The woman, found naked and badly beaten at the bottom of a steep embankment, may be Katharine E. Farrand Dyer, who was reported missing to the Denver Police Department on March 26, 1954, said Cmdr. Phil West of the Boulder County Sheriff's Office.

An elevator operator at a furniture store in downtown Denver, Dyer was separated from her husband, Jimmie Dyer, and living in a Capitol Hill boarding house. She was either 24 or 27.

Boulder historian Silvia Pettem found a photograph of Dyer taken by her ex-husband. The photograph, along with a casting of the woman's reassembled skull, was sent to a forensic anthropologist at Michigan State University for analysis and comparison this year. The anthropologist, Dr. Todd Fenton, said he could not rule out a possible match with Dyer.

The victim, whose body was found April 8, 1954, was buried under a tombstone marked simply "Jane Doe, April 1954, age estimated at 20 years." Her body was exhumed a half-century later at Pettem's urging.

"For the past two years, I have believed that circumstantial evidence pointed to Katharine Dyer as Jane Doe," Pettem said Friday. "This promising new forensic evidence validates my opinion."

With no identifiable family, her ex-husband dead and questions about her true identity, the investigation is stalled without someone coming forward with new information about Dyer, West said.

The sheriff's office hopes to find a friend, acquaintance or co-worker who might be able to provide "the last link in the chain of circumstantial evidence that would lead to confirmation and ultimately a name for Jane Doe," said West.