An autopsy on the slight young girl whose death furthered the creek's notoriety as a charnel stream indicated she still was alive when dumped from the roadside to die.

Investigation of her death was stymied by her lack of identification. Her nude, beaten body offered slim opportunities for identification- the general shape of her body, perfect teeth, an appendectomy scar and a possibility of fingerprints.

The pathologist said the girl had died about a week ago. Everson said he suspected her body had been thrown down to Boulder Creek before last Monday night, disputing the pathologist's finding of when death occurred.

Boulder Cañon was traveled heavily over the weekend, he pointed out. And the body lay in a spot where anyone looking down from the edge of the road would see it.

It was discovered Thursday by two 19 year old freshman students at Colorado University, Wayne Swanson of Batavia, Ill., and Jim Andes of Mackinaw, Ill.

BODY IS DISCOVERED
They were taking pictures and searching for driftwood along the creek when they saw the body beneath them. The thought it was a mannikin, but decided to investigate anyhow.
Clambering down the bank, they saw that it was the nude body of a young girl, her head thrown back, teeth protruding in a hideous grimace, large sections of the face and other parts of the body eaten away by small animals.

The body was taken to Boulder. Once the cause of death had been determined and the description of the girl taken, authorities could do little but hope for identification, so they could start a meaningful investigation.

BEATEN TO DEATH
Sheriff Art Everson said the girl had been beaten to death. The savage wounds could have been inflicted by fist and foot or a bludgeon.

A deep fracture circled the back of the head. Also broken were the jaw, arm, and ribs. There was also serious internal injuries.

No single injury need have caused death by itself, according to Dr. F.L. James, pathologist who performed the autopsy, and Coroner George Howe.

Dr. James said shock and exposure had played their part in bringing on death. By that theory, the girl could have been attacked someplace else, and thrown down to the creek to die.

Other wounds on the body could have been inflicted in the death beating, or might have been caused by the tumbling fall down the steep 29 foot embankment to the rock where her body wedged.

FEW DROPS OF BLOOD
Presuming the girl was alive when callously thrown down the grade, her hold on life was tenuous. There were but a few drops of blood on the rock where her body was discovered, and none on the route her tumbling body had followed.

"She must have done a lot of bleeding some place else," Sheriff Everson said grimly.
The girl had been small- 5 feet 3 inches, weighing about 100 pounds. Her age was estimated at about 17, though she could have been as young as a well-developed 15 or as old as 20.

REDDISH BLOND HAIR
Her hair was long and reddish-blond. Her teeth were perfect-not worn down at all, and without a single filling. She had an appendectomy scar.

There was no evidence beyond that offered by her body. She had been stripped of all clothes and jewelry. A searching party scoured the creek, banks, and road for a quarter mile in each direction from where her body was found, without turning up a single clue.

A Longmont couple late Friday reported to Sheriff Everson that they had seen a woman's shoe and "some splatterings that look like blood" near a county road in Left Hand Cañon. The site is about 8 miles north of Boulder and some 15 miles from where the body was found.

Everson and several deputies searched the area for nearly an hour but were forced to abandon their efforts temporarily because of darkness. Everson said he would resume the search Saturday morning.

The death site was 8.7 miles west of downtown Boulder on twisting Colorado 119. A few hundred feet west of it is a parking area serving Boulder Falls.

As news of the murder went out, Boulder police and sheriff offices had calls from persons fearful that the dead girl might be a relative.

MOST ARE GROUNDLESS
Most of them were groundless, like the call from Texas about a missing girl weighing 200 pounds.

Others proved equally unavailing. The parents of a missing 15 year old Boulder girl looked at the body, even after being told on the phone their girl could not have been the victim because she had never had an operation for appendicitis, and agreed with police that it was a stranger.

Mrs. Robert Inman of Boulder also looked at the body, fearing it might be her cousin, Nancy Hawkins, 21, who came to Boulder last year from Cleveland.

The Denver Post erroneously reported Friday that Mrs. Inman had tentatively identified the body as that of Miss Hawkins.

Mrs. Inman actually said there was some bodily resemblance, but no recognizable facial resemblance. She later talked by phone to Miss Hawkins in Akron, Ohio, where her cousin went Saturday.

Authorities said there were few inquiries from people in the Boulder-Denver area. Girls of that age seldom are reported missing, they said- and the published description of the victim apparently reassured relatives of girls who are missing.