UID - MISSING OVER 100 YRS "Lady in the Well" Saskatoon Canada

[GramaMonkey]

I was overcome when reading this news. I could not believe what they are attempting to do to identify this woman...that was found  .....   deceased over 100 yrs ago.

http://en.video.sympatico.ca/index.php/en/video/Home/0/most-watched/35793121001/most-watched-lifestyle/34611021001/facial-reconstruction/42866818001/creationDate/desc/1

[Nut44x4]

I can't see anything at the link...need more info please. I can tell it is in Canada, but where??

[klaasend]

Screen capture from the video:

[Nut44x4]

Thanks for the photo klaas, but I still have no clue where in Canada this UID was found. 

[cw618]

nut44 at the counter in vid 5:02
it flashes, saskatoon, saskatchewan, then the reporter talks about
the well in this town she is found in, hope it helps

[Nut44x4]

Thanks....but I can't see the video.

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!

The Oldest Cold Case

Sat. Mar. 24 2007 6:49 PM ET
On a cold prairie night a woman is murdered, stuffed in a wooden barrel and thrown down a well. When she's discovered almost a century later, Saskatoon police set out to solve an old crime with new technology.

Last July, Cal Schroyen of JBA Petroleum was on a work site excavating some old fuel tanks under a convenience store parking lot in the Sutherland area of Saskatoon. Suddenly a black object rolled out. "It seemed a little unusual so we picked it up and had a look at it and it turned out to be a human skull," recalls Schroyen.

From there, Saskatoon police take over, with Sgt. Russ Friesen at the helm, pulling out the yellow tape, closing the excavation site, and declaring it a crime scene.

"I'm a homicide investigator. I have to view that as a potential homicide until I can prove otherwise," says Friesen.

After three days of meticulous digging, investigators pull out the complete remains of a woman and other important clues. There are pieces of a barrel, broken bottles and fragments of women's clothing -- artifacts from a bygone era. A man's clothing -- an old-style vest and trousers -- are rolled in a ball next to the corpse.

Ernest Walker, forensic archeologist at the University of Saskatchewan and special constable with the RCMP sets to work analysing the remains. Miraculously, the woman's body is well-preserved. The gasoline and water mixture found in the well reacted with the woman's fatty tissues creating a waxy substance -- or adipocere -- encasing her body. Walker finds hair, parts of her intestines and faecal matter. Remarkably Walker also extracted mitochondrial DNA, which investigators hope to match to a living descendent of the woman.

And from all that evidence Walker determines the remains are that of a healthy Caucasian woman, 25 to 35 years of age and a metre-and-a-half tall.

The dating of the crime comes mostly from available clothing fragments. Working next to Walker in a makeshift City morgue, Carole Wakabayashi, a clothing and textile historian sets to work determining the fabric and style of clothing. She uses a number of burning and chemical techniques to determine the clothing's fiber content. She determines the women's fitted jacket, high collared blouse and long skirt are from somewhere between 1910 and 1920.

There's also the issue of an 18 karat gold chain, broken and missing its pendant. Gold of this quality would have been a rarity in the Prairies a century ago, and likely came from Europe or Eastern Canada.

As the clothing analysis reveals probable dating for the murder, Jeff O'Brien, archivist, pores over City records and creates geographical context for the abandoned well. O'Brien's records reveal Sutherland a town that sprouted up in the early 1900s around the Canadian Pacific Railway yards. The tiny town was a hub of transient types - railway workers and sales people. O'Brien determines the well was located right next to the Sutherland Hotel.

Joan Champ, a prairie history buff and curator at the Saskatoon's Western Development Museum says hotels of that time would have been hubs where railway workers would have come to drink and gamble, many of them away from home and their wives.

Once Saskatoon police develop a victim profile, they hold a press conference at the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon. Local media cover the story and the phone call comes in from people looking for missing relatives -- a missing mother, a missing grandmother, or a missing great aunt. The calls are from across Canada and as far away as France. The callers are families looking for closure and wanting to put an end to quiet family rumours about where their missing relative had gone.

Friesen gathers mitochondrial DNA samples from women, hoping to make a match with the remains in the well. One hopeful and genealogy buff, Peggy Franko, is hoping the woman is her long-lost grandmother. She says if her DNA matches that of the woman, she vows to give her grandmother a proper burial, next to her mother.

W-FIVE reporter Victor Malarek follows the investigation, showing how modern tools can be used to solve old crimes. Based on stories from historians and some of the DNA candidates, W-FIVE illustrates though historic recreations the possible scenarios behind this heinous crime, giving a sense of who the 'lady in the well' could have been and how she met her end. Friesen comments on the likelihood of each scenario.

Was she a local prostitute in this rough and tumble railroad town? Or, was she an employee at the neighbouring hotel, killed by a man at the hotel? Was the crime a domestic one, an immigrant wife wanting to escape the bleak prairie life? Or perhaps a botched operation performed by the Sutherland's local and infamous abortionist?

Saskatoon police eagerly await a facial reconstruction, created by one of the RCMP's recreation artists. They're hoping that when the woman's face is revealed, someone will recognize her from an old family photo or a childhood memory.

"We're going to work it, take it down every road that we can and just work it until we can't do anything more on it," said Friesen. I'm positive that we are going to be able to solve this case."

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070323/wfive_coldcase_070323/20070324?hub=WFive

[Nut44x4]

GramaMonkey knew I'd never figure out who this one is 

[Nut44x4]

Woman buried, case still alive

http://www.globalwinnipeg.com/world/Mystery+woman+buried+case+still+alive/3047986/story.html

[Nut44x4]

From Porchlight ......

Harriet Calvert nee Dyson

Birthplace/date: August 1, 1879 - Oxenhope, Yorkshire, England
Date of Disappearance: 1912
Location of Disappearance: Nutana, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Physical Description: Caucasian female.
Medical: Had given birth at least two times previously.
Parish: St. Michael and All Angels - Haworth, Yorkshire, England

Regina link to woman in the well

Lana Haight, Saskatchewan News Network; CanWest News Service
Published:Â Friday, March 09, 2007

A Regina woman hopes her family is the missing link in a 100-year-old Saskatoon murder mystery.

Jo Ann Manton believes the remains of a woman found in the summer of 2006 in an abandoned well in the Sutherland area are those of her great-grandmother Harriet (Dyson) Calvert.

"It all fits. When we started talking over the family history and what we knew of it, it really fits," said Manton.

For many years, one of Manton's aunts has researched the family history and, in particular, Calvert's disappearance in the early 1900s. Manton was visiting her aunt in Calgary last summer when the discovery became national news.

"It just sent shivers up both of our spines," said Manton. "It was a very intuitive feeling. That's fairly strong in our family."

With the help of a historians and archeologists, Saskatoon police have developed a profile of the deceased woman. She was between 25 and 35 years old at the time of her death. She was healthy, Caucasian and at least middle class. She wore an 18-carat gold chain, indicating not only her financial status but also that she may have come from Europe or Eastern Canada, where such a chain would have been crafted. Based on analyses of fragments of the woman's clothing, as well as glass bottles and a wooden barrel found in the well, investigators have narrowed the time of the woman's death to between 1920 and 1924. They believe she was murdered.

Manton sees similarities between the woman found in the well and the mysterious disappearance of her great-grandmother. In 1902, Harriet Dyson married George Calvert in England. Their descendants have been under the impression that George Calvert immigrated to Canada in 1910, followed in 1912 by Harriet Calvert and their two young children, Marion and Leslie. However, all four were living in Saskatchewan in 1911, according to the census that year.

Manton recalls a story she's heard many times that's been passed down through the generations.

"(Great) grandma Harriet played the baby grand piano on the boat and my grandmother sang and entertained everybody that was on the boat as they came over," she said.

The story continues that when George Calvert came to meet his family, he was unrecognizable as he had grown a beard and long hair.

"He came with a horse and buggy to pick them up and all of her prized possessions got left (at) the railway station because there was no room on this buggy, and that included the baby grand piano.

"They came, not from wealth, but from a comfortable life in England to a sod shack, to a man that had become a hermit."

In less than 10 years, the Calvert family moved to three different areas of the province, trying to establish themselves. But Calvert was not a farmer; he was a stone mason and success on the land eluded him, says Manton. The family lived in the Nutana area of Saskatoon during the winter of 1912 as George did masonry work on the original buildings at the University of Saskatchewan.

Manton says during the early years on the farm, Harriet took the children and left for Saskatoon, only to be found by George and brought back to the homestead. Then, she disappeared.

My grandmother could never understand not so much that (her mother) left but that she never tried to contact them," said Manton.

"Grandmother never ever thought of her mother as dead, but that she had just disappeared."

On homestead documents from 1914, George Calvert stated he was moving his family from Meadstead to Turtleford because he wife was deceased.

Calvert eventually moved to Washington state to take a job as a caretaker in a private girls' school. Marion who was married by that time remained in Saskatchewan while Leslie moved with his father.

How her great-grandmother ended up dead in a well in Sutherland, which was a town in its own right on a main Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) line, would be pure speculation, says Manton.

Earlier this week, Manton's aunt provided Saskatoon police with a blood sample to determine if her DNA matches that of the deceased woman.

Sgt. Russ Friesen of Saskatoon police major crimes unit would not comment on the specifics of three leads that he is investigating, but believes all are good possibilities.

"In all cases, a relative was there one day and gone the next and never heard from again," said Friesen who has scoured Vital Statistics records for death dates of the individuals but found none.

"For a person to leave like that and never have contact with family again, especially their children, is unusual."

Some of the families have their own suspicions that will be investigated. There's no statute of limitations on a homicide but this case is not about laying charges or determining guilt, he says.

"The chances of finding a witness or the person responsible and bringing them to justice is slim," said Friesen.

Manton isn't looking for justice, either.

"If that is her, we can give her a proper burial and a proper send-off and let her spirits be at rest. Her spirits have never been sent to any peaceful place."

http://s10.invisionfree.com/usedtobedoe/index.php?showtopic=38468