She was found dead 52 years ago, naked, badly bruised and at the bottom of a steep embankment in Boulder Canyon. Her killer was never found, and her name has never been known.

But now, through archival gumshoeing and a little guesswork, Boulder historian Silvia Pettem and a handful of others obsessed with finding those answers think they may have them.

Jane Doe was, perhaps, Katherine or Catherine Dyer of Denver. And she may have been the first victim of serial killer Harvey Glatman.

"We would be just totally tickled if somebody came forward and said, 'I know Katherine Dyer; she wasn't Jane Doe,"' said Dave Frederick, a Colorado native now living in Montana who has worked with Pettem to crack the case. "But we've worked so hard on it, I would be surprised if anybody could say that."

That excitement, though, is tempered by this: Neither Frederick, nor Pettem, nor the Boulder County Sheriff's Office, which is also researching the case, can prove that Dyer is even dead.

She disappeared on March 26, 1954, from a Denver home where she rented a room, about two weeks before Jane Doe's body was found. Dyer was 24, slender and blond, like Jane Doe. Dyer was one of the first people detectives considered in 1954 when trying to figure out who Jane Doe was, Frederick said.

"There's nothing concrete to say that Katherine Dyer was any more likely to be Jane Doe than any number of other candidates at this point," said Boulder County sheriff's Cmdr. Phil West. "There's no physical evidence. It's merely a matter of coincidence."

But to Frederick and Pettem, it's one heck of a coincidence. Dyer, when she disappeared, was separated from her husband and living within a block of the Clara Lane Friendship Society, a dating club.

Glatman, who in 1957 moved from Denver to California, where he raped and killed three women before being executed, would sometimes troll dating clubs for victims, Pettem said.

Glatman also kidnapped women in Colorado. Pettem believes Glatman kidnapped Jane Doe and drove her to Boulder Canyon, where she escaped. Glatman, Pettem thinks, then ran Jane Doe down in his car.

West called the Glatman scenario, "an interesting theory."

Pettem and Frederick, in searching for Jane Doe's identity, have made some wrong turns. Pettem said they were looking closely at one missing woman before finding a newspaper article that said she had been found. They focused on a missing Nebraska woman last year, but DNA evidence ruled her out.

Since they cannot find any of Dyer's relatives, they cannot do DNA testing to see if she is a match with Jane Doe.

"I've been involved now for almost a decade, on this quest to try to figure out who Jane Doe is," Pettem said. "My goal all along has been to restore the dignity that was taken from her when she was murdered and return her remains to her family."

So, for now, Pettem and Frederick are not celebrating.

"The celebration is going to come if we can ever take her home," Frederick said.

Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.