A few women wept.

"May she rest in peace," the Rev. Paul Fife said at the conclusion of the service.

Most of the group followed the casket blanketed by roses and lilies to Columbia Cemetery, where a few more words were read from the Bible before the woman known only as Jane Doe was lowered into the cold earth.

Half a century later, that coffin may be unearthed. Local history buffs and police hope advances in forensic science will help determine Jane Doe's identity and possibly even lead to her killer.

Local history writer Silvia Pettem is leading the push to resurrect the case. Boulder County Sheriff officials are expected to announce their plans this week, which may include exhuming the body for DNA testing and facial reconstruction.

"There are a lot of missing people in the world today," Pettem said. "We, in Boulder, are lucky. We had a body dumped on our doorstep. It's been here for 50 years. We have an obligation to find out who this young woman was and to find her family."

No Name
The tiny gray tomstone blends into Columbia Cemetery until you get closer to read the inscription: "Jane Doe, April 1954, Age about 20 years."

Pettem stumbled across the marker in the cemetery on 9th Street while participating in an annual re-enactment of people buried there. A little digging in newspaper archives and talking to people who were in Boulder at the time revealed the story behind the nameless grave.

Two University of Colorado students hiking along the bank of Boulder Creek on April 8, 1954, stumbled across what they first thought was a naked mannequin about 300 years south of the Boulder Falls pulloff. When the freshmen took a closer look, they realized the body was real and hustled down the canyon for police.

There weren't many clues to her identity: three bobby pins and a scar from an appendectomy. She had no dental fillings, ususally a good way to match dental records, and her clothes were never found.

An autopsy concluded she was alive when she was dumped down the 29-foot embankment and died in part after being exposed to the elements. Her petite 5-feet-3-inch tall, 100-pound body had been badly beaten. Her skull was fractured. Her jaw was broken, as were her collarbone and four ribs.

Authorities were unable to determine if she had been sexually assaulted.

It was estimated she was between 17 and 20 years old, and her hair was "tinged" red.

Several hot leads eventually turned ice cold, according to newspaper accounts at the time.

The service, burial, coffin, and tombstone were paid for by community members to keep the woman from being interred in a section of the cemetery set aside for paupers  an act that "restored in death the dignity her murderer destroyed in the last violent moments of her life," one journalist wrote.

Mystery continues
"Jane Doe was someone's loved one, that's why it's so important to figure out who she was," said retired CU administrator and local historian Alan Cass. The Boulder native was 13 when she was found.

"I think if it were my daughter or sister, it would be important for someone to assist along those lines," Cass said. "To give Jane Doe a real name I think is important."

Kathryn Keller was only 2 when news of Jane Doe's death spread through Boulder. She said it dominated much of her parents' discussions then, and often occupies her thoughts now. She said she wonders if the young girl was picked up hitchhiking, or snatched from her hometown far away.

"I don't know why Jane Doe has captivated me so much," Keller said.

Now, almost 50 years later, her 16-year-old daughter is thrilled to be old enough to play Jane Doe's part in the Meet the Spirits re-enactment Keller orchestrates each year at the cemetery.

"Jane Doe is always the most popular character even though not much is known about her," said Keller. "She's just part of Boulder history."

She said the unsolved homicide touched the community much like the more recent slaying of CU student Susannah Chase in 1997.

"As a parent, I just can't believe she was never identified," Keller said. "That's the part of her case that gets me; somewhere out there someone must have missed her."

Jane Doe's murder was a big deal in the then-small town of Boulder in 1954. However, in 1970, when the departing Sheriff threw away all the department's records after losing a re-election bid, the case seemed destined to remain a mystery for eternity.

Until Pettem stepped in. She started asking questions. She met with police. She got Boulder History Museum officials to set up a fund to help solve the mystery.

"There still are people alive who know what happened to her. In another 20 or 30 years there won't be," said Keller. "There is hope."

Fresh forensics
Fifty years ago, forensic science amounted to little more than using blood types to figure out unknowns' identities. That narrowed the field down some. Depending on the blood type, it could have discounted 30 percent to 40 percent of the world's population.

"Today, DNA can pinpoint an identity to within a probability of 1 in a couple of billion people," said Metro State University Professor Charles Tindall, director of the school's criminalistics program.

He said the prospects of finding usable DNA are high, as genetic material remains in bones, teeth, and hair of the deceased for a long time.

"They've gotten results on things much older than 50 years old," Tindall said.

"Half a century ago, forensic science was in its infancy," Tindall said. "But the fact that Jane Doe's body was found after possibly as much as a week on the side of a creek bed would have left little in the way of clues, such as blood under the fingernails or semen, that could have narrowed the search for the assailant.

Fingerprinting was available, he said. But no computerized databases existed for extensive searches, and the woman may have never been fingerprinted.

If investigators are able to come up with a possible maternal link with Jane Doe, either a sibling, cousin, aunt or uncle, DNA can be taken from that person and used to compare it with hers.

Figuring out her identity is "very feasible," Tindall said.

"It's technology, while expensive and difficult, is extremely useful in sorting out who people were," he said.

An exact dollar figure for Jane Doe's scientific query is not yet known, but estimates are in the thousands.

Pettem is hoping the same community compassion showed in giving Jane Doe a proper burial will fund the project.

"Jane Doe's siblings, if alive, deserve to know what happened," she said.

"The fact that it's been 50 years and nobody knows who she is, it just sort of gnaws at you."

Tax-deductible donations can be sent to the Boulder History Museum (same as the Boulder Historical Society). Checks should be made out to the Boulder History Museum, with a notation that the money is to go in the Jane Doe Fund. The address is Jane Doe Fund, Boulder History Museum, 1206 Euclid Ave., Boulder CO 80302. If not enough money is collected, the donations will be returned.