

2:34

Mel Jeterberg has been advocating for another

2:36

case, an unidentified 1978 homicide victim

2:39

known as the Finley Creek Jane Doe.

2:42

And it's the intersection of these

2:44

cases that brings their stories to

2:46

the fall line. What happened between 1978 and

2:48

now to create a web of

2:52

uncertainty that's left everyone caught

2:55

without answers. It

3:07

was late August 1978 near Elgin,

3:09

Oregon when a group of hunters stumbled

3:12

upon a shallow grave. According

3:14

to the Albany Democrat Herald, it was

3:16

clear that animals had been digging in

3:18

the brush. They'd exposed bone and the

3:20

loose soil near Finley Creek per the

3:22

Herald. Quote, the grave was about 200

3:24

yards from an old

3:26

mill site, which is a regular parking

3:29

place for hunters vehicles. The

3:31

paper noted that the area was

3:33

about quote, five miles from the

3:35

nearest house. According to the observer,

3:37

there was a permanent hunters campsite

3:39

nearby too and a road. So

3:41

not a totally rural area. A

3:43

well-worn deer trail ran through the

3:45

area where the victim's grave had

3:47

been discovered. According to the

3:49

Democrat Herald, law enforcement believed the victim

3:51

to be quote, a young female adult

3:53

who may have been killed by a

3:56

cord found in the grave. One

3:58

that Ben D.A. Dale Mammon described. described as

4:00

quote, a radio antenna cable,

4:02

but that it was suppositioned

4:04

pending examination by Dr. William

4:07

Brady, state medical examiner. Dr.

4:09

Brady's lab was based in Portland,

4:11

about four hours away. The

4:13

victim likely had quote, sandy colored hair

4:16

and was found with the remains of

4:18

several articles of clothing, quote,

4:20

a halter shop, red trousers and

4:22

ankle high work boots. Police

4:24

files note that a length of nylon cord

4:27

was found at the grave too. The

4:29

victim's clothing, they were remnants. What

4:32

an officer at the scene described as

4:35

red cloth and white cloth was small

4:37

red hearts. On further

4:39

inspection at the medical examiner's office,

4:41

officials would be able to discern

4:43

a little more. Her pants were

4:45

quote, Catalina brand size 1516, which

4:48

showed evidence of possible alterations.

4:51

For reference, the pants were about a

4:53

modern women's size eight or 10. The

4:56

article notes that the victim quote, may

4:58

have been pregnant. We know

5:00

medical legal professionals found bones at

5:02

the scene that they suspected might've

5:04

been those of a full or

5:06

near full term infant, but fetal

5:08

and infant bones, they can easily

5:11

be confused with small animal bones.

5:13

Per the Arizona state museum quote,

5:15

the most common human bones to be

5:18

mistaken for nonhuman animal bones are those

5:20

of infants. They are sufficiently

5:22

different from adults and even the

5:24

bones of older children that they can

5:26

cause considerable confusion. And the victim's

5:29

grave had been exposed for a long time

5:31

with predator activity apparent, which

5:33

made intermingling a possibility. It's

5:36

not unusual to find animal bones

5:38

at a recovery scene like that

5:41

of Finley Creek. The medical examiner's

5:43

files make it clear that only

5:45

partial remains were found. Her remains

5:47

were likely scattered by animals or

5:49

environmental factors. That is why

5:51

a professional review was needed. Initial

5:54

county reports give us more detail on

5:56

the victim, including her clothing and further

5:58

description of the seen. Per

6:01

these initial reports, the recovery

6:03

site itself was made more clear.

6:05

Quote, a brushy and timbered hillside,

6:08

approximately 300 yards from the

6:10

road. Dirt at the grave site

6:12

was sieved for further evidence, and the

6:14

file notes that a metal detector was

6:16

used as well, but with negative

6:18

results. At the

6:20

disturbed grave, law enforcement discovered most

6:23

of a cranium and mandible, bones

6:25

from the spine, ribs, and some

6:27

bones of what they described as,

6:29

quote, the arms, legs, and pelvis.

6:32

Later reports also noted that the victim's

6:34

hair was, quote, strewn near her spool,

6:36

and that, quote, sections of wood were

6:38

lying on the west side of the

6:40

hole. They also noted that

6:42

those small bones we mentioned, they were

6:44

found, quote, near the pelvic area. When

6:46

the Finley Creek Jane Doe made it

6:49

to the state lab for examination, there

6:51

was a thorough accounting of her remains,

6:53

but no detailed notes on the possible

6:56

fetal bones, at least not in the

6:58

files that we received. It

7:00

seems that this grave had been

7:02

disturbed to the point that the

7:04

full recovery scene might have stretched

7:06

farther than the immediate area surrounding

7:08

the shallow hole. Bones and other

7:10

material could be recovered at some distance

7:13

away if a search was done.

7:15

We don't have any further details in

7:17

the files we reviewed as to how

7:19

extensive the recovery search was or how

7:21

far a field initial efforts might have

7:23

been. For instance, was a

7:26

grid search done to recover further

7:28

bones or multiple searches

7:30

over days? We can't

7:32

be sure that the records released

7:34

via FOIA cover all the efforts

7:36

by investigators, but in what we

7:39

reviewed, we did not see any

7:41

notes regarding recovery efforts beyond the

7:43

primary scene of the grave. There

7:53

was actually another Jane Doe who was discovered

7:55

in Oregon, just a month before Finley Creek

7:57

Jane Doe. That was in the case of

7:59

the late July of 1978 in Multnomah

8:02

County and in the woods near Lewis

8:04

and Clark College. This victim

8:07

was another young white female in roughly

8:09

the same age range but she

8:11

would eventually be identified as a

8:14

missing woman named Annette Willis. This

8:17

detail is important because there

8:19

was some initial confusion between

8:21

these cases. You see,

8:23

when the Finley Creek Jane Doe's remains

8:25

were discovered, someone reached out to Lewiston

8:27

police in Idaho to let them know

8:29

that a woman who seemed to match

8:31

Patty's description had been found. After

8:34

all, she had light hair, was wearing similar

8:36

clothing and she was in the right age

8:38

range. Based on police reports,

8:41

it seems that when law enforcement

8:43

initially contacted the state about Finley

8:45

Creek Jane Doe, there may have

8:48

been some miscommunication about which case

8:50

was which. That is,

8:52

which victim was the closest match for

8:54

Patty. That later paperwork

8:56

does appear to clarify the matter.

8:59

There's also been some speculation that

9:01

Finley Creek Jane Doe and Annette

9:03

Willis's records might have been mixed

9:05

up or combined, but based on

9:07

a review of the files, that

9:10

appears to be unlikely. However,

9:12

there's still the matter of Finley Creek

9:14

Jane Doe and a comparison with Patty

9:16

Otto. The notes on this

9:19

are scarce and they're spread across

9:21

a few files, but from what we, Suzanne

9:24

and Mel Jutterberg, you'll be hearing

9:26

from her very soon, have surmised,

9:28

the exclusion came down to Patty's

9:31

wisdom teeth. There was a

9:33

note from the medical examiner that Patty

9:35

could not be the Finley Creek Jane

9:37

Doe because she'd had all of her

9:39

wisdom teeth removed and the Finley Creek

9:41

Jane Doe was only missing one. We

9:44

aren't sure how that information was

9:46

communicated to the ME's office because

9:48

there is absolutely no record of

9:51

Patty having all four of her

9:53

wisdom teeth removed. She did have

9:55

a panoramic X-ray done in 1975,

9:57

which Dennis... had

10:00

told Suzanne can be a precursor to

10:02

wisdom teeth removal. And

10:04

her sister Alice remembers that Patty

10:06

did eventually have one wisdom tooth

10:08

removed – the upper right, though

10:10

there are no official records of

10:12

this. But again,

10:14

there aren't any dental records to

10:17

indicate that Patty Otto had four

10:19

wisdom teeth removed. Patty

10:21

had very little recorded dental work which

10:24

could have been another possible reason for

10:26

the rule out at the time. Dr.

10:28

Brady had noted 11 fillings

10:30

for Finley Creek Jane Doe, but that

10:32

was not his stated reasoning. In

10:35

Patty's official exclusion, the wisdom teeth

10:37

were the factor, and Patty Otto

10:40

has been listed as excluded ever

10:42

since. Patty Otto was

10:44

also not publicly known to be

10:47

pregnant, though that certainly cannot be

10:49

stated conclusively. That could have

10:51

been another factor, but it's not noted

10:53

anywhere in the paperwork that we reviewed.

10:56

According to records collected by Suzanne and

10:58

Mel, Patty's parents were brought in to

11:00

view Finley Creek Jane Doe's clothing at

11:02

some point and said that they did

11:05

not recognize it. Suzanne

11:07

has wondered though if the

11:09

shoes were the sticking point. The

11:11

remnants of the clothing were such a

11:13

close match to her mother's, and she

11:15

never knew of Patty to wear work

11:17

boots or even hiking boots, which were

11:19

the shoes that were found in the grave. But

11:22

Suzanne has thought about whether those

11:24

shoes could have actually been added

11:26

post-mortem to make it seem like

11:28

Finley Creek Jane Doe was perhaps

11:31

a lost hiker rather than someone who'd

11:33

been killed and dumped in the woods.

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in all states or situations. Prices vary based

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on how you buy. Finley

14:17

Creek Jane Doe remained unidentified through the

14:19

1970s and the 1980s. Though she was

14:24

compared to a number of women, none of those

14:26

leads panned out. And in 1990, her case was

14:30

officially closed. The evidence

14:32

was destroyed and Finley Creek

14:35

Jane Doe's remains were cremated.

14:37

The case files with photos

14:39

and dental charting were maintained.

14:42

It's hard for modern audiences to

14:44

imagine such a thing. But up

14:47

until the mid to late 90s, cremation

14:49

of unidentified victims was

14:51

quite commonplace. We've seen

14:53

it many times. Though DNA science existed,

14:55

the full scope of what it could

14:58

do and what it would do in

15:00

the future was not well understood.

15:03

When it comes to developing

15:05

a viable DNA profile, testing

15:07

cremains yields a low probability

15:10

of success. The material

15:12

that retains our DNA is

15:14

simply burned away in the cremation

15:16

process. And what's more,

15:18

not that anyone knew it for

15:20

years, the location of the Finley

15:22

Creek Jane Doe's cremains, that

15:25

was unclear too. They'd have

15:27

to be located for testing to even

15:29

be attempted. And no one was attempting

15:31

that because her case was closed. Not

15:34

until a local woman named Mel

15:36

Jeterberg took an interest. And

15:39

that brings us to how the

15:41

long closed case of Finley Creek

15:43

Jane Doe resurfaced. Though her file

15:45

was closed, it was retained and

15:47

local authorities entered her information into

15:50

the NamUs database and the Doe

15:52

Network. That's how Mel Jeterberg found

15:54

her. Mel is one of

15:56

the few people who became interested in Finley

15:58

Creek Jane Doe. The red graves,

16:00

who you've heard from on the show many

16:02

times, are as well, and so is an

16:05

Arkansas researcher named Jason Futch. Nowadays,

16:07

Mel considers herself to be an advocate

16:10

for the case, but when she began,

16:12

she had a much simpler goal in

16:14

mind, to find out if there were

16:16

any unidentified person's cases in her area,

16:19

and to see if she could help.

16:22

She studied library science and criminology in

16:24

school, and then she'd gone into social

16:26

work, so she came with a certain

16:28

set of research skills. And

16:30

Mel said she'd always been interested

16:32

in cold cases. Prior

16:35

to your involvement in the Finley Creek

16:38

Jane Doe case, had you

16:40

ever had any interest in following specifically

16:42

Doe cases? When did

16:44

you first become aware of unidentified

16:46

person's cases? Because we often find

16:48

that people really don't know

16:50

nearly as much about the issue

16:52

of unidentified persons, not like

16:55

we do missing persons or homicides

16:57

among the identified. I

17:00

wouldn't say that I had a specific

17:02

interest about Doe cases,

17:04

particularly. I

17:07

would say that the idea

17:09

of missing persons was

17:11

really intriguing to me at the time,

17:14

just because you would hear these stories

17:16

and you would often hear words like,

17:18

without a trace or just vanished. My

17:21

logical brain would tell me, that's not

17:25

possible. How can people just vanish?

17:28

And then the more I read these

17:30

stories, the more it started to dawn

17:33

on me that, well, you end up

17:35

with these remains in other places that

17:38

maybe don't correlate with a person who went

17:40

missing in the same place, or the

17:44

circumstances, they can't immediately figure out what

17:47

happened to them. The

17:49

two started meshing together, the more

17:51

stories I would read or listen

17:53

to or whatever it

17:56

might be. And so, I have

17:58

gotten quite an education. about

18:01

the number of unidentified

18:03

there are across the

18:05

country. Eventually,

18:08

Mel's knowledge made her begin

18:10

to wonder what cases existed

18:12

in her own backyard. And

18:15

since I was in a small town, too, born

18:17

and raised here, I was like, well, why don't

18:19

I start at home and just look and see

18:21

what I can find? I

18:23

read a book by Deborah

18:26

Halberz, called The Skeleton Crew, and

18:28

just hearing these resources, like the Doe

18:30

Network, that are out there that you

18:32

can look at to see if there

18:34

are any unidentifieds or any missing

18:37

people from your area, I did that. I

18:39

sat down one Friday night and just

18:42

logged onto the Doe Network and, of

18:44

course, put in Union County, Oregon, because

18:46

that's where I live, and

18:49

was not expecting to find anything there. I

18:51

had never heard in the course of almost

18:53

50 years of being

18:55

alive of an unidentified body

18:58

being found here, but yet there was one.

19:01

She was listed as

19:03

being in her early 20s, potentially

19:07

pregnant. They described to the clothing that

19:09

she was wearing, where she was found.

19:12

After she did some digging, Mel

19:15

discovered a small digital footprint on

19:17

the case, mostly in online forum

19:19

posts. One was from a man

19:21

who carried out his own research. A

19:25

guy by the name of Jason Futch

19:27

had reached out several years prior to

19:30

when I found this entry on the

19:32

Doe Network to our library here at

19:34

Eastern Oregon University and

19:36

had the librarian dig up the newspaper

19:38

clippings that she could find about

19:41

the body, and he had posted those. So that

19:43

gave me a little bit more information about the

19:46

circumstances under which she was found. It

19:48

said more about what she was wearing.

19:50

It talked about some statements that the

19:52

district attorney had made at the time.

19:56

Mel Decided to reach out to investigators

19:58

and officials who'd been missing. And in

20:00

the news articles that she'd seen, of

20:02

course many were long retired, but she

20:05

did find one man. The. Former

20:07

District Attorney Deal Mammon. He

20:09

had a profile on Linkedin. While

20:12

I haven't had a lot of use for

20:14

a link to in before, that, this was

20:17

the only social platform that I could find.

20:19

The District Attorney on his name was Dell

20:21

Mammon. And he's an

20:23

older guy. I went to school with

20:25

his kids and he was not on

20:27

Facebook or anything like that. So that's

20:30

what I initially started doing was picking

20:32

out name from these newspaper articles to

20:34

see. All right, who's still with us

20:36

who is still around here that maybe

20:38

I could get a of in talk

20:40

to. and then once I got a

20:42

message back from Dell Mammon on linked

20:45

in I went and had coffee with

20:47

him and his lovely wife as well

20:49

just to get some information about what

20:51

he remembered from the time. And he

20:53

remembered the case very very well. And.

20:56

So that was really nice and he

20:58

gave me some more direction to go

21:01

in. He gave me contact information for.

21:03

The. Editor of our local newspaper and said well

21:05

maybe you might want to get an article for

21:07

in the paper For those older folks who may

21:10

are up on social media. And things

21:12

like that. So. That

21:14

was fantastic and see also

21:16

was at the time the

21:19

family attorney for the lead

21:21

investigator on the case. His.

21:24

Name is Doc Baker Zoc

21:26

Baker however at that time

21:28

very elderly and his memory

21:30

was not so good and

21:32

so. Deal. Offer to go

21:34

speak with Stock Baker and see

21:37

if you remembered anything about the

21:39

case. After

21:41

I started speaking with people.

21:44

And listening to more podcast

21:46

quite frankly, I. Kept

21:49

hearing people refer to records request and I

21:52

didn't believe in know with that was. So.

21:55

I. looked into

21:57

how you might do that and i

21:59

found kind of a boilerplate

22:02

form online where if

22:04

you have a case number, you plug in

22:06

the case number, you send the request through

22:08

their online system and that led nowhere.

22:11

The case number, the first case number,

22:13

because there are two out there online,

22:16

Oregon State Police came back and said

22:18

there's nothing attached to this. The second

22:21

case number was somebody's parking

22:24

ticket or traffic citation that had

22:26

nothing to do with the case. So

22:29

I actually attended a

22:31

little seminar about how

22:34

to do records requests just so I wouldn't

22:36

know what I was doing. And so we sent

22:41

these records requests very detailed asking for exactly

22:43

what we wanted. We want reports, we want

22:45

pictures, if you have maps, if you have

22:47

notes scribbled on a cocktail napkin, we want

22:50

all of that and we

22:52

sent it to everyone. We sent it

22:54

to city, state, and county people just

22:56

to see who may have had what.

22:59

And we finally did get the

23:01

case file from a records technician

23:04

in Salem and

23:07

to our wonderful surprise it actually

23:09

did have photos in it as

23:11

well which ended up being very

23:13

important. So

23:16

when you first found out about the

23:18

Finley Creek Jane Doe, did

23:20

you know right away that she'd

23:22

been cremated and that the evidence

23:24

had been destroyed in her case?

23:26

It was not until I read

23:28

that case file that I discovered

23:30

that the case had been closed,

23:34

they couldn't determine who she was

23:36

or what happened to her, and

23:38

that the district attorney in 1990

23:40

said, all right well you can

23:43

go ahead and destroy the evidence

23:46

and the body too. And

23:49

it didn't stay cremation in

23:51

the police file, I had

23:53

to do some more digging

23:55

with the funeral homes in

23:58

this town to find out that they that's what had

24:00

actually happened to her. That

24:03

left Mel with a second investigation,

24:05

trying to figure out who had

24:07

cremated the Finley Creek Jane Doe

24:09

and who currently had custody of

24:11

her remains. As far

24:13

as she could discover, no agency

24:15

she contacted had maintained those records

24:17

or the victim's remains. So

24:22

after I got the case file, there

24:25

was a notation in there about

24:27

a funeral home that she

24:29

had been sent to. That's

24:31

where her remains

24:33

were actually stored for years and years.

24:35

They weren't stored in an evidence locker

24:37

here in La Grant. They were

24:40

at this funeral home. And of course

24:42

the funeral home, the name of it back

24:44

then was not one that

24:47

exists now. So I found

24:49

out that back then,

24:51

if they needed somebody's remains to

24:54

be cremated, they would send them

24:56

to Walla Walla Washington, which

24:59

while it is another state, it's really only

25:01

an hour or so from here. Even

25:04

though the body

25:06

went to the funeral home in 1978

25:10

and the case was closed in 1990, there's

25:13

no way of knowing what

25:15

happened in the meantime, where any records went.

25:17

So I was giving them these dates and

25:19

they were trying to go find in their

25:21

records, anything pertaining to these

25:24

mysterious circumstances that I laid out for

25:26

them. And finally they

25:28

found a single sheet of paper with

25:31

the Oregon State Police case number on

25:33

it. And

25:36

the notation said, sent

25:38

to a funeral

25:40

home in Walla Walla and

25:43

paper trail to the state

25:45

mortuary board. And

25:47

that's it. Just this handwritten note

25:50

saying where she had gone. So

25:52

I had a name of a funeral home. Very

25:54

excited about that. But

25:58

that Walla Walla funeral home. they

26:00

couldn't help no. They didn't have the records

26:02

that she needed. They did

26:04

suggest though that she contact the local

26:07

coroner. I

26:09

went to the coroner's office's website first just

26:11

to kind of get some contact information and

26:13

poke around and see what I could see

26:15

and the County

26:17

of Walla Walla had gotten a grant to

26:21

build a website specifically

26:23

for their unclaimed

26:26

remains and they

26:28

had a lot. And

26:30

so as I went through this website

26:33

I saw that there was a John

26:35

Doe listed there with

26:38

a death date of January 1st of 1993.

26:40

And now I know it sounds

26:45

like a leap but

26:47

I could just picture

26:49

somebody coming along years later

26:52

after somebody had been

26:54

cremated finding a bag and

26:56

going, well I don't know where these

26:58

come from but I'm finding them in 1993 so I'm

27:00

just gonna put this date

27:02

on them you know that kind of thing. Humans do

27:04

that kind of thing all the time. So

27:07

I reached out to the coroner and

27:09

pulled him the story, went through the

27:11

whole Finley Creek Jane Doe story and

27:13

I said I'm curious about this John

27:15

Doe that you have listed on your

27:18

website. Can you tell me about

27:20

it? And he

27:23

went and did some digging and

27:25

said yes that is indeed a bag

27:27

of cremains and there is

27:29

a sticker on them from this funeral

27:31

home that you said that she went

27:33

to to get cremated and I got

27:35

very very excited. What

27:38

did he think about the date

27:40

discrepancy? He was not concerned about it. I think

27:42

he knew because he's the one

27:47

who had engineered getting

27:49

the website

27:51

up and running I think he knew

27:53

there was room for it to be

27:55

a possibility and from what we understood

27:57

we had done some research about the wall

28:00

Walla area and

28:02

they didn't have any

28:04

unidentified folks that had been

28:06

found that that

28:08

person could be. They had

28:11

unclaimed remains but we were fairly certain

28:13

that this doe that was sitting there

28:15

was not from Walla Walla that had

28:17

likely come from somewhere else. So

28:19

I think and he knew that too so

28:21

he had not expressed any concern about

28:23

the date discrepancy. And

28:26

were you not able to find any other

28:28

doe's that could easily match up

28:30

with those cremeins? Nope we

28:32

could not. So do

28:35

the officials that you've dealt with do

28:38

they agree with you that these

28:40

could potentially be the cremeins of the Bemley

28:42

Creek Jane Doe? I can

28:44

say that none of them have said no it

28:47

absolutely can't be her. I feel

28:50

like they are as

28:52

aware as we are that these

28:54

paper trails have been severely broken

28:57

and that anything is possible at

28:59

this point. So

29:02

while Mel believes it's likely she

29:05

cannot conclusively say that the cremeins

29:07

found in Walla Walla are those

29:09

of Bemley Creek Jane Doe. There

29:11

just is not the proper paper

29:13

trail to help her verify everything

29:15

she'd need to follow the chain

29:17

of custody but she believes

29:19

there's a good chance. She's

29:22

also spent a lot of time

29:24

examining all that paperwork that she

29:26

received from investigators including Finley Creek

29:28

Jane Doe's dental charts, the possible

29:30

comparisons and the photos included in

29:32

the file. Since they've managed

29:35

to have friends of art completed

29:37

in the case people have begun

29:39

to come forward with possible missing

29:41

persons comparisons but there's still been

29:43

an ongoing issue incomplete records on

29:46

one side or another. The

29:48

problem that we are running into

29:50

with that is that some of

29:53

these missing women while there

29:55

is a dental chart that is available it

29:59

was done in the 70s as well, and

30:01

sometimes those aren't complete either. And so

30:03

even though there's one in particular that

30:05

I can think of a woman

30:08

named Nancy Baird out of Utah, I get

30:10

people asking me all the time, could this

30:12

be her? It looks like her. Because if

30:14

you look at Finley Creek Jane Doe's

30:17

forensic art and photos of Nancy

30:19

Baird went missing

30:21

out of Utah, they look strikingly similar.

30:25

But while Nancy

30:28

has dental charts, they

30:30

really don't say anything on them because

30:32

I have seen those and

30:35

her name's not even on them. So

30:38

while there are dental charts to compare, they cannot

30:41

be used as a rule out, and

30:43

that's one of the things that we

30:45

keep running into as well, because we

30:47

have these photographs of Finley Creek Jane

30:50

Doe's skull and her teeth and her

30:52

dentition, but the photographs are

30:54

not very good. And it's

30:57

very hard for any kind of expert to

30:59

say with any surety that

31:01

this person

31:04

is not Finley Creek Jane Doe because

31:07

the pictures just aren't good enough. They're not good enough

31:09

quality to do that. So that's where

31:11

we are at. This

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32:31

And that brings us to the moment

32:33

when Mel and Suzanne connected. Suzanne

32:36

told the Observer that it was

32:38

2021 when she was scrolling through

32:40

Facebook. She was looking at missing

32:42

person's postings. And it was

32:44

there that she saw the forensic art of Finley

32:46

Creek Jane Doe. She discovered

32:49

the reconstruction was completed by Dr.

32:51

Anthony Redgrave of Redgrave Forensics, who

32:53

we mentioned earlier in the show.

32:55

The image struck Suzanne. She

32:58

told the Observer, quote, I said, why

33:00

am I here? I'm not a

33:02

missing person. But of course,

33:05

Suzanne's mother is. Has been

33:07

since 1976. When

33:09

she read a description of what the Finley Creek

33:11

Jane Doe was wearing when her remains

33:13

were discovered, it was even more shocking.

33:16

According to the Observer, Suzanne said,

33:18

quote, That was exactly what my

33:20

mom had on last time I

33:22

saw her. By that time,

33:24

Mel had been running social media pages

33:26

for Finley Creek Jane Doe for some

33:29

time. Suzanne reached out

33:31

and they talked. When they connected,

33:33

Suzanne made another startling discovery. She

33:35

had a number of personal connections

33:37

to Finley Creek Jane Doe. She'd

33:39

moved to Walla Walla with her

33:41

family back in 1999. The

33:44

same place where the Finley Creek Jane

33:46

Doe's remains were potentially since. And

33:49

it's not just that Suzanne ended up in

33:51

Walla Walla. It's that her

33:54

second husband's family, they were the

33:56

hunters who discovered Finley Creek Jane

33:58

Doe's remains. Now, she'd

34:00

never heard that story from them.

34:03

They'd always assumed that the person's

34:05

remains they'd found had been identified

34:07

long ago. It was only

34:09

when she came upon the news story and

34:11

she talked to Mel that her husband's family

34:13

remembered and told her about it. We

34:16

asked Mel about her reaction when

34:18

Suzanne first made contact, if

34:21

she'd already known about Patti Otto. When

34:24

did you first become aware of

34:27

Patricia Otto's case? Was

34:29

it through the Finley Creek Jane Doe's

34:31

vial or another way? When

34:34

I had been working on this

34:36

case, I did see Patricia Otto's

34:39

name on NamUs because she is

34:41

listed as a rule

34:44

out there. It

34:46

didn't sink in very

34:49

much though until Patricia Otto's

34:51

daughter Suzanne reached out to

34:54

me and

34:56

said who she was. She

34:58

told me the circumstances of her mom's disappearance and

35:00

she said how was my mother

35:04

ruled out as being Finley Creek Jane

35:06

Doe? Was it the pregnancy?

35:11

She reached out to me in the

35:13

summer of 2021 and it was at

35:15

that moment that I

35:17

realized, wait a minute, her

35:20

name's on NamUs but her name is

35:22

not in my file. So

35:24

I don't know how she was ruled

35:26

out. And

35:29

so that's when I first

35:31

became aware, truly aware of

35:34

Patricia Otto's case beyond her name just

35:36

being listed as a rule out on

35:38

NamUs for Finley Creek Jane Doe. We

35:42

told you earlier in the episode about

35:44

Patti's rule out and how that came

35:47

to be but Mel and Suzanne didn't

35:49

know that then. They reached

35:51

out to Oregon State authorities and got

35:53

a copy of the note that Dr.

35:55

Brady made about Patti Sturgmuller's, her wisdom

35:57

teeth. And Suzanne's binders

36:00

inherited from her sister Natalie. She

36:02

had a copy of Patty's panoramic

36:04

x-ray. It showed that, at least

36:06

in 1975, Patty had

36:08

all of her wisdom teeth. A

36:10

friend of Natalie's who worked at the

36:13

same dentist's office years later. As we

36:15

mentioned, a family member does recall Patty

36:17

having had one wisdom tooth removed, but

36:19

there are no records of her having

36:22

all four taken out. The original

36:24

exclusion reason. They

36:26

spoke with Oregon authorities about having a

36:28

new comparison done, but there have been

36:30

issues there too. Because of the

36:33

quality of the photos remaining of Finley

36:35

Creek Jane Doe, it's been extremely difficult

36:37

to do a thorough comparison to Patty.

36:39

In the past, some consulted experts

36:42

have felt that they could not

36:44

offer a conclusive answer, and others

36:46

have been bearingly more or less

36:48

supportive of a match. As

36:51

of February of 2023, Washington's

36:53

NBC King Five sought out

36:55

further expert opinions. Per their

36:57

reporting, they asked, quote, Washington

36:59

State Patrol to see if

37:01

one of their forensic odontologists

37:03

could look at Otto's dental

37:05

x-ray and compare that to

37:07

the medical examiner's photos of

37:09

the remains. They are confident

37:11

it is not the same person. Mel

37:14

and Suzanne, they are

37:16

less sure though. The number of

37:18

experts who have felt uncomfortable offering

37:20

an opinion with the photographic evidence

37:23

at hand makes them feel that

37:25

they need a more in-depth review.

37:28

They believe that Finley Creek Jane Doe

37:30

is likely Patty, and that the cremains

37:33

from Walla Walla are Finley Creek Jane

37:35

Does. But the

37:37

only way to prove that right now

37:39

is with DNA. And when

37:41

Dr. Redgrave helped them arrange for testing

37:44

at Lakehead Labs in late 2022, they

37:46

hoped that they'd get that chance. The

37:49

Walla Walla coroner agreed to send

37:51

cremains in for testing, but unfortunately,

37:53

the results were not what everyone

37:55

had hoped. The lab was

37:57

unable to detect human nuclear DNA. or

38:00

mitochondrial DNA. That

38:02

has not stopped Mel, Suzanne, and their

38:04

supporters though. They hope to do future

38:07

testing, but they are most focused on

38:09

a more thorough search of the

38:11

area where Finley Creek Jane Doe was

38:13

discovered. That's because if

38:16

further remains can be found, remains

38:18

that were not damaged by heat, then

38:21

DNA testing will likely be

38:23

successful. And they've been working on

38:25

that. Along with the victim

38:27

advocates, Shana and Tates from Life The

38:29

Way, they spoke with authorities about a

38:31

new search of that area, and that

38:33

did come to fruition. When

38:36

exactly did that occur, and to

38:38

your knowledge, what were officials searching for?

38:42

That took place in August of

38:44

2022, so a little over a

38:46

year ago now. And

38:51

what they were looking for were

38:53

additional bones that might not have

38:55

been recovered. Because if

38:57

you read Dr. Brady's

39:00

accounting of the bones that

39:03

were found, there

39:05

are some arm bones missing, part

39:07

of the pelvis is missing, and

39:11

they only recovered one

39:13

small chunk of hair that was still attached

39:15

to the skull. I

39:18

think they were likely looking for maybe other

39:21

artifacts that were out there. So maybe if

39:23

a ring had fallen off a finger and

39:25

hadn't been recovered at the time, or any

39:29

other kind of jewelry or things along

39:31

those lines. And they

39:33

were working off of the

39:35

fact that we had had

39:38

several searches done

39:40

by human remains detection dogs out

39:42

there. And the

39:45

major case sergeant for

39:47

our area, Sean Belding,

39:50

had been at the last one. So he saw those

39:52

dogs at work, and he saw the

39:54

results that we got, which were confirmations

39:58

in two different areas. that

40:01

there was scent being

40:03

found there by those dogs. So they

40:06

were looking for bones

40:08

that had not been recovered. And what

40:11

they ended up doing though was excavating

40:14

the site that

40:16

as near as we could

40:18

ascertain based on the prior reports

40:22

and one of the

40:24

eyewitnesses going back to the scene, they searched

40:26

that area and just dug down fairly deep

40:29

to see if they could find any other

40:31

bones or any other human matter down there.

40:33

And they were not able

40:35

to find anything that looked

40:37

like it could have been part of

40:40

Finley Creek Jane Doe's remains. Unfortunately

40:44

nothing was recovered but Mel, Suzanne,

40:46

and Light the Way are hopeful

40:48

that there will be a second

40:51

search. Mel said that

40:53

a team of dogs hit on a

40:55

few more areas that have not yet

40:57

been rechecked. They continue to pursue more

40:59

expert opinions, news coverage, to fundraise, and

41:02

more than anything to work as a

41:04

team. Mel has become as

41:06

involved in Patty's case as Suzanne

41:08

has in Finley Creek Jane Doe's

41:10

and Light the Way is now

41:12

advocating for both victims. They

41:14

see all of the work as connected.

41:17

Whether or not Paddy Otto is Finley

41:19

Creek Jane Doe, for Mel

41:21

it started with the need to help

41:23

out with one case but it's become

41:25

a major part of her life's purpose.

41:29

I am one of those people

41:32

who once you find

41:34

something that you are passionate about

41:36

whether you intended to find it

41:39

or it found you, I cannot

41:41

let it go. And I found that

41:43

once I started

41:49

really reflecting on

41:51

this young woman

41:53

who when she died

41:55

was my

41:58

parents age. When

42:00

she died, she likely

42:02

died at the hands of somebody

42:04

she knew and trusted. It

42:07

just spoke to me in a way

42:09

that I could not let

42:11

go of. One of the

42:13

other things to know about me is

42:15

that one of the topics that

42:17

I teach to workers

42:20

with the state of Oregon is

42:22

around supporting survivors of domestic violence.

42:25

And once I got into this case

42:27

and read the circumstances, when

42:30

a young pregnant woman is murdered and

42:32

dumped in the woods with nothing but

42:34

the clothes on her back, to

42:37

me, that screams intimate

42:39

partner. And that just

42:41

raised the stakes for me even

42:43

more. It became super

42:46

personal and I just

42:48

felt like I had to help. I had to help

42:50

this woman because nobody else was helping her. And

42:54

so that sparked off just

42:56

this drive to do what

42:59

I could do. It's

43:01

really become a passion project. And

43:03

it has transformed in the last

43:05

couple of years because of course, in

43:08

the course of doing all this, I've met Suzanne

43:12

and she, being

43:15

the daughter of a missing woman, is even

43:17

more passionate about this than I am.

43:20

And so joining

43:22

forces with her has really

43:24

helped push things forward and

43:26

motivate and help us build

43:29

our game plan, really, and just keep

43:31

fighting and keep pushing because now, even

43:36

if Finley Creek Jane Doe doesn't turn out to be

43:38

her mom, I have a friend, a

43:40

new friend who is missing

43:42

her mom. And I will

43:44

do anything I possibly can to help

43:46

her find her mom. And

43:49

Suzanne feels the same way about

43:51

Mel and Finley Creek Jane Doe's

43:53

case. We talked about what

43:55

her response would be if Patty was

43:57

to be ruled out by DNA. If

44:01

she's ruled out by DNA, that would mean

44:03

like they're saying, I don't match her. My

44:06

next step would be then, I am

44:08

somehow drawn and connected to this woman

44:10

and I have got to find her

44:13

family and get her back to her family.

44:16

My steps would be, who is she so I can

44:18

return her to her family? Because I have now invested

44:20

two years of my life to prove that that's my

44:23

mother. And we have

44:25

tried every route to prove the

44:27

opposite, that it's one of the women that were presented. We've

44:30

done everything to prove that every one of those women that

44:32

were presented. What if it's them? What

44:34

if because the dental around? What if it was one

44:37

of the girls that were presented? I've

44:40

accepted that. I'm like, it's not my mom?

44:42

Well, good Lord, it's someone's mom. Do you

44:44

think I'm going to just walk away and

44:46

say like, what's not my mom? I'd be

44:48

like, I can't. Wow. I'm

44:51

shocked. I can't believe it's not my mom. But that's

44:53

someone's mother or their daughter. It's someone's

44:55

daughter for sure. And it could be

44:58

someone's mother. I've got to help

45:00

this family bring home their loved one. I

45:03

would immediately want to put my focus into

45:05

I want to find who she

45:07

belongs to then because for some reason, for

45:10

some reason, my father-in-law who

45:13

was only eight years old at the time

45:15

found this body and I moved to Walla

45:17

Walla and married his son. I've

45:19

got to find this connection. So

45:23

for now, Suzanne, Mel and Light

45:25

The Way work both cases every

45:28

way they can. They're concentrating

45:30

on fundraising, media awareness and

45:32

new avenues to testing. Mel

45:34

told us about some of the things that they've

45:37

accomplished so far. It

45:39

was after I met Suzanne

45:41

that we were able to

45:43

do some dog searches.

45:46

We also did a fundraising

45:49

event early on when we

45:51

first realized that there were

45:53

creams out there. We

45:56

called it a night with the Finley Creek Jane

45:58

Doe and we put out there

46:00

on our social media and we

46:03

invited the district attorney

46:05

Dale Mammon who handled the case. We invited

46:07

him to come and speak. We

46:10

also did,

46:12

it was a fundraiser,

46:14

it was an awareness raiser for Patty's case

46:16

rather than Finley Creek Jane Doe's. However, when

46:20

we talk about one case, we generally talk

46:23

about the other when we do any kind

46:25

of events. So we held a party last

46:27

year in honor of

46:29

Patty Otto's 70th birthday. We

46:32

marched up the main street of Lewiston.

46:34

We started at the courthouse where

46:38

Patty's husband had been held initially for some

46:40

of the crimes that he committed. But

46:44

we marched up the street and held

46:46

up signs and wore t-shirts

46:49

that said, where's Patty on the

46:51

front of them? And they say,

46:53

who's FCJD on the back? So

46:56

that's one of the awareness things that we did

46:58

where we drew some news coverage and things like

47:00

that. We

47:02

have teamed up with

47:05

Life Away who have been

47:07

phenomenal because they have redesigned

47:10

Patty's missing poster. They designed

47:12

a Finley Creek Jane Doe

47:14

graphic, updated the old one

47:17

that I had just to drop

47:20

into social media every Monday

47:22

on Missing Person Monday. We've

47:25

just done all kinds of things

47:27

like that. We have

47:30

collaborated with Oregon's

47:33

Crime Stoppers to offer

47:35

a reward for any information

47:38

leading to Finley Creek Jane

47:40

Doe's identity. And a conviction

47:42

in the case usually has to

47:44

happen if you get the reward, but oftentimes

47:48

money is an incentive. So that's

47:50

out there. We have worked

47:53

with Lewiston Police Department to

47:55

reach out to an outfit club.

47:59

called Face Lab UK to

48:02

see if they can potentially do

48:04

anything with Patti's

48:07

x-rays, her photographs, and Finley

48:09

Creek Jane Doe's photographs to

48:11

see if there's any way to

48:14

use, maybe clean those

48:16

up and use their software

48:18

to uncover data

48:21

points in those facial structures that might indicate

48:23

that those two are the same people. And

48:27

that we have, we've

48:29

also been looking into circumstantial

48:31

evidence, right? So we've been

48:34

really trying to find people

48:37

who have seen, who maybe

48:40

saw a woman who looked like

48:42

Finley Creek Jane Doe in

48:45

this area here, right? We've

48:48

had posters made, we've

48:50

done our timeline

48:52

project, and we really, it's

48:54

just getting people to come

48:56

out of whatever,

49:01

comb their memories, see if they remember

49:03

anything. If

49:05

they remember anything about Ralph's

49:09

whereabouts, which is Suzanne's dad, if

49:11

they saw him or if

49:13

they saw his truck in this area. We

49:16

asked what kind of support Mel would like to

49:18

see for both cases. I

49:21

would love to have

49:24

more law enforcement resource

49:26

put towards doing more excavating

49:28

out there at the site.

49:31

They did re-excavate what

49:34

we believe was the original grave

49:36

site, to the best that we

49:38

could zero in on. But there are

49:40

those other sites that the dogs indicated that I

49:42

would really like to see more

49:45

excavation done there, to

49:47

see if there's any bones

49:49

or other physical evidence out there.

49:53

And as far as

49:56

the public, I

49:58

would love to see if people

50:01

know resources or if

50:03

people remember that their

50:06

grandma spent a summer in Union County

50:08

back in the 70s or she liked

50:10

to hitchhike with her buddies in college,

50:13

you know, talk to your families about

50:16

what they might have been doing in the 70s

50:18

if you know that they were from this area

50:20

and to not

50:23

be shy about reaching out. People

50:25

can reach out to me at the

50:28

Finley Creek Jane Doe socials anytime.

50:32

And for Suzanne, this work has brought her

50:34

a lot of things. New

50:36

friends, a new possible path to an

50:38

answer, a second case that she'll advocate

50:41

for no matter what, but it's also

50:43

brought her closer to Patty. She

50:45

has thought a lot about who her

50:47

mother was as she knew her back

50:49

in the 70s and how it connects

50:52

to who Suzanne herself is today. Learning

50:54

who she is now, I'm like,

50:57

oh my gosh, she

50:59

stood back up to him and she

51:02

hit him because I am

51:05

just like her. I'm like, you're

51:07

not going to tell me what I'm

51:09

going to do. And I'm not scared

51:11

of the fact that you are bigger than me and

51:13

you are stronger than me. I

51:16

got that from her. So

51:18

much from her and that people are

51:20

going to say, oh, you can't do that. Watch

51:24

me. I got

51:26

that from her and I would

51:28

never have known that right. I would never

51:30

know that what I learned

51:33

as a small child from zero to three,

51:35

also being a mother, so funny that I'm

51:37

like, I'm

51:39

an incredible mother. It came

51:41

so naturally to me. I didn't have to

51:43

be taught. I didn't have to be told that came so

51:45

naturally because she mothered me for

51:47

those three years and gave me such

51:50

a good, solid foundation that I knew.

51:52

I was going to be okay. She gave

51:54

me that. I'm grateful. But

51:58

at the same time. she's

52:00

frustrated because she has waited a

52:03

long time and she's ready

52:05

for resolution. How can

52:07

I grieve? How can I

52:09

really grieve the loss when all

52:12

I have right now is it could

52:14

be your mother, it could

52:16

be Patty. I

52:18

think it's Patty. Somebody

52:20

else thinks it's Patty. A lot of people

52:22

think it's Patty. But

52:25

then at what point do I get to

52:27

grieve and say, I lost

52:29

my mom, I've never had

52:31

a funeral, we never had a service, we never

52:33

had a closure. Maybe

52:36

our audience can help with that

52:38

with resolution. You can find

52:40

flyers for both Patty and Finley Creek

52:43

Jane Doe on our social media and

52:45

Light the Way's website page. And you

52:47

can follow Suzanne's TikTok and all of

52:49

the established social media for both cases.

52:52

We have linked everything in the show notes.

52:55

If you're a medical legal professional who'd like

52:57

to help, you can reach out as well. If

53:00

you have any information regarding the

53:02

disappearance of Patricia Otto, please contact

53:04

Captain Jeff clone at the Lewiston

53:06

Police Department at 208-746-0171. If you

53:08

have any

53:13

information regarding the woman known as the

53:16

Finley Creek Jane Doe, please contact Dr.

53:18

Vance of the Oregon State Police at

53:20

971-673-8300 or Crimestoppers

53:26

of Oregon. Tips can

53:28

be submitted online at

53:30

crimestoppersoforegon.com or their free

53:33

mobile app can be downloaded

53:35

at p3tips.com. Crimestoppers of Oregon

53:37

offers cash rewards of $2,500 for information

53:39

reported to Crimestoppers

53:42

that leads to an arrest and

53:44

any unsolved felony crime. And tips

53:47

can remain anonymous. Next

53:49

episode, we'll be discussing victim advocacy in

53:51

the cases of Patricia Otto and the

53:54

Finley Creek Jane Doe with Light the

53:56

Way, who you've heard about throughout the

53:58

past three episodes. on our

54:00

mid-season episode featuring Carolyn DeFord and

54:03

her mother, Leona Kenzie. We'll

54:05

also learn more about what victim advocacy

54:07

entails and get an overview of all

54:09

the cases they're currently advocating for through

54:12

their organizations. Thank you for listening. The

54:14

Fall Line is an independent podcast and

54:16

we appreciate listener support. It allows us

54:18

to do research, obtain FOIA, and pay

54:21

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for time, please use our sponsor codes.

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It really helps. And please take a

54:32

moment to rate interview our show on

54:34

your podcast app of choice. My

54:36

book, Lay Them to Rest, which covers

54:39

years of my life working on a

54:41

Jane Doe case and the world

54:43

of forensic scientists who resolve unidentified

54:45

person's cases is out everywhere as

54:48

hardcover, ebook, and audiobook. Read by

54:50

me. You can order it anywhere you

54:52

get books and through your local library. Find out

54:54

more in the link in our show notes. She'd

54:57

like to support the show and the stories recover.

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Join us on Patreon or Apple Premium.

55:02

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55:11

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The follow line is written, hosted,

55:31

and researched by Laura Norton with

55:33

additional research by Brian Warder. Interviews

55:35

by Brooke Cargrow, Produce Engineer Den

55:38

School, when more occurs. Content advisement

55:40

by Brandi C. Williams and Vic

55:42

Kennedy. And as always, our

55:45

most special thanks to Liz Lefkoe. you