Hikers along Boulder Canyon found the naked woman on a spring day 51 years ago. Police quickly determined she'd been flung down a 29-foot highway embankment above Boulder Falls, calling it a homicide.

In the days, weeks and decades to come, no one came forward - not a relative, friend or confessed murderer to tell sheriff's deputies who she might be.

But on Monday, forensics experts will make public the reconstructed skull and facial features of "Boulder's Jane Doe," hoping the publicity will lead to someone finally identifying her, or even to the killer's capture.

Her case never ceased to fascinate forensics experts, or to frustrate local law officers and amateur sleuths.

A year ago, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle reopened the case and worked with forensics experts to exhume Jane Doe's body from a Boulder cemetery.

Jane Doe was 18 to 20 when her body was found, so she'd be about 70 if she were alive today.

Still, there are plenty of septuagenarians who watch America's Most Wanted, which will feature the reconstructed face on an upcoming broadcast.

If someone says Jane Doe is a relative, forensics experts can confirm the identity by comparing the DNA in Jane Doe's leg bone to the DNA in the person coming forward, whether it's a sister, brother, uncle or niece.

If someone says she's a friend, it will be a little trickier. But with luck, that information can lead to tracking down a relative who can compare DNA with the dead woman.

When Pelle reopened the murder investigation, he enlisted the help of forensics experts from the respected Vidocq Society, which honors Eugène Francois Vidocq, a brilliant 18th century French detective.

They exhumed the body at Columbia Cemetery beneath the headstone that read, "Jane Doe April 1954 age about 20."

Dr. Walter Birkby, a forensic anthropologist, reconstructed the woman's skull, a difficult task because it had been crushed into fragments by the compacted grave.

A photograph of the skull and a DNA sample from the leg bone helped Dr. Todd Fenton exclude from further consideration two women who'd been reported missing about the same time.

The skull then was sent to Frank Bender, a forensic sculptor who co-founded the Vidocq Society, which brings together renowned forensics experts to try to solve cold cases.

Bender is best known for helping apprehend murderer John List, who had evaded capture for 18 years. Bender reconstructed List's features, showing what he probably looked like 18 years after fleeing. After his likeness was profiled on America's Most Wanted, List was identified and arrested 11 days later.

The work of Bender, dubbed "recomposer of the decomposed," has led to 40 positive identifications and the apprehension of seven fugitives.

Silvia Pettem, a Boulder historian, operates a Web site, www.Boul derJaneDoe.com, she hopes will help identify the woman. On its home page is part of a poem by Alexander Pope, Elegy to an Unfortunate Lady:

By foreign hands your dying eyes were closed.

By foreign hands your comely limbs composed.

By foreign hands your humble grave adorned.

By strangers honored and by strangers mourned.