Police have new lead in 43-year-old cold case with cryptic coded message

Police in New York state say they may finally have a suspect in the murder 43 years ago of a woman whose identity remains unknown, and who was carrying a mysterious note tied to a Vancouver hotel when she was killed.

The Chautauqua County Sheriff’s office, 120 kilometres southwest of Buffalo, recently said it received information that Christopher Bernard Wilder, a suspected serial murderer, may have been in New York City on Dec. 4, 1983 — two days before Jane Doe’s body was found.

“Wilder was known to frequent Western New York,” the sheriff’s office says, appealing for information from anyone who may have seen him in the area in early December 1983.

The following year, the FBI put Wilder on its 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list, suspecting him of “multiple kidnappings, rapes and murders.” A short time later, he died in a shootout with police in New Hampshire.

With both the victim and the possible suspect dead for more than four decades, the sheriff’s office continues to search for anyone with information in the U.S., or in Canada as Jane Doe may have been in Vancouver, or in Europe where her clothes were made.

“If this case is to be solved it will most likely be a result of someone who knew the victim or her family, or who knows who murdered her,” the sheriff’s office said in recent new release, which included a new composite drawing of the victim.

A utility crew found Jane Doe’s body in a ditch along Route 17 in Ellery, a small town in Chautauqua County, on Dec. 6, 1983. She had been shot four times at close range: once inside her mouth, once in the back and twice in the chest.

She was wearing good-quality clothing, had gold fillings in her teeth and was estimated to be in her 30s. She is believed to be Canadian or European, in part because she was using a European-made IUD birth-control device that was not sold in the U.S. but was available in Canada.

“Advanced forensic work of Ellery Jane Doe’s DNA and fingerprints here in the United States, Canada, and overseas has not led to her identification, or to the identification of any of her family members,” the sheriff’s office says.

Perhaps the most significant clue in this case was found inside her trench coat pocket — a piece of paper from the Blue Boy motor hotel on Vancouver’s Southeast Marine Drive. The scrap of paper contained a handwritten list of letters and numbers that have stumped police and true-crime fans for years.

The note appears to read:

“Sas. kR.h. 24233

k.R.Ba. 68301

Sarg. 74261″

What do they mean? And what was Jane Doe’s connection to a low-budget hotel 4,000 kilometres away from where her body was found?

Over the years there have been many theories about the meaning of the letters and numbers, including as possible internal phone lines for an airport or some other institution.

The Vancouver Sun reported in 1991 that local police questioned Blue Boy staff and customers after the body was found, but no one could remember seeing the woman.

According to a 2019 book on Wilder, he was a surfer born in Australia who “became the most wanted man in America,” and was being pursued by hundreds of FBI and other police officers for as many as 16 murders of young women in the 1980s.

Earlier this year, Chautauqua County Sheriffs said a woman has now told police that on Dec. 4, 1983, a man matching Wilder’s description tried to use a “ruse” on her Wilder had often relied on to lure victims into his vehicle. This woman refused to go with him.

Wilder died April 13, 1984, in a gunfight with New Hampshire State Police, who stopped him driving a car stolen from a woman named Beth Dodge. Wilder is suspected of killing Dodge, a single mother, earlier that day in Victor, NY.

The U.S.’s National Missing and Unidentified Persons database describes Jane Doe as 30 to 37 years old, 5-foot-2, and about 128 pounds with brown, partly greying hair. She had a wart above her left eye, a 2 centimetre scar on her throat, and a 15 millimetre raised mole behind her left ear.

She was wearing a V-neck camisole made in Italy, a size 40 checkered trench coat, a bluish-grey crewneck pullover sweater, and a plaid wool skirt in shades of brown, blue and red.

Her shoes were not found at the scene, despite the cool temperatures at the time, or a purse with any identification or money.

A forensic examination of her body revealed she’d given birth to at least one child. If Jane Doe had children, they would now be in their 40s or 50s.