Jane Doe was buried on a cold April day in 1954 after authorities exhausted all leads into discovering her identity and her killer`s.

Tuesday morning, as temperatures pushed into the low 80s at the cemetery on Ninth Street, her grave was unearthed by a back hoe. Three forensic anthropologists took turns sifting through the dirt for clues.

Exhuming a body for a murder investigation is a first for the Boulder County Sheriff`s Office, and a search warrant was secured to legalize the dig, Sheriff Lt. Phil West said.

Work will continue this morning after it was discovered that Jane Doe`s wooden casket had collapsed over time, making the exhumation more difficult.

A planned four-hour job turned into a project that now will take two days, West said.

"It`s more along the lines of an archeological dig at this point," he said.

Two University of Colorado students hiking along the banks of Boulder Creek on April 8, 1954, stumbled across Jane Doe`s naked body about 300 yards south of the Boulder Falls pull-off. An autopsy concluded Jane Doe was alive when she was dumped down the 29-foot embankment and died in part after being exposed to the elements. Her petite, 5-feet-3-inch tall, 100-pound body also had been badly beaten.

Investigators at the time estimated the woman was between 17 and 20 years old. The only identifying clues on her body were three bobby pins in her hair and a scar from an appendectomy.

The case of Jane Doe was resurrected earlier this year by local history writer Silvia Pettem, who approached the Sheriff`s Office with the idea of exhuming the woman`s remains and testing them with today`s technology to try and give Jane Doe a real name.

The Boulder History Museum began a fund-raising campaign for the effort in February and has raised about $3,000 in donations. Additionally, much of the labor for exhuming Jane Doe has been donated, West said.

As work at the grave site wrapped up late Tuesday afternoon, skeletal remains pulled from the 3-foot-deep grave were separated and placed into brown paper bags for closer examination and possible DNA extraction.

Authorities then plan to make a national appeal to try and get possible relatives of Jane Doe to come forward. If investigators are able to come up with a possible maternal link with Jane Doe -- such as a sibling, cousin, aunt or uncle -- DNA can be taken from that person and used to compare it with hers.

Pettem said she is not surprised by the outpouring of support for the effort, especially given this is the same community that raised money in 1954 to ensure Jane Doe had a proper funeral and burial.

"I was hoping it would happen this quickly," Pettem said. "We`re a step closer to figuring out who she is."

Contact Camera Staff Writer Christine Reid at (303) 473-1355 or reidc@dailycamera.com.