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114 Epilogue Cases I Always Wanted to Solve W hether it has been working on modern cases, historic cases, or others, my professional lifetime in forensic anthropology has been the most rewarding career a person could have. I will always be grateful to have been a part of this amazing ride and to have had the opportunity to do something good in this world. As I wind down a long career in forensic anthropology, I think about a few questions that often have been asked of me: “What has driven you all these years, Mary? What is it that makes you pursue your cases with such tenacity? Doesn’t seeing all of these dead people bother you?” Some say that I am like a dog with a bone. I consider that a compliment. Yes, these cases bother me but not in the way some people might think. Typically, I do not dream about my cases, but I do spend a lot of my waking hours trying to resolve some of the more elusive ones. Call it corny or whatever you want to call it, I just want justice for those who can no longer speak for themselves. Justice can mean finding someone who disappeared without a trace; justice can mean identifying those who are held in my lab without a name; justice can mean assisting in some small way to capture a killer. In my more than thirty years of working forensic anthropology cases in Louisiana and across the country, I have had many successes. However, there are many cases that remain unsolved, and I would like to reflect now on a handful of them, some forensic in nature, some bordering on historic. Obviously, the older a case is, the less likely it is to be solved, but one never knows what answers lie just beyond the next clue. I divide these representative cases into missing-person cases and cases where the victim has been identified but the perpetrator is unknown. Naively, I had hoped that in all of these years I could have helped to solve some of these cases. Unfortunately, that has Epilogue: Cases I Always Wanted to Solve 115 not happened. Maybe someone will read this epilogue and provide the clue that leads to the resolution of one or more of them. For the peace of mind of their families, I hope that happens. I begin with examples of those who are missing. In November 1981, Eleanor Parker disappeared without a trace from Baton Rouge. The daughter of a local attorney, Eleanor was a student at LSU and was nineteen years old at the time. She had a part-time job at a popular department store in downtown Baton Rouge, Goudchaux’s. Her car was found later on a street in north Baton Rouge. She has never been found. I had just entered graduate school the year Eleanor disappeared and had begun working with Dr. Doug Owsley on forensic cases that fall. Many years later, I was asked to search a wooded area near the city for Eleanor’s body, but I found nothing. Modern DNA technology surely would have proven useful in this case. Her car obviously had been driven and was abandoned in an area that was not near her home. Was there trace evidence in the car that could be reexamined today? Were samples taken that might have foreign DNA on them? Recently, we have been able to obtain DNA from Eleanor’s father and sister and have entered that into the CODIS system. Almost thirty years have passed since she disappeared, but we still consider Eleanor when skeletal remains of young white females are found. In the Louisiana Repository for unidentified and Missing Persons Information Program database is also the case of Rebecca Pauline Gary, who was last seen in Baton Rouge on December 27, 1988. Rebecca was a white female, age thirty-two, approximately five feet two inches tall and weighed somewhere between 105 and 125 pounds. Missing-persons records indicate that she had a tattoo of a lion’s head on her right arm. According to a public profile on the web, she was last seen at her apartment on Airline Highway. Some reports have suggested that Gary was having an affair with a former governor of Louisiana; this could not be corroborated. She has not been heard from since that December night. Gary left behind a young daughter. The daughter’s story is that [18.191.5.239] Project MUSE...

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