Oak Grove Jane Doe: Oregon's Oldest Unsolved Murder

2026 marks 80 years since the torso of a woman was discovered in the Willamette river on April 12, 1946. In this episode, we trace Oregons oldest unsolved murder case from that first grim discovery through the decades of dead ends that followed. Who is this unknown woman? and can modern technology be used to finally give her back her name. 

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Intro music by Don Edwards

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, welcome back to the podcast and eerly beloved. We are gathered here today with Mom Garrett. That is all for today. Just the two of them.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Oh, it's all good on.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Yeah, that's all for the day.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

Hi guys. Let's wrap it up.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Um, today we are doing a true crime episode, so I do want to preface this by saying if you are listening with young children or if you don't like gory stuff, this case is kind of a doozy, so please don't listen to it and listen to another episode instead.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Morgan Morales. If you're listening with the kids in the car, please turn it on. Press pause.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Not not the episode for young children today, but it's an important one. Okay, like I said, um, trigger warning for graphic content, including dismemberment and other and other stuff mentioned. So if you don't like that, listen to a different episode or not. If you choose not to listen, we'll see you next week. Okay. And this week we're gonna be talking about Oregon's oldest unidentified person's case. Less creepy, more scary, I guess. Okay, let's get into it. So on the evening of Friday, April 12th, 1947, H. C. Foster and his friends James and Mary Rader won were out on his boat on the Willamette River. They were about five miles downstream from Portland and enjoying a rare, dry, Oregon spring night when they came across something floating in an eddy. Mary Rader described what they found as what she assumed was a bag of drowned cats, and they pulled the burlap looking sack out of the water. Bag of drowned cats? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 1:46

So it was furry.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Whoever tossed the bag clearly didn't want it to be opened, as the bag was secured with binding tape, rope, and telephone wire. Unfortunately, upon opening the bag, the three boaters discovered the nude headless torso of a woman with clothing stuffed hot housily inside. Okay, but why is your first thought? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

I mean I guess it was wrapped in a bag. Black bag could have been That's awful.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Okay. So that was Friday the twelfth. The brutal nature of the crime was incredibly uncommon for that time period, and word about the grisly discoveries spread through newsrooms like wildfire. By Saturday morning, police already had someone who knew details about the crime in custody. Twenty-six-year-old Orville Schwitzer called police from a payphone downtown claiming I can tell you everything about this murder. That he had just seen the woman on the night of April 4th and he could take police to where the body had been cut up. Police were so quick to act that Orville Schwitzer was still on the phone at the phone booth when he was apprehended.

SPEAKER_03 2:53

He must have been on there for a while.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Details mentioned in the phone call had included things that police hadn't at that time released publicly, making Orville self-proclaimed suspect number one. Stu why would you whatever.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

He must have just been bragging on that phone forever. Police were glad.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Police were glad to have someone in custody because after the coroner's report was delivered that afternoon, they had little, if any, leads to go off of. Clackamas County Coroner Ray Rillance estimated that the body had not been in water more than twenty-four to thirty-six hours. However, other authorities believe that it could have been in water up to thirty days. Which is quite a large difference. The torso had no identifying marks and no signs of sexual assault. Ray Rillance said the dismemberment was done in quotes rather cleanly and must have been a person who was familiar with anatomy. He said the killer at least had to know where the joints were. No cause of death could be determined from the torso alone.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Oh wow. So this guy calls in from the payphone, says he has the details, but he had seen her just a week before.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

April 4th, yeah. Okay. Orville Switzer was released from police custody shortly after his arrest because he claimed he made the phone call because I just wanted publicity.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

Right, so he just happened to get everything correct?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Details that no one else knew. Okay, well there's clearly more to this story. Weirdo.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Because of the lack of evidence that could be derived from the body, investigators then turned to the clothing that was in the bag for clues as to who their mystery woman was. The sock contained a woman's light gray herringbone coat with brown silk lining, a plum colored wool skirt, a woman's lightweight cotton union suit, a white or tan belt, a black knit skirt and a jacket to match, and a cream-colored wool pullover sweater.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Wow. Very well dressed.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Officer said the sleeves were cut from the herringbone coat found in the sack, indicating the possibility that the coat might have been on the body at the time it was dismembered. The sleeves had also been cut from the black knit jacket and one of them was missing. All identifying labels and marks had been cut out or removed from every article of clothing, but police were able to determine that extensive tailoring and obvious wear was consistent across all the items, which indicated she likely came from a modest family. Images of the clothes along with their descriptions were released to the public in hopes that they would be able to recognize the closing the clothing or the tailoring done that would help aid investigators into figuring out who this person was. On Sunday, April 14th, pathologist Dr. Warren C. Hunter, who conducted the autopsy, identified the woman as being 50 years or older. Initially, early reports had concluded that the woman was in her late teens or early 20s, which unfortunately led to families of over 20 missing girls in the area flooding the station with phone calls over the last few days, hoping that they had recovered their loved one's body.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Okay, but there's a huge difference between a teenager and a 50-year-old's torso. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Due to the large age difference between what they had originally suspected and the age determined by Dr. Hunter, investigators had to wipe their initial initial suspect pool and start over. Typically, the same person targeting young girls wouldn't also be targeting middle-aged women. Dr. Hunter also believed the woman was between 5'2 to 5'4 and around 140 to 150 pounds. In addition to no evidence of sexual assault as previously determined, the body showed no signs of physical assault as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

So poisoned?

SPEAKER_03 6:24

Which is so weird. Like, what's the motive then?

SPEAKER_01 6:26

So they're dismembered. So the only thing they found, though, is the torso so far. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

That afternoon, a little upstream from Willamette Falls and six miles from where the torso was found, a tugboat crew discovered another burlap sack on the west bank of the river. The sack had been wrapped in telephone wire three times and attempted to be weighed down with weights tied to the sides of it. This bag contained both handless arms and the upper right thigh. The crewmen said they noticed the bag around a month ago and only went to investigate after the discovery of the torso on Friday. So discrepancies in the length of time the body was in the water was because the state police were basing their estimate on reports that the finders of the torso and the one that they had just found containing the other portions of the body had been seen as long as a month ago. Not sure if that's accurate though.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

And this bag only has one thigh and two arms, no hands. But they saw the bag floating in the water. I mean, at least they didn't think it was dead cats. From just a bag in the water. So that's where they're thinking maybe a month ago, even though the guy called and gave details saying that he had just seen her the week prior. And he knew things that no one else knew.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

But he already he was already released because Well, it doesn't mean he didn't actually do it. He just wanted the attention.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 7:52

Or a villa the pizzler.

SPEAKER_05 7:54

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Worse than a pizzler.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

Yeah, he is. Way worse.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

So police finally got their first clue when on the west side of the riverbank, ten feet away from where the sack was found, they discovered a set of clearly defined footprints belonging to a men size nine or ten shoe. They were heading down towards the water from a densely forested trail that wasn't easily accessible and then doubled back to the trail after heading down towards the water. Investigators estimated that they had bid there from some for some time, about 30 to 60 days. Chief Criminal Deputy E. Bacon of the Clackhamus County Sheriff's Office said the prints were undoubtedly made by a man because the stride was more than a normal pace of a woman. And this set of prints were the only ones in that entire area. So it wasn't a well-traveled part of the river or trail or anything like that. State police sergeant Everett Meads, who's one of the officers to investigate, believed that all portions of the body were thrown from the same secluded spot on the river. This also indicated that the man wasn't out of shape if he was able to throw those bags in the water. Officers on the scene also were of the opinion that the killer had to be intimately acquainted with the terrain.

SPEAKER_03 9:12

So did he toss them all at once, I think, or just like one at a time over a couple days?

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Well, that would depend on the number of prints they had, right?

SPEAKER_00 9:21

If they only have one, then it would be Yeah, that's true. Also found at the scene beside the train tracks was a Scopal brand rabbit feed sack, similar to the ones that the other portions of the body were found in.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Okay, so we have our bag reference. Mm-hmm. Okay. So someone along the train tracks hiking through the brush to throw the body parts. Now we need to find the rest of them.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Mm-hmm. So that was on Sunday. On Monday, police sent out crews and divers to drag the river in hopes to find the rest of the body. Specifically the head, which would hopefully allow them to use dental work to identify the woman. Yep. On one of these drags of the river, a sack was recovered, but it was empty. What?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

An empty sack?

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Mm-hmm. Meanwhile, Sheriff Fred Racer and his deputies were running down endless leads and following up on missing persons reports. By Tuesday, April 16th, after countless drags of the river were fruitless, police were losing hope that they'd be able to recover any more parts of the body, and with that additional clues as to who this woman was. It was assumed at this point that the killer had dumped the remains in other waterways because they weren't able to find other parts of the body. Fingerprints from the hands and dental records from the head would be able to quickly identify her and potentially her killer as well.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

Well, yeah, I'm I think that guy might know that too. That's why he's keeping them hidden.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

And it's possible that it was untied or, you know, things floated out.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

Animals got to it.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Missing persons reports and files throughout the entire state had been combed through and nothing was a match. According to Captain Van Gurdain, law enforcement believed that they had been close to identifying the woman twice, but further examination of the clothing proved these leads to be false. Captain Gurdain also recognized that there is a possibility that the clothing could have been planted in the sacks to throw off police.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

They could have, but like well-tailored clothes, all of them like from the same person.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, all of them with the tags cut out. I mean, that that seems like that's a lot of extra work. With the arm cut off of the jackets.

SPEAKER_03 11:34

I mean, it seems like it paid off though. We got away with murder.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

So on Friday, April 26th, the Oregonian reported that diving operations to recover missing head, hands, and legs of Milwaukee's torso murder victim have produced no results, according to Sheriff Rackseeker.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

Sounds too bad.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

It wasn't until weeks later on July 28th that another sack was recovered. Oh jeez. This time in the Columbia River below the McLaughlin Bridge in Gladstone. Sheriff Rackseeker reported that it contains what seems to be a left thigh and was wrapped in a black skirt. The bag itself was secured with a smaller with a similar wire that the previous two had been wrapped in. An attempt was made to weigh this sack down as well with three weights attached to the sides. After this discovery, officers began to theorize this bundle had been tossed from the bridge. This confirmed to police that the killer had dumped the body sporadically and debunked the theory that the bundles were all disposed of from the once secluded spot on the west bank of the river.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

So probably just the one that was found in the water by the crew. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

The next day, a bundle of clothing was recovered entangled in driftwood only 60 feet from where the bag had been found the day before. In this bundle of clothes were three shirt waists, two nightgowns, a wool sweater, and undergarments.

SPEAKER_03 12:54

Was he going through her closet or something? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

That's a lot of clothing. But also no clues had been derived from the garments previously found with the torso. So they just nothing from that.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Okay, so now we're into late July. And then we find the clothes. We find the thigh with the skirt that matches the jacket, and then the rest of the clothes, which is significant. I mean April, it's not that cold. We're wearing lots of layers.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Well, just the the quantity of the stuff is kind of strange. It's not a shirt and a pair of pants, it's three shirts, two nightgowns, a sweater. Like someone was staying overnight. Or lived there.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

Yeah. Or yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

On vacation.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Maybe.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

On August 15th, brown hair attached to what appeared to be a human scalp was found on a log cable in the Willamette River. Just a few hundred yards upstream from where from where the second bundle with the arms and leg was found.

SPEAKER_05 13:52

Ugh.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

Weird side note, but one of the men who reported this was also part of the crew on the tugboat that found the second bundle.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Okay. Now I'm getting suspicious.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Just odd. I mean, I guess it'd make sense if you're working the same shift. You have the same, you know, route. But then it looked and they dragged the river. Yeah, just weird. Sheriff Rackseeker hoped that this discovery might point to where the location of the head might be in order this portion of the river to be dragged and searched again. Because they're thinking, okay, at this point, if it's decomposing, then it could have been what was in the sack that was empty. True. Unfortunately, a few days later, after being examined by state criminologist Dr. Howard Richardson, it was a term that what they thought was a piece of scalp was actually animal head.

SPEAKER_03 14:39

Okay, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Well, that makes me feel better because I was already getting creeped out.

SPEAKER_03 14:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

And all attempts to identify the woman up to this point had been completely fruitless and nothing came of it by clothes or otherwise.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

By up to this point, you mean like today?

SPEAKER_00 14:55

No, up to this point, which would be mid-August. August 15th.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Until September, when police came across a woman who had been reported missing two years prior in August 24th, 1945. Maria Nastos 47 of Seattle went missing while on her way home from Wenatchee, and no one had seen her or her vehicle she was driving since. Looking for answers, her husband Chris Nastos was incredibly cooperative with investigators and came to the station with their two sons in tow. Because of the lack of physical identifiers, Chris told police that Maria had had her appendix removed several years ago. And once again, police found themselves at a dead end because the torso pulled from the lamet still had its appendix.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Oh dang. I mean, but a good way to But I thought they looked at all the missing persons.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Like what are what I I but I don't know if it was just That's all local Seattle, though. Yeah, I don't know if it was just local or if they I don't know what the police force is looking like in 1946.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Okay, well you can't regrow an appendix, so that's not her. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

But investigators weren't at a standstill for long because on October 14th, six months after the initial discovery, Roy Cutter and his wife were on a Sunday stroll at the foot of Courtney Avenue and Oak Grove along the Willamette River when they discovered an odd-looking bundle floating in the water. Oh dear. Chief Deputy Sheriff Joe Schaub and Special Deputy Pat Reynolds fished the object out of the river and wrapped a newspaper, a partial t-shirt, and wait with weights tied on the sides was a human skull, which they positively identified as belonging to the torso of the murder victim.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

It was a skull?

SPEAKER_01 16:42

So the rest of it had decomposed because now we're in September. Mm-hmm. Okay, so October. Oh, I'm sorry, October.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

But it wasn't in a bag. So maybe to your point, it was supposed to be in a bag, but got loose or something happened. Examination by Dr. Howard Richardson as reported in the Oregonian. Established that the head was that of a woman of more than fifty with brown hair turning gray, which had been put up in curls held by bobby pins, as if the victim had just come from a beauty parlor.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Wait.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

How do they know that from Well I don't think it was like a skull like fully decomposed? Dr. Richardson also noted that the right side of the skull had been fractured as if hit by a considerable force with a heavy blonde weapon or object. The victim's teeth were unique, which would hopefully help investigators out. Dr. Richardson's analysis disclosed that the victim's remaining upper teeth were fake and the eight lower teeth had been filled four with gold.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Okay. Oh, okay. So hopefully we've got another dental discovery.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

That should get them somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

We're loving the fact that people have weird teeth.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

It also said remaining, so I don't know if Oh, it's probably missing some teeth. But also like decomp, I don't know if getting batted around in the river caused some.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Yeah, if they were fake, maybe those ones are gone. So what would be left to just nubs?

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Police also looked into the newspaper that was wrapped around the skull, seeking any information that could point them to the identity of their victim and the killer. The only thing that came of this was a partial headline reading WAC in North Africa. From what I can find, police have never released how long they estimated the skull was in the water for. You mean they can't tell what date that newspaper was from?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Nope.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

You would know by the publication run. I mean it was in the water. It was in the water and the ink was it was probably falling apart. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:40

Well for six months, yeah, there's there can't be much left.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

But you know how they now put it under like the the certain lights and you can see the letter. I mean they they tried to dry it out, but it's like it was printed on there to see you get some information. And they probably didn't save anything. Or the police facility burnt down or okay, so we're still no closer, and now it's October. But no one's reporting to someone missing in April, from April-ish. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

With most of the body now recovered, police were able to draft a composite description of the woman. The victim was at least 50 years of age, from five feet two to five feet four inches in height, about one hundred to one hundred and fifty pounds in weight. She had long hair of light texture, more gray than brown, and neatly done up. The upper teeth were false, while eight remaining lower front teeth had been filled, four with gold and four with fillings missing. So that was like the official composite that they put out. Yeah. Like not a bolo, but kind of. Despite now having a full picture of who this woman was, and after circulating the victim's dental work nationwide, local publicity covering the case and officers' efforts failed to materialize any reports of missing women who matched this description.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Oh, come on, there's gotta be a dentist someplace.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

After two years of unsuccessful leads, Clackamas County District Attorney Stanley Mitchell announced that all evidence was going to be turned over to the FBI in hopes that with their more advanced equipment and technology they might figure out who this woman was. Good. Okay. After the FBI took over, news reports on this case went completely silent. I think everyone believed that things were happening behind the scenes that couldn't be released to the public.

SPEAKER_03 20:23

And they just stuffed it in a closet.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

In September of 2025, the article published by the Oregonian titled Oregon Authorities Exhume Remains, one of Portland area's oldest unsolved murders, it's revealed that the reason why no further updates on the case were released is because state police this is in quotes said the victim's remains went missing from law enforcement custody in the 1950s with no documentation of their disposition.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

See, I was totally joking about that, but I was afraid that that was what was going to happen. I mean, you know, the building didn't burn down, but oh my gosh, we just lost the remains with like dental records that could have helped.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Keep going. Recently, state anthropologist Haley Collard's daughter was reviewing the case, and according to Green State Police, Captain Kyle Kennedy discovered that there wasn't an understanding of where those remains were. There wasn't an understanding of where but shout out to my friend findagrave.com. Love that website. Because matching dates and records reporting that a female torso from River entered in 1951 were able to pinpoint authorities to a grave at Mountain View Cemetery in Portland, belonging to unknown woman 1946, partially obscured by layers of dirt and located in the cemetery's oldest section.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Well, who buried her?

SPEAKER_03 21:45

Yeah, and who paid for it?

SPEAKER_00 21:52

The dismembered remains have been unidentified for 80 years, and it's unclear whether it's possible due to the state of the remains, even with advanced technology.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

That makes me so sick.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Despite this, Captain Kennedy for the Oregonian said, we're going to continue the effort to positively identify her remains for as long as it takes.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

You mean now we're gonna actually try? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 22:11

Now now that we remembered that they're there. Okay, so what happened to the hands, the feet, the the rest of legs?

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 22:22

What's going on there?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Okay, so we've never found her feet. 80 years.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Her leg below her knee, basically. Because they only found both.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

So we have no knees down on either right or left leg.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

And no hands.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

And no hands.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

So people on the internet, because this is Oregon's oldest case, have also kind of been thinking about not thinking about it, but after the publication of the article in September 2025, people online were like, uh, what? What do you mean? You lost the body, which is kind of crazy. Um, this person said, I wish I were more familiar with the fashion of the 1940s. Reading the description of the clothing clothing, it sounds like it was clothing of good quality, possibly indicating wealth. Silk was unavailable and largely replaced by synthetics during the war and took a little while to restore supply. Again, definitely not an expert, but I like vintage stuff. It seems as though a lot of the clothing tags from the area included a place, not the made in Bangladesh of today, but a local storeslash supplier. If the clothing indicated that she was from elsewhere, that could have been the reason to remove the tags.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

Yeah. I mean, there there's a lot of reasons to remove the tags.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Someone else said looking for someone who knew anatomy and had access to bulk animal feedbags, dot dot dot, maybe a veterinarian.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

I mean, I just feel like there's plenty of clues. Or let's go back to the the guys on the the tug or whatever that you know found these. They would probably know they've probably seen people in that area, you know, if they're if they're working that every day. So there's plenty of leads they probably could have followed. Maybe, yeah. But they have no notes. And we have a buried body that's been sitting in the ground.

SPEAKER_03 24:08

I mean the FBI has the notes and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Yeah. But they didn't do anything.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

Well, they don't we don't know if they just don't know about it. Yeah, nothing's been released, so they've been working 80 years on a case.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 24:22

Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Oregon's oldest unidentified person started.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

Or it could just be in a cabinet.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Okay, so it's now July 1st, 2026.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

And as of the article in September from September 2025, nothing has been Are you gonna tell me that we're to the end of this? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

No.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

That's it. I mean, that's a lot for a case from 1946 that had no suspects. Okay, I'm back to the guy who made the phone call.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

The 26-year-old. Or Lou. Listen, he said he said that he had information that nobody else knew. He could have just been making stuff up and it just Oh, he just guessed right?

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Well, he get he has more information than anybody else.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

I mean, obviously, I'm sure they looked into him more than just I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

I think wait, use the term you always use, allegedly, because I don't think it's obviously. Obviously, this case has had a bunch of blunders.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

Well, and unfortunately, everyone who probably was on the case is dead. Right. They also re-looked at it in 2008 and didn't realize that the body was missing.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Mmm. So it didn't look at it then.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

They just publicly looked at it.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

How do you relook at it in 2008? Because they went through the files, but they didn't exhume the body for further testing or Well they didn't Like why wouldn't that be the first thing you do? Hey, let's see plus the Find a Grave. Plus they have dental records. Hopefully the Findagrave thing just said miss torso from missing woman found in River. It didn't say the arms or the head or the thighs. Oh, so that might not even be yeah, unclear if that's even her and if they only buried that part or I mean 1946 torso or better not have multiple kills. There was a torso killer that was operating around 1946, I think in Ohio. And so originally they believed maybe she could have been a suspect of him, but nothing tied her to that case concretely.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

So they think this guy came all the way from Ohio just to dump a body.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

I mean, but again, for the time period, like this was very this was a very graphic and disturbing. Yeah, it wasn't just a domestic incident. It wasn't We've got somebody that had to have knowledge of the area. Like it made front page news for six months. Yeah, I mean nationwide.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Uh you know, hiking boots or whatever to the to the river through the brush, plus then throwing things potentially over a bridge. So that's likely access to a car.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

But also they don't know that the footprints belong to the person. It could have been anybody. It could have been someone fishing. A lot of assumptions. And if they had been there for 30 days, it's gonna rain in April in Oregon. You don't know.

SPEAKER_03 27:15

I just I mean it rains in June, so yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Well it rains in April for sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Okay, well.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

And along the train tracks, it could have been someone like a houseless person. Or, you know, they used to use the train to get from one place to another back then.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

So I have questions for the tugboat folks. I've got questions for the guy who called from the payphone, and I've got questions at the state police turning that stuff over to the FBI. And then let's just pass all those questions on to the FBI. That's 80 years.

SPEAKER_03 27:48

I don't think it's wrong to pass it off onto the FBI.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

I think it's kind of wrong that they waited so long to do it. When I read it, I was like, what do you mean you're gonna wait until you have nothing left?

SPEAKER_03 27:57

They only waited two years.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

I guess, but why didn't they say, hey, this is kind of out of our depth, like we can't. We're not getting anywhere with this, we need some help.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

They should have. But it's like a pride thing.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Yeah, I mean, clearly the sheriff, I mean, they dredged the same part of the river twice.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Yeah, he was trying.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

So they they did something.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Well, I'm sure there was a lot of public pressure on him at the time too, with it being such a so highly polarized.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Let's go back to last year. So is someone picking this up and looking at it, or is it just the headline is just the torso in the grave and we're leaving it at that? No, they're they're working.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

They exhumed the body to see if they can positively identify it as this woman.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

I mean, Mom, it's been 80 years, like what's left?

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Yeah, that's a what can they do?

SPEAKER_01 28:49

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

Even 2008, what could they do?

SPEAKER_00 28:52

I was hoping for a dental record rescue, like Well, going into it, you know it was Oregon's oldest unidentified person's case.

SPEAKER_03 29:00

So that's what I was gonna say. It's Oregon's oldest cold case.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

So if that's unidentified I don't let it, let's solve it. Maybe someone can solve it. If someone's grandma went missing or great grandma. Somebody knows something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:17

Great great grandma, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

I mean, it again, it wasn't the easiest to get places back then. You couldn't just hop on a plane and fly somewhere or drive somewhere even.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

This person had a lot of clothes with them.

SPEAKER_03 29:30

So I mean, there's it's almost like the guy somehow broke into her house or but it if that's the case, then there'd be an empty house.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yeah. It'd look like someone broke in. You have friends that check up on you. Like this person has no friends or family or a husband or anyone checking up on them.

SPEAKER_03 29:50

I mean, it could have been a domestic thing.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

It could have been. Yeah. Somebody or traveling together. People traveling together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

But the just traveling together is a little but the dismemberment, that's not someone that's traveling.

SPEAKER_03 30:02

Yeah, that's not uh because what do you do, like cut in the back early?

SPEAKER_00 30:07

And this article from 2025 says that she was dismembered with a saw. Originally it was just like a blunt right. They couldn't fit uh it wasn't a clean cut thing, but they couldn't figure out what it was. This is this article that we saw.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

At the joints.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

That's that's gonna make a anatomical knowledge.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Yeah. Yikes.

SPEAKER_03 30:33

Well maybe like a like a cow farmer or something? They would have the feed, they would have the rabbit feed, but then just feed them to the pigs. You're on to something, huh?

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Well, and why make all the effort to make carton bags and tell them to try to weigh them and wrap them in newspaper and I mean that's yeah, that was a major fail.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Yeah, it didn't work a single time.

SPEAKER_03 31:01

I mean, I guess it it did kind of work because they didn't find the head for six months.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

But I want to know, were all these dumped at the same time on the same night or day or whatever? Or was it Over time? Over time, yeah. And that's why they couldn't find these things. Yeah, great question. Well, I mean, based on the fact that like the thigh, they said, oh, maybe he just threw it over a bridge. Okay, did he do that last night, or did he do that two months ago?

SPEAKER_03 31:27

I think a couple of the searchers might have been blind people playing ISPY because two times the the second bag that accompanied it was ten feet away.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

Well 40 feet away?

SPEAKER_00 31:39

It's a river. So again, if he's dumping things and it's like a one and then he waits a few minutes and a two. I don't know. And a river does what a river does, you know.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Yeah, but it was the next day, it was ten feet away.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 31:55

The other one was ten feet away on the bank of the river.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

That they did the footprints, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Yeah, I guess that's true.

SPEAKER_03 32:04

So some people were playing Yeah. Playing on impossible difficulty.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Well, let's hope that this reignites something and they can get closure on this case. I just I hate to hear about that.

SPEAKER_04 32:19

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Poor this poor woman who, you know, it just also interesting that the age difference between the torso. You know, someone says, yeah, maybe assumed it was teenager slash 20, and then it's like oh wait fifty, because that is just a way different body.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Well, I think also depending on how long it was in the water, it's not gonna look like maybe it was hard to tell the torso torso.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

And feel bad for the family that thought it was, you know, their mom slash wife, and turns out you know, they couldn't get closure either.

SPEAKER_05 32:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

No, yeah, that was sad too. Okay, we'll have to watch the newspaper for updates. You know, we've been really ugly.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

I do a case and the next week there's an update or there's something like that. I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Let's let's hope that there's some findings.

SPEAKER_04 33:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

Putting it out into the universe.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Okay, well I mean, just seeing the there's a picture of the grave and it says unknown 1946, like that's sad. Yeah, but it's sad. It's not even like Jane Doe. Yeah. So officially this lady is called the Oak Grove Jane Doe. Oak Grove Jane Doe, what which is just across, you know, downtown Lake Oswego. It's on the Milwaukee side of the river. Yeah, Oak Grove, yeah. That's so familiar with the area, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Well, this is a ten out of ten for believability. I'm just following the podcast. Do you agree?

SPEAKER_03 33:51

Yeah, but we don't really do believability for like real life murder stuff. True crime. Cause it obviously happened, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

I don't believe that they tried their hardest to solve this case, but I believe the the sheriff did or whoever.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

I mean, wouldn't you want to do everything to get this awful sick person off the streets? Yes. This is beyond just like I shot someone, drug overdose. Right. This is calculated to the level of crazy evil.

unknown 34:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:23

I mean, yeah, that would get the whole populace open arms, scared.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Yeah, especially if there's also the other side of the country is also dealing with a torso killer. Yeah. Yeah. That's and this would just like ignite. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Yeah. I mean, it does like as you know, as a woman, I think it's like creepy slash scary, only because, you know, I'm 50 and things you don't think that things happen to people when they're over like, you know, teens and twenties, because why why would someone I know I think it's rare that we hear about cases that it's not a young person unless it is a domestic incident, but just like what we were hearing in Rhode Island, right? How you know those were like middle-aged slash older women, and that's that's not common. So maybe it was a a domestic kind of issue, but it is um it is creepy, and I'm glad there's not more like any type of serial killer, but I would like this to be solved. So I think creepy-wise, stay away from the rivers, but stay away from the rivers. And please don't assume that a burlap sack in the water is cats. I just that is creep that's maybe mom, maybe that was common in 1946.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 35:42

Yeah, maybe there's like a throwaway.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

But also well known. You see a bag in the water, I'm not gonna go pick it up.

SPEAKER_03 35:49

Nope.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

What made them go? I don't know, maybe that's a thing. They were cleaning up the river or something, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

I I have a lot of questions as well, but Well, let's hope this is uh yeah. Airily beloved juju, and there's an update in the story.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

That would be nice. That would be nice. Okay, well, thank you for listening to this episode this week. If you did choose to listen, I really appreciate it. And would also really appreciate if you go right and review the podcast. Five stars helps us out a lot just getting more people to see this and hopefully have more people hear about these cases to hopeful just give them exposure so they can be solved, maybe potentially.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Yeah, and we're gonna go on a field trip in the next few weeks to Villabois.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Yeah, sure. Be on the lookout for that. Follow us on Instagram, TikTok, all the places, early beloved podcasts, post some fun stuff over there. Oh, and if you have any cases like this, missing persons, um, cold cases, creepy stories, anything like that, please email earlybelovedpodcast at gmail.com. The links to both this and social media will be in the show notes. And yeah, hope you have a happy Thursday, Friday, Saturday, any day you're listening to this. See you next week. Okay, goodbye. Bye.