Vernon County Jane Doe

Vernon County Jane Doe is an American murder victim whose body was found on May 4, 1984. Her identity remains unknown. There was extensive damage to the victim's head, which left her face unrecognizable until mortuary procedures were conducted. When police went to the spot, they found tire tracks from a hasty U-turn. A broken denture, blood, and a man's watch were also found there. Because of this evidence, it is believed that she was killed at another location alongside the same road, and that her body was then taken to the location where she was found.

The victim had been murdered, as she suffered blunt force injury to her head, which had broken her jaw, an eye socket and the pair of dentures that she was wearing. There was also sharp-force trauma to the left side of the head, near the ear. Her hands had been removed, most likely to prevent identification through fingerprint matching.

Description and clothing

Vernon County Jane Doe was a white woman between 50 and 65 years old. She had graying brown hair, presumed to have been done in a perm. She was 5 feet 5 to 5 feet 6 inches (approximately ). She did not appear to have any unique physical features.

Investigation Over 4,000 leads have surfaced in the case, one recently being the arrest of multiple persons who fraudulently used checks from a missing Amherst, Wisconsin woman who disappeared around the same time as when the Jane Doe was found.

Despite the possible link to Amherst, police believe that she did not reside in the area where she was found. Seven missing women have been ruled out as possible identities.

Authorities have used news media multiple times toward identifying the victim. In 2012, officials "pushed" the case to reach areas of both Minnesota and Wisconsin that were linked to Highway 14.

On August 12, 2015, her body was exhumed and sent to the crime lab in Madison, Wisconsin, for testing in hopes of identifying her. The body was returned and buried the next day. DNA was also harvested and began processing at the University of North Texas. A new forensic facial reconstruction of the victim was released in December 2015 by a university in Arizona that created the likeness based on physical characteristics of the woman's skull. The rendering was completed by forensic artist Catyana Falsetti, whose husband was also working on the case at the university.

Authorities would later seek assistance from the DNA Doe Project in hopes to identify the victim. Around June 28, 2023, DNA Doe Project announced on their webpage about the victim that she is now being investigated by another forensic genetic genealogy service. So far, this provider has not been named.

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