Twylia May Embrey was born in 1934 to Charles and Iva "Addie" Embrey. They lived on a farm near Maywood. Twylia moved to North Platte in 1952, the day after she graduated from Maywood High School.

Following the release of the sculpture, a Boulder County deputy traveled to Nebraska last week to gather more information about Twylia.

Twylia's great-niece Jennifer Kitt has been searching for answers to the mystery of what happened to her relative. Kitt was out of town and unavailable for comment on Wednesday.

At the same time, Silvia Pettem, a historian and newspaper columnist from Boulder was trying to find out the identity of the young woman found murdered in Boulder.

"I am a mother and a grandmother, and I can't imagine not knowing where my children are," Pettem said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

Pettem feels as if she has two mysteries to solve now.

"I am caught by Twylia's story for many reasons," Pettem said. "I have the feeling that if Jane Doe does not turn out to be Twylia, when we do identify Jane, I picture the environment Jane Doe came from as being similar to where Twylia came from."

Pettem speaks of "Jane" and Twylia as if she was talking about two old friends.

She believes that Jane Doe was from the Midwest.

"It's just a gut feeling," she said. "The story at the time got huge coverage for days in the Boulder and Denver papers. But there was only a one-inch Associated Press story that ran nation-wide. People in rural areas more than likely did not have the opportunity to see that story."

Twylia's family was not immediately aware of her disappearance.

"It was a gradual thing, and I think if we identify Jane Doe, we will find it was also a gradual awareness that she was missing. I think she was a runaway, or someone fleeing from an abusive husband."

Even with the renewed interest in a possible match between Twylia and Jane Doe, Pettem doesn't believe they are one and the same.

"Be aware that Twylia has been ruled out as being Jane Doe by superimposition," Pettem said. "

A process involved super-imposing pictures of Twylia over photos of the reconstructed skull of Jane Doe showed the bone structure did not match, Pettem said.

Jane Doe's body was exhumed in 2004 and the skull, which had been crushed into fragments with the compaction of the grave, was reconstructed. Dr. Todd Fenton excluded two possible women who had been reported missing about the same time Jane Doe was found, including Twylia May Embrey.

However, forensic artist Frank Bender, who performed the reconstruction that gave Jane Doe a face, told the Boulder Sheriff's Office that there were signs that the skull might match the picture of Embrey.

Jane Doe's nude body had already begun to decompose when two University of Colorado students found her near Boulder Creek in April 1954. According to Pettem, photos of the victim were taken during the autopsy procedure, but have never been recovered. All of the records prior to 1970 that were stored at the Boulder County Sheriff's Office have vanished.

"The generally accepted theory is that the out-going sheriff, who is now decreased was unhappy about losing the election, either destroyed or took all the records," Pettem said.
Those missing records may have had the answer to two mysteries.