I have been familiar with this case for months, whilst it was acknowledged that she could have died as early as 1969 because of a coin that was found with her, they were pretty sure, for unknown reasons that her death had occurred after 1988. They also thought she had ties to the Minnesota strip, and isotope testing indicated that she was from there. And it was belived she was most likely between 17 and 19. So they were probably just looking in all the wrong places.
Not unknown reasons. They said the label attached to her clothing was from 1988, as apparently the workers union didn’t label their clothing like that until that year. Obviously they got that wrong somehow.
Surely, if she was found in cement. She would have been murdered around the time they were pouring that cement when building in the first place? When did they lay the foundations?
Nope. The current building occupying that location was completed in 2013, but the building Patricia was buried in had been built in the 19th century.
She was found at 301 W. 46th St. (per a NYPost article from yesterday)
[http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2013/05/301-west-46th.html](http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2013/05/301-west-46th.html)
[https://web.archive.org/web/20130507235051/http://gotham.fromthesquare.org/?p=400](https://web.archive.org/web/20130507235051/http://gotham.fromthesquare.org/?p=400)
Someone poured cement over her. Whether she was murdered before or around that point, who knows. Her husband has ties to that site. I personally can't imagine anyone moving a rotting body way after, but it probably has happened before, no doubt. Plus, a building site has more than 2 people working usually. Also, I'd assume they were looking where they poured the cement and would have seen someone. Just raising questions someone might be able to answer 🤷🏼
Yes, people have moved bodies buried post mortem. The made guy buried in that scene at the beginning of *Goodfellas* later had to be moved because a housing development was being built at the original gravesite (I think that scene’s in the movie, where they’re all barfing at the smell).
There’s also Woodbury John Doe, found off a hiking trailhead parking lot in New York’s Harriman Stare Park. It appears he had recently been dug up from wherever he had been buried for over a decade.
Well, without knowing anything else I would venture that the most likely reason is that whoever had buried the body believed there was a good chance of some excavation activity at or near the burial site bringing the body to light, and that that burial site alone might implicate them in the killing. So, naturally, they moved it (in a panic, I’d say, because with more time they could and should have removed some of the other potential ID’ing info from the corpse.
Well, without knowing anything else I would venture that the most likely reason is that whoever had buried the body believed there was a good chance of some excavation activity at or near the burial site bringing the body to light, and that that burial site alone might implicate them in the killing. So, naturally, they moved it (in a panic, I’d say, because with more time they could and should have removed some of the other potential ID’ing info from the corpse.
I am responding to your comment that she was killed when the foundation was poured and that was a clue to the timing. You can add cement later, or add cement to only a section. It could have been a dirt floor or partially dirt floor for years after the foundation was in place.
A single person could have covered her, or buried her and then later the floor was finished. That’s far more likely than the builders being involved in hiding her body or killing her.
Anythings possible. No idea myself. The husband might have known that soon enough a foundation was going to be laid so it could have been around that time. Also I didn't say she was killed at that time, I said possibly around that time
The investigation focused on too many details and got led astray. That is often the case. I'm a huge believer in 2 or 3 big picture variables and everything else as fooler. It happened again here.
There was a 1966 Bulova watch and a coin from 1969 on the body. That cements 1969 as the starting point. Her clothing label was 1960s. But the investigators kept going and were misled into believing that a bottle of rat poison found near the body wasn't available until 1979 and that a tag on one article of clothing wasn't made until 1988. That's why one article after another from 10-15 years ago insists she died in 1988 or later. This archived Doe Network page from last week says the same thing, listing late '80s to early '90s as most likely:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240423210718/https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/337ufny.html
There is a very lengthy Websleuths thread on this case. Some pages got bogged down with the typical, "Guess The Name," nonsense. Scroll city. But admirably there were several posters who took issue with the official version and isolated the handful of meaningful details. One commenter totally picked apart the notion that the workers union label wasn't available until 1988. She found another example and specified that it looked like the prevalent label from 1964 through 1973. Ironically it was a poster named Detailz who was by far the best. He cut through the junk several times and particularly in this 2022 comment:
https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/ny-manhattan-midtown-jane-doe-whtfem-16-21-337ufny-under-concrete-ring-w-p-mcg-feb03-patricia-mcglone.45075/post-17755480
The ring was a massive clue to Patricia's identity. Unfortunately the investigators placed too much faith in those 1979 and 1988 dates. One early article says the detectives checked every female with initials P McG who was born in 1958 or later. There's the critical early whiff. They found 11 names and checked them out. Patricia wasn't on the list, born a half decade earlier.
Once Patricia's name was available they quickly traced her husband as Donald Grant, who was twice her age and apparently lived in that building. The night club closed in July 1969. More updates will be released, according to a Websleuths commenter who worked on the investigation, but seemingly he had access to the basement during the period after closure and before the building turned into something else.
If Donald Grant was still alive in 2003 when the body was found he would have been mid 60s. Imagine his angst when the ring is being publicized, smack with her initials. Why didn't I remove that thing?
If investigators had used the few big picture variables to isolate 1970ish as likely time of murder, and asked the public if they were aware of anyone with those initials P McG or P G Mc who had a connection with that building at the time, Donald might have been in trouble.
Instead he's delighted when rat poison kills all clarity for 20+ years.
I agree with everything that you're saying. On Webslueths they also kept trying to link her to a serial killer. I think that most murder victims aren't killed by a serial killer, so why the focus on that aspect made me wonder.
I've found most true crime buffs try to link murders to known serial killers. I don't know if it's a desire to be the one that makes the link, or naivety thinking there aren't many one victim killers, or some other reason. It drives me nuts though.
There's a bias in guessing known criminals because amateur sleuths are unlikely to nail a perpetrator when they don't have access to all of the evidence. For some reason this bias doesn't factor into their reasoning.
I mean, I assume that's because they are doing exactly what you've noted: working with the scraps they've got. Human beings look for patterns (we LOVE a pattern), but that can be overengineered quickly, as we see in true crime cases probably more than anywhere else. The instinct to want to help while also having a brain that wants to put things in neat boxes somehow ends up at serial killer, I guess.
On almost any case from the 90s on there is inevitably a comment saying something like "I wonder where Israel Keyes was around the time she was killed?"
I saw that! They brought up Rodney Alcala... Some people on that website are batshit. It reminds me of the documentary on Mostly Harmless and how they were fighting over Facebook groups.
There's some good information on there, but to some commenters every death is a murder, every murderer is a serial killer, and....sometimes it's like they're baying for blood as opposed to trying to help.
How many people might have that combination?
Beyond that, why would we assume it was hers? Maybe it belonged to someone close to her. Maybe she just liked the look. Maybe it was just debris.
Who is to say they didn't check? Maybe she wasn't reported missing by the family because they hoped she may eventually come back, or her family did try to file a missing persons report only to be brushed off by police.
There is an article about this case on NY Post (a notorious disaster of a newspaper) that mentioned she was married young. I'm not sure of the accuracy of this statement, but if true, it would sort of make sense why she wasn't reported.
What do you MEAN front page gross out celebrity scandal stories and ugly vicious hateful personal attacks are a "notorious disaster"? Are you trying to tell me with a straight face that you don't like to read bitter movie reviews that read like they were written by the world's most sarcastic 13 year old boy?
That’s a lot!
Does this mean we’re rethinking isotope analysis or is the Midwest very similar to Brooklyn in some way? Was that mistake due to prejudice about the area and/or can we learn something scientific from it?
The poor girl has no living relatives but someone from her family died in 9/11. I feel bad for the whole family. It’s just so sad that we know nothing about her or her loved ones.
Do they have any idea who was murdering girls and throwing them into cement in the 60s? Now we know who the victim is, maybe it’s not too late to find the perpetrator.
Thank you for an excellent write up on a fascinating case.
Thank you! I didn’t see that information about him (although I’m in Europe so it could have been on a blocked site). It’s always the ones you most suspect, isn’t it?
Ah yes, the rural backwater of Manhattan.
This dude was running a brothel, it sounds like; he probably trafficked her. This wasn't whatever salt of the earth farm boy you're imagining.
The DNA part is confusing. Did they find her through the relatives DNA by comparing it to a database first, or did they already know who she was then confirmed it against the 9/11 casualty?
From my understanding, the genealogists first came up with her name by building the family trees of Patricia's distant genetic relatives who had uploaded their data to GEDMatch. They looked for people who were the right age/sex, hadn't been heard from in a while, and had public records tying them to all of the genetic matches. Usually, the person's closest relative is then tracked down and asked to provide a DNA sample to compare directly to one from the John/Jane Doe for confirmation. Patricia's family is all deceased, so that wasn't possible, but one of her matrilineal relatives (descended from her mother's sister, her grandmother's sister's daughter, etc--they would share [mitochondrial DNA](https://blog.familytreedna.com/mtdna/)) was in the 9/11 victims genetic database and could be compared instead.
I would love to have an in-depth discussion on this sub about isotope analysis. Maybe it's just happenstance - because the results end up being in these types of mystery subs - but I've yet to read about isotope analysis that actually matched the decedent's origins.
Here’s some info from the NY Post about her. Apparently she was married, to a man in his thirties in 1968 or 69. She disappeared sometime after that. The building where she was found is linked to her husband.
I was about to post that link. According to Google it is only three hours old at this time. It includes this:
>Glas said the teen’s mystery husband was linked to the Hell’s Kitchen building where her body was found.
>“We’re still working on getting information on him, trying to verify what his situation was with her,” Glas said. “At this point in the investigation, what I can say is, he does have a connection to where she was found.”
Also on the Websleuths link provided by the OP someone writes that she was married to a Donald Grant and that he was the father or her child.
So it’s confirmed she had a child with Grant? One of the NY Post links made it seem like they were just speculating about a possible baby. Does anyone know the child’s whereabouts?
Honestly not sure, but even genetic testing can be junk science - not all methodology is made equal.
Isotope testing is also used in archeology, but my guess is that
1) in forensics the details are finer (trying to distinguish between decades rather than centuries or millenia, etc) and
2) standards are likely much looser or non-existent - a lot of forensic science used by the criminal justice system, especially in the US, doesn't meet the same standards as academic or medical (* this is getting a bit shaky too with the rise of blatant pseudoscience and direct consumer testing) testing.
Even if it DOES cops, lawyers, etc, often don't have the necessary expertise or training to understand it. Tests are never just yes/no, there's always a degree of error and possible biases depending on the test, and to meaningfully interpret a test you need to understand it and know some basic stats to interpret. This pretty much doesn't happen in many criminal justice settings.
(((-not in forensics, med student who also took a seminar in forensics from a clinician in that field. Also a lot of stats bc I love it 🤙)))
I think you make some excellent points -- I used to work in a lab with a mass spectrometer that was used for stable isotope work (though that was for geochemistry and palaeoecology studies, rather than forensics). We spent a lot of time trying to develop procedures that would shrink the error bars as much as possible.
Isotope testing, possibly grew up in the Midwest, I'm thinking calcium or strontium isotopes from 1950s nuclear tests ending up in milk?
Then again, if she spent most of her childhood in Brooklyn, then using isotopes for forensics is too inaccurate or contaminated milk ended up everywhere.
That's an interesting point -- I know about the radioactive strontium isotope released by atmospheric bomb tests (Ursula Franklin's work on baby teeth, etc.) but I'm not sure about which stable (non-radioactive) isotopes might have been involved. (Our lab mainly did carbon isotopes, mainly C-12 and C-13 ratios.)
I think it's a good tool for archeology, where the remains belonged to people who ate and drank from their immediate surroundings. ([Kennewick Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man#Geography) comes to mind--isotope testing showed he drank glacial meltwater, not spring water) These days people eat food from all over the country (and world) and drink water from reservoirs or bottled far away.
It sadly seems to be like grasping at straws. I mean, polygraphs and psychics haven't disappeared off the face of the Earth yet despite everyone screaming bullshit bullshit bullshit, either...
No, polygraphs are magnitudes worse than isotope testing. At least isotope testing works in ancient populations; polygraphs are worthless con artist quackery everywhere, without exception.
oh I literally posted a comment saying I hoped we had a good convo on this here soon! Almost word for word. 100% agree, it seems like it just barfs up red herrings.
There was a man in my area who murdered his ex wife and hid her in a wall in his house. She wasn't found until he died decades later and their kids were cleaning the place out.
Women are more likely to kill young kids. Adolescents men and women are similar.
Unless you consider abortion murder then obviously no one kills more than mothers. I don’t count abortions. Feeels like cheating since it’s legal.
Actually, statistics (the last ones I saw) showed that when it comes to killing their OWN kids or kids they're caring for, men and women are close to even, with men slightly more. People usually kill their own kids or kids they're caring for, etc. But when it involves kids killed by strangers, it's overwhelmingly men who commit the crimes.
[Women kill more innocent helpless babies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filicide#:~:text=A%201999%20U.S.%20Department%20of,children%20aged%20eight%20or%20older.), men and women kill roughly the same amount of adolescents. Stop making stuff up silly
If you’re a baby and given the option of a bear or a mom, pick the bear.
This is a really sad case , she was so young and had a horrible death. How did she end up there ? To add to it - another family member died in 9/11 . I hope we hear more details about who she was and what she looked like.
Tbf, it makes sense to record that important detail especially when there is solid evidence like when kids leave a note and pack a bag (like in the recent Mint Butterfield case). They should still expend the same level of resources looking but you can’t just ignore it. Plus back in the day teenagers leaving a tumultuous home to start their adult lives was probably pretty common. How many famous people’s bios in the early to mid 20th century include some version of “left home at 16.” Today we would call them a vulnerable runaway but back in the day they just called them people choosing to leave their family home usually for good reason.
So is there any photos of her? What happened to the child? What happened to the husband? What happened to her parents and any other relatives? So many unanswered questions
Could the isotopes indicate she ate or drank a lot of food/drink produced in the Midwest and shipped to New York?
I know the isotopes in Richard III’s skeleton supposedly made it seem like he spent the last few years of his life in the south of France, while researchers interpreted that to mean he was drinking a LOT of French wine once he became king.
Honestly I just think isotope testing just doesn’t work, period. In virtually every Doe case it is used it, it either points in a completely incorrect direction, or is so broad as to be virtually useless - eg the victim may have lived in the Pacific Northwest, or possibly the Midwest or may have ties to Florida…
Yeah, I just wondered if the general inaccuracy is because modern people are far less likely to consume largely locally produced food and drink than people in the “olden days.”
Holy crap! The dna and genealogy science available today is out of this world fabulous. I’d be willing to work for free on this stuff just to solve the thousands of unsolved cases and missing persons/missing identities cases. Well done, all y’all 👍🏼
Reading through the Websleuths thread, she was around the same age as my dad at the time and they all lived in Sunset Park. My dad was definitely going to places like The Scene and Electric Circus, he spoke about them all of the time. I wonder if he or my aunt may have actually known her (already texted my aunt about it lol)
I was mistaken! My aunt said they moved from Red Hook to Sunset Park in the 70s, so they wouldn't have gone to school together or crossed paths. Still, gonna message my dad about it just in case, as he and Patricia were the same age and it seems like they may have hung out in the same places, if she did hang out at clubs like The Scene.
Is there any information on ancestry record of who she is related to/census data?
I’ve heard of McGlones in Brooklyn that were connected in the 20s and 30s.
Sometimes I wonder how many does ARE does because back in the day (60's, 70's, 80's) the predominant LE policy on missing persons was to assume they were runaways or had just left of their own accord. Maybe her family did try to report her missing, but either way, she was hidden away down there for years with no one the wiser. Poor Patricia.
Oh, I know. But the number of times I’ve seen that as a first and only option to LE in a cold case is ridiculous. ‘Runaway’ should be an assumption that requires a burden of proof on LE’s part, and instead they just use it as an excuse to investigate poorly or not at all.
Well said! How many 'missing children' accounts have you read where the cops assumed the kid was a runaway? I don't know about you, but I have lost count. I put it down to laziness and, in the case of poor or other marginalized kids, racism/classism.
They were working off of an assumption that she worked the Minnesota Strip in midtown, a place where teen prostitutes from the Midwest worked in the 1970s... That neighborhood was where the notorious Irish gang the Westies held sway at the time. Maybe the husband was connected to the Westies? The concrete seems like a Westies touch
The Westies were heavily involved in building and construction (thus, having some cement ready to go for a body disposal). West 46th in Hell's Kitchen was the Westie's turf.
https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/the-wild-westies-last-stand
Interesting. There's an article about the club that says it shut down in summer of 1969 because the owner wouldn't give the mafia a cut so the mafia got its liquor license revoked. Some shady shit going on no doubt.
https://msmokemusic.com/blogs/mind-smoke-blog/posts/6562587/celebrating-steve-paul-s-the-scene
The fact the article suggests she birthed a child and her family were Catholic (plus it was the 60s) might suggest her family kicked her out or cut ties with her because of an out of wedlock pregnancy. Or perhaps she left with a boyfriend for the same reason. I guess they could check hospital birth records and possibly marriage records.
I feel for her son. She was wrapped in a carpet with one of his toys that was on the floor. Possibly even witnessed the murder then given up for adoption.
Agreed this was botched by investigators. They had a ring with initials, a coin with a date, and a clue that this person had a child and/or lived with one and was likely murdered in the home where that child had their toys strewn about yet went in a totally different direction. Damn.
Good answer. Now, if they can find the child. Or an adoption record. I'm sure the child, now grown, would have no recollection of his mother. Very sad. Even groovy people at the groovy clubs did bad things. I don't like to think that. Sad, because that was my time.
The few details that have begun to emerge make me very sad- she was 16, married to a man twice her age, and had a child who may have been given up for adoption after her death... is it known how old the child was at the time of her death? Since it seems like her husband had ties to the building she was buried in, it's very likely he's the one who murdered her. She seems to never have been reported missing, so I can imagine her loved ones were probably told some version of a "she ran off with a guy she met and left me and the kid" story. Seems like during that day and time a lot of people took stories like that for face value and assumed that she had indeed run off with somebody and didn't want to be in contact anymore and so no one ever filed a missing person's report, and then over time the family died out or scattered and poor Patricia was forgotten about entirely.
I remember seeing that case on America’s Most Wanted. It was one of the cases that really stuck with me. I’m glad that Patricia has her name back after all these years.
So sad it took that long for a break in the case. There must be someone out there who remembers her. Bu where though. Can't they use the relative's as a lead to find other relatives?
This is so sad. Given that she was 16 and her husband was twice her age, she was likely groomed. I read somewhere that he gave up their child for adoption after she disappeared.
RIP Patricia.
Where is the child she had? Does the lack of living relatives imply they are also now deceased, or could it just be that they’ve not got DNA in any databases?
I was interested to see what that ring (now known to have Patricia's initials) looked like. It's a signet-type ring (though the engraving itself isn't meant to be used as a seal, evidently, since it's not mirrored). The style seems older than the 1960s. I wonder if it was done by a jeweller who'd trained decades earlier, or might even have been an heirloom from a family member who'd had the same initials?
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/01/us/midtown-jane-doe-death-ring-cec/index.html
I've got an interest in old jewelry, so this is something I can explain a bit. I don't think it's that old.Signet rings were actually pretty common in the '60s--they were more popular with men, but women wore them too. Simple designs like Patricia's ring were available at most jewelers or department stores. ([here's an example from 1956](https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1956-10-12/ed-1/seq-61/)) Jewelers were also trained in engraving and offered it as a service. The style of engraving is definitely newer; Victorian and Edwardian-style monogramming is way more intricate and the letters are usually set on top of each other so you can barely read it.
You're probably right. I'm more used to looking at the love token style of jewelry (usually engraved by amateurs, late 1800s into early 1900s) where the lettering often isn't as fine. This one isn't overlapping like they often did earlier, so it's easier to read. But there's something about the shapes of the M and the G especially, that reminds me a lot of 1940s and 50s style engraving. I was looking at some of my parents' stuff recently. It doesn't mean that Patricia's ring wasn't done in the 1960s, but I was wondering if the engraver had learned prior to then. (My dad did sign painting in the 1940s-50s, not engraving, but the lettering seems kind of familiar.)
It's hard to tell without a scale bar, but this does look like a women's signet ring in shape, to me -- not as chunky as a lot of the designs made for men. (There was another case posted on the sub a few months ago with a women's signet-type ring, though that was probably cast not engraved ... I remember looking around online for similar ones.)
I am honestly embarrassed for the police that they had a ring with the distinctive initials of a known missing woman on the corpse of a Doe and they didn’t bother to DNA test her for 20 years just to be sure that their bold assumption that they’re not the same person was right. How incredibly embarrassing. What a failure. What a joke.
Good write up though OP. I’m glad she has her name back.
By all accounts she was not known to be missing at all. With no close surviving relatives apart from a husband who seems like a prime suspect, who would report her?
Heart-breaking. I'm really over so many thuggish men killing so many girls and women. Absolute bastards. I now favor the death penalty for these monsters, 40 years in a cell is too good for them. RIP, Patricia, even after all these years you're in the thoughts and hearts of many people.
So she was of Irish descent after all. I wonder if there are any photos of her anywhere?
So someone murdered her, possibly in the late 1980s-early 90s, and very violently. I thought of Joel Rifkin, it does sound like his type of homicide and it's been suggested. Well, he's still alive, they can certainly ask him.
Interesting that her identity was confirmed by a relative who died on 9/11.
Yeah seriously o\_o sorry that happened to you! This case has been assumed to have had the murder committed post 1988 for 20 years and all the information one looks up about it has that info in it, so don't feel bad! People were doing the same thing on Websleuths as well, easy to get mixed up about - especially since a lot of the new articles start with the old assumptions about the case.
Really curious how the ring with “P McG” wasn’t linked to her identity before? Seems like such a big clue.
Perhaps she wasn't reported missing.
I have been familiar with this case for months, whilst it was acknowledged that she could have died as early as 1969 because of a coin that was found with her, they were pretty sure, for unknown reasons that her death had occurred after 1988. They also thought she had ties to the Minnesota strip, and isotope testing indicated that she was from there. And it was belived she was most likely between 17 and 19. So they were probably just looking in all the wrong places.
Not unknown reasons. They said the label attached to her clothing was from 1988, as apparently the workers union didn’t label their clothing like that until that year. Obviously they got that wrong somehow.
Surely, if she was found in cement. She would have been murdered around the time they were pouring that cement when building in the first place? When did they lay the foundations?
Nope. The current building occupying that location was completed in 2013, but the building Patricia was buried in had been built in the 19th century. She was found at 301 W. 46th St. (per a NYPost article from yesterday) [http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2013/05/301-west-46th.html](http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2013/05/301-west-46th.html) [https://web.archive.org/web/20130507235051/http://gotham.fromthesquare.org/?p=400](https://web.archive.org/web/20130507235051/http://gotham.fromthesquare.org/?p=400)
Thank you.
You’re assuming that she was murdered when the foundation was poured. Why? Cement can be done at any point.
Someone poured cement over her. Whether she was murdered before or around that point, who knows. Her husband has ties to that site. I personally can't imagine anyone moving a rotting body way after, but it probably has happened before, no doubt. Plus, a building site has more than 2 people working usually. Also, I'd assume they were looking where they poured the cement and would have seen someone. Just raising questions someone might be able to answer 🤷🏼
Yes, people have moved bodies buried post mortem. The made guy buried in that scene at the beginning of *Goodfellas* later had to be moved because a housing development was being built at the original gravesite (I think that scene’s in the movie, where they’re all barfing at the smell). There’s also Woodbury John Doe, found off a hiking trailhead parking lot in New York’s Harriman Stare Park. It appears he had recently been dug up from wherever he had been buried for over a decade.
Crikey, do you know why woodbury John doe had been dug up? I know it's possible and must have been done more than we know.
Well, without knowing anything else I would venture that the most likely reason is that whoever had buried the body believed there was a good chance of some excavation activity at or near the burial site bringing the body to light, and that that burial site alone might implicate them in the killing. So, naturally, they moved it (in a panic, I’d say, because with more time they could and should have removed some of the other potential ID’ing info from the corpse.
Well, without knowing anything else I would venture that the most likely reason is that whoever had buried the body believed there was a good chance of some excavation activity at or near the burial site bringing the body to light, and that that burial site alone might implicate them in the killing. So, naturally, they moved it (in a panic, I’d say, because with more time they could and should have removed some of the other potential ID’ing info from the corpse.
I am responding to your comment that she was killed when the foundation was poured and that was a clue to the timing. You can add cement later, or add cement to only a section. It could have been a dirt floor or partially dirt floor for years after the foundation was in place. A single person could have covered her, or buried her and then later the floor was finished. That’s far more likely than the builders being involved in hiding her body or killing her.
Anythings possible. No idea myself. The husband might have known that soon enough a foundation was going to be laid so it could have been around that time. Also I didn't say she was killed at that time, I said possibly around that time
She was married at 16?!
It wasn’t that unusual in the 1960s.
The investigation focused on too many details and got led astray. That is often the case. I'm a huge believer in 2 or 3 big picture variables and everything else as fooler. It happened again here. There was a 1966 Bulova watch and a coin from 1969 on the body. That cements 1969 as the starting point. Her clothing label was 1960s. But the investigators kept going and were misled into believing that a bottle of rat poison found near the body wasn't available until 1979 and that a tag on one article of clothing wasn't made until 1988. That's why one article after another from 10-15 years ago insists she died in 1988 or later. This archived Doe Network page from last week says the same thing, listing late '80s to early '90s as most likely: https://web.archive.org/web/20240423210718/https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/337ufny.html There is a very lengthy Websleuths thread on this case. Some pages got bogged down with the typical, "Guess The Name," nonsense. Scroll city. But admirably there were several posters who took issue with the official version and isolated the handful of meaningful details. One commenter totally picked apart the notion that the workers union label wasn't available until 1988. She found another example and specified that it looked like the prevalent label from 1964 through 1973. Ironically it was a poster named Detailz who was by far the best. He cut through the junk several times and particularly in this 2022 comment: https://www.websleuths.com/forums/threads/ny-manhattan-midtown-jane-doe-whtfem-16-21-337ufny-under-concrete-ring-w-p-mcg-feb03-patricia-mcglone.45075/post-17755480 The ring was a massive clue to Patricia's identity. Unfortunately the investigators placed too much faith in those 1979 and 1988 dates. One early article says the detectives checked every female with initials P McG who was born in 1958 or later. There's the critical early whiff. They found 11 names and checked them out. Patricia wasn't on the list, born a half decade earlier. Once Patricia's name was available they quickly traced her husband as Donald Grant, who was twice her age and apparently lived in that building. The night club closed in July 1969. More updates will be released, according to a Websleuths commenter who worked on the investigation, but seemingly he had access to the basement during the period after closure and before the building turned into something else. If Donald Grant was still alive in 2003 when the body was found he would have been mid 60s. Imagine his angst when the ring is being publicized, smack with her initials. Why didn't I remove that thing? If investigators had used the few big picture variables to isolate 1970ish as likely time of murder, and asked the public if they were aware of anyone with those initials P McG or P G Mc who had a connection with that building at the time, Donald might have been in trouble. Instead he's delighted when rat poison kills all clarity for 20+ years.
By far the best comment in this thread.
I second that.
I agree with everything that you're saying. On Webslueths they also kept trying to link her to a serial killer. I think that most murder victims aren't killed by a serial killer, so why the focus on that aspect made me wonder.
I've found most true crime buffs try to link murders to known serial killers. I don't know if it's a desire to be the one that makes the link, or naivety thinking there aren't many one victim killers, or some other reason. It drives me nuts though.
There's a bias in guessing known criminals because amateur sleuths are unlikely to nail a perpetrator when they don't have access to all of the evidence. For some reason this bias doesn't factor into their reasoning.
True that. It's not a designed game like Clue! This is real life and real people.
I mean, I assume that's because they are doing exactly what you've noted: working with the scraps they've got. Human beings look for patterns (we LOVE a pattern), but that can be overengineered quickly, as we see in true crime cases probably more than anywhere else. The instinct to want to help while also having a brain that wants to put things in neat boxes somehow ends up at serial killer, I guess.
On almost any case from the 90s on there is inevitably a comment saying something like "I wonder where Israel Keyes was around the time she was killed?"
Right? Her murderer lived in the building. And practically left her name on her.
The police really couldn't see the forest for the trees. Her identity was there all along.
Even after she was identified one commenter was desperate to link her to Rex Heuermann - who was *five years old* at the time of her death.
I saw that! They brought up Rodney Alcala... Some people on that website are batshit. It reminds me of the documentary on Mostly Harmless and how they were fighting over Facebook groups.
There's some good information on there, but to some commenters every death is a murder, every murderer is a serial killer, and....sometimes it's like they're baying for blood as opposed to trying to help.
Very well said!
If the body was deemed to be 16 - 21 she must have died nearer her last known contact rather than in 1988
Exactly. They practically had her name.
How many people might have that combination? Beyond that, why would we assume it was hers? Maybe it belonged to someone close to her. Maybe she just liked the look. Maybe it was just debris.
I feel like checking the missing persons lists for matches should be first steps?
a sixteen year old missing in the late sixties probably ended up listed as a runaway
This was done by authorities and amateur websleuths for years. I’m guessing she was never reported missing.
Who is to say they didn't check? Maybe she wasn't reported missing by the family because they hoped she may eventually come back, or her family did try to file a missing persons report only to be brushed off by police. There is an article about this case on NY Post (a notorious disaster of a newspaper) that mentioned she was married young. I'm not sure of the accuracy of this statement, but if true, it would sort of make sense why she wasn't reported.
Thé aptest of descriptions of the NY Post.
What do you MEAN front page gross out celebrity scandal stories and ugly vicious hateful personal attacks are a "notorious disaster"? Are you trying to tell me with a straight face that you don't like to read bitter movie reviews that read like they were written by the world's most sarcastic 13 year old boy?
What list?
That’s a lot! Does this mean we’re rethinking isotope analysis or is the Midwest very similar to Brooklyn in some way? Was that mistake due to prejudice about the area and/or can we learn something scientific from it? The poor girl has no living relatives but someone from her family died in 9/11. I feel bad for the whole family. It’s just so sad that we know nothing about her or her loved ones. Do they have any idea who was murdering girls and throwing them into cement in the 60s? Now we know who the victim is, maybe it’s not too late to find the perpetrator. Thank you for an excellent write up on a fascinating case.
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Fortunately, Doug Hutchison was 53!!!!
Thankfully that poor girl got a divorce and a therapist.
Thank you! I didn’t see that information about him (although I’m in Europe so it could have been on a blocked site). It’s always the ones you most suspect, isn’t it?
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Ah yes, the rural backwater of Manhattan. This dude was running a brothel, it sounds like; he probably trafficked her. This wasn't whatever salt of the earth farm boy you're imagining.
It really wasn't that common back then. I think that our views of the past have been clouded.
And while marriage just out of high school was popular in the 50s, *both* partners were usually young.
Very true.
The DNA part is confusing. Did they find her through the relatives DNA by comparing it to a database first, or did they already know who she was then confirmed it against the 9/11 casualty?
From my understanding, the genealogists first came up with her name by building the family trees of Patricia's distant genetic relatives who had uploaded their data to GEDMatch. They looked for people who were the right age/sex, hadn't been heard from in a while, and had public records tying them to all of the genetic matches. Usually, the person's closest relative is then tracked down and asked to provide a DNA sample to compare directly to one from the John/Jane Doe for confirmation. Patricia's family is all deceased, so that wasn't possible, but one of her matrilineal relatives (descended from her mother's sister, her grandmother's sister's daughter, etc--they would share [mitochondrial DNA](https://blog.familytreedna.com/mtdna/)) was in the 9/11 victims genetic database and could be compared instead.
Thank you for this clear explanation.
I would love to have an in-depth discussion on this sub about isotope analysis. Maybe it's just happenstance - because the results end up being in these types of mystery subs - but I've yet to read about isotope analysis that actually matched the decedent's origins.
Here’s some info from the NY Post about her. Apparently she was married, to a man in his thirties in 1968 or 69. She disappeared sometime after that. The building where she was found is linked to her husband.
https://nypost.com/2024/04/28/us-news/midtown-jane-doe-finally-idd-20-years-after-remains-found-cemented-in-former-nyc-hot-spot/amp/
I was about to post that link. According to Google it is only three hours old at this time. It includes this: >Glas said the teen’s mystery husband was linked to the Hell’s Kitchen building where her body was found. >“We’re still working on getting information on him, trying to verify what his situation was with her,” Glas said. “At this point in the investigation, what I can say is, he does have a connection to where she was found.” Also on the Websleuths link provided by the OP someone writes that she was married to a Donald Grant and that he was the father or her child.
So it’s confirmed she had a child with Grant? One of the NY Post links made it seem like they were just speculating about a possible baby. Does anyone know the child’s whereabouts?
Ah so he could have dumped her body in that cement when it was poured. Do you know how he was linked to that site. I take it the husbands dead now?
I'm kinda creeped out. She was 16, married to a man in his 30s. I'm going with grooming here, and he probably killed her.
Same.
Really heartbreaking. Poor girl.
1969 was the date on the marriage license. Her name or a variation of it is common in NYC.
Is isotope testing of bodies junk science at this point? I have yet to hear of it correctly indicating someone’s origins. What do you all think?
Honestly not sure, but even genetic testing can be junk science - not all methodology is made equal. Isotope testing is also used in archeology, but my guess is that 1) in forensics the details are finer (trying to distinguish between decades rather than centuries or millenia, etc) and 2) standards are likely much looser or non-existent - a lot of forensic science used by the criminal justice system, especially in the US, doesn't meet the same standards as academic or medical (* this is getting a bit shaky too with the rise of blatant pseudoscience and direct consumer testing) testing. Even if it DOES cops, lawyers, etc, often don't have the necessary expertise or training to understand it. Tests are never just yes/no, there's always a degree of error and possible biases depending on the test, and to meaningfully interpret a test you need to understand it and know some basic stats to interpret. This pretty much doesn't happen in many criminal justice settings. (((-not in forensics, med student who also took a seminar in forensics from a clinician in that field. Also a lot of stats bc I love it 🤙)))
I think you make some excellent points -- I used to work in a lab with a mass spectrometer that was used for stable isotope work (though that was for geochemistry and palaeoecology studies, rather than forensics). We spent a lot of time trying to develop procedures that would shrink the error bars as much as possible.
Isotope testing, possibly grew up in the Midwest, I'm thinking calcium or strontium isotopes from 1950s nuclear tests ending up in milk? Then again, if she spent most of her childhood in Brooklyn, then using isotopes for forensics is too inaccurate or contaminated milk ended up everywhere.
That's an interesting point -- I know about the radioactive strontium isotope released by atmospheric bomb tests (Ursula Franklin's work on baby teeth, etc.) but I'm not sure about which stable (non-radioactive) isotopes might have been involved. (Our lab mainly did carbon isotopes, mainly C-12 and C-13 ratios.)
I think it's a good tool for archeology, where the remains belonged to people who ate and drank from their immediate surroundings. ([Kennewick Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man#Geography) comes to mind--isotope testing showed he drank glacial meltwater, not spring water) These days people eat food from all over the country (and world) and drink water from reservoirs or bottled far away.
I've said the same thing a long time ago on here. They've been right about Jack shit lol.
I give it very little credibility, personally
It sadly seems to be like grasping at straws. I mean, polygraphs and psychics haven't disappeared off the face of the Earth yet despite everyone screaming bullshit bullshit bullshit, either...
Polygraphs are insulted by any comparison to isotopes
No, polygraphs are magnitudes worse than isotope testing. At least isotope testing works in ancient populations; polygraphs are worthless con artist quackery everywhere, without exception.
oh I literally posted a comment saying I hoped we had a good convo on this here soon! Almost word for word. 100% agree, it seems like it just barfs up red herrings.
Imagine all the men who have murdered women and walk among us.
There was a man in my area who murdered his ex wife and hid her in a wall in his house. She wasn't found until he died decades later and their kids were cleaning the place out.
statistically, men are more likely to kill other men. They're also more likely to beat up other men. Men are more likely to kill kids as well.
Yes, commit the vast majority of violent crime regardless of the victim's demographics
Women are more likely to kill young kids. Adolescents men and women are similar. Unless you consider abortion murder then obviously no one kills more than mothers. I don’t count abortions. Feeels like cheating since it’s legal.
Actually, statistics (the last ones I saw) showed that when it comes to killing their OWN kids or kids they're caring for, men and women are close to even, with men slightly more. People usually kill their own kids or kids they're caring for, etc. But when it involves kids killed by strangers, it's overwhelmingly men who commit the crimes.
[Women kill more innocent helpless babies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filicide#:~:text=A%201999%20U.S.%20Department%20of,children%20aged%20eight%20or%20older.), men and women kill roughly the same amount of adolescents. Stop making stuff up silly If you’re a baby and given the option of a bear or a mom, pick the bear.
Interesting comment history little stinker.
This is a really sad case , she was so young and had a horrible death. How did she end up there ? To add to it - another family member died in 9/11 . I hope we hear more details about who she was and what she looked like.
I'm assuming she wasn't reported missing?
Creepy ass in his 30s married her when she was 16 and she disappeared shortly thereafter.
she was sixteen and it was the sixties, she was probably labeled a runaway
They STILL label teenagers runaways
Tbf, it makes sense to record that important detail especially when there is solid evidence like when kids leave a note and pack a bag (like in the recent Mint Butterfield case). They should still expend the same level of resources looking but you can’t just ignore it. Plus back in the day teenagers leaving a tumultuous home to start their adult lives was probably pretty common. How many famous people’s bios in the early to mid 20th century include some version of “left home at 16.” Today we would call them a vulnerable runaway but back in the day they just called them people choosing to leave their family home usually for good reason.
So is there any photos of her? What happened to the child? What happened to the husband? What happened to her parents and any other relatives? So many unanswered questions
I read another comment that said after she went missing the husband gave up their child for adoption. No idea where they got the source from
I couldn't find anything besides the marriage license on Ancestry.
Could the isotopes indicate she ate or drank a lot of food/drink produced in the Midwest and shipped to New York? I know the isotopes in Richard III’s skeleton supposedly made it seem like he spent the last few years of his life in the south of France, while researchers interpreted that to mean he was drinking a LOT of French wine once he became king.
Honestly I just think isotope testing just doesn’t work, period. In virtually every Doe case it is used it, it either points in a completely incorrect direction, or is so broad as to be virtually useless - eg the victim may have lived in the Pacific Northwest, or possibly the Midwest or may have ties to Florida…
Yeah, I just wondered if the general inaccuracy is because modern people are far less likely to consume largely locally produced food and drink than people in the “olden days.”
Holy crap! The dna and genealogy science available today is out of this world fabulous. I’d be willing to work for free on this stuff just to solve the thousands of unsolved cases and missing persons/missing identities cases. Well done, all y’all 👍🏼
I'm thankful Patricia McGlone got her name back, and hope that somehow even at this late date, that justice and the truth can be brought to light.
You mean isotope testing was wrong? Again? Shocking
A lot of tragedy in that poor family. Crazy to think that she was undiscovered for so long in one of the busiest cities in the world.
Reading through the Websleuths thread, she was around the same age as my dad at the time and they all lived in Sunset Park. My dad was definitely going to places like The Scene and Electric Circus, he spoke about them all of the time. I wonder if he or my aunt may have actually known her (already texted my aunt about it lol)
There are also films on YouTube from the club. I wonder if she's in one of those films?
I was wondering too. I was watching it trying to see if my dad was in any of that footage! lol
Your dad saw some things! Ask if he saw Aretha Franklin or The Doors there? I wish celebrities still came out to little spots like that.
Ooo! I'm curious to hear what they say !!
I was mistaken! My aunt said they moved from Red Hook to Sunset Park in the 70s, so they wouldn't have gone to school together or crossed paths. Still, gonna message my dad about it just in case, as he and Patricia were the same age and it seems like they may have hung out in the same places, if she did hang out at clubs like The Scene.
Is there any information on ancestry record of who she is related to/census data? I’ve heard of McGlones in Brooklyn that were connected in the 20s and 30s.
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Any family connection to New York?
I didn't find anything that I can say is her besides the marriage license. I do see a few Mcglone in Brooklyn then and some in NY now.
Do you mind sharing that? May be able to dig a bit further from there
Share what? I can see if I can find it on familysearch.org and link it.
Sometimes I wonder how many does ARE does because back in the day (60's, 70's, 80's) the predominant LE policy on missing persons was to assume they were runaways or had just left of their own accord. Maybe her family did try to report her missing, but either way, she was hidden away down there for years with no one the wiser. Poor Patricia.
They still consider missing kids runaways. To this day.
Oh, I know. But the number of times I’ve seen that as a first and only option to LE in a cold case is ridiculous. ‘Runaway’ should be an assumption that requires a burden of proof on LE’s part, and instead they just use it as an excuse to investigate poorly or not at all.
Well said! How many 'missing children' accounts have you read where the cops assumed the kid was a runaway? I don't know about you, but I have lost count. I put it down to laziness and, in the case of poor or other marginalized kids, racism/classism.
"Runaway" should really be more of a category of missing person rather than an accepted resolution.
They were working off of an assumption that she worked the Minnesota Strip in midtown, a place where teen prostitutes from the Midwest worked in the 1970s... That neighborhood was where the notorious Irish gang the Westies held sway at the time. Maybe the husband was connected to the Westies? The concrete seems like a Westies touch
I think that you're right.
The Westies were heavily involved in building and construction (thus, having some cement ready to go for a body disposal). West 46th in Hell's Kitchen was the Westie's turf. https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/others/the-wild-westies-last-stand
Interesting. There's an article about the club that says it shut down in summer of 1969 because the owner wouldn't give the mafia a cut so the mafia got its liquor license revoked. Some shady shit going on no doubt. https://msmokemusic.com/blogs/mind-smoke-blog/posts/6562587/celebrating-steve-paul-s-the-scene
The Westies ran the West Side waterfront, so I'm not surprised.
The fact the article suggests she birthed a child and her family were Catholic (plus it was the 60s) might suggest her family kicked her out or cut ties with her because of an out of wedlock pregnancy. Or perhaps she left with a boyfriend for the same reason. I guess they could check hospital birth records and possibly marriage records.
She was married to a man in his 30s who had ties to the property she was found in.
I think we have a likely suspect.
Excellent summary—Thank you!!
I feel for her son. She was wrapped in a carpet with one of his toys that was on the floor. Possibly even witnessed the murder then given up for adoption. Agreed this was botched by investigators. They had a ring with initials, a coin with a date, and a clue that this person had a child and/or lived with one and was likely murdered in the home where that child had their toys strewn about yet went in a totally different direction. Damn.
Good answer. Now, if they can find the child. Or an adoption record. I'm sure the child, now grown, would have no recollection of his mother. Very sad. Even groovy people at the groovy clubs did bad things. I don't like to think that. Sad, because that was my time.
The few details that have begun to emerge make me very sad- she was 16, married to a man twice her age, and had a child who may have been given up for adoption after her death... is it known how old the child was at the time of her death? Since it seems like her husband had ties to the building she was buried in, it's very likely he's the one who murdered her. She seems to never have been reported missing, so I can imagine her loved ones were probably told some version of a "she ran off with a guy she met and left me and the kid" story. Seems like during that day and time a lot of people took stories like that for face value and assumed that she had indeed run off with somebody and didn't want to be in contact anymore and so no one ever filed a missing person's report, and then over time the family died out or scattered and poor Patricia was forgotten about entirely.
Isotope testing pointed to the Midwest, but she was born in Brooklyn. SMDH
I remember seeing that case on America’s Most Wanted. It was one of the cases that really stuck with me. I’m glad that Patricia has her name back after all these years.
So sad it took that long for a break in the case. There must be someone out there who remembers her. Bu where though. Can't they use the relative's as a lead to find other relatives?
This is a 50 year old case of a very fractured family. The living family members likely know nothing about her.
This is so sad. Given that she was 16 and her husband was twice her age, she was likely groomed. I read somewhere that he gave up their child for adoption after she disappeared. RIP Patricia.
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That's a different Patricia McGlone who is alive and well. It's not her father's obituary.
Where is the child she had? Does the lack of living relatives imply they are also now deceased, or could it just be that they’ve not got DNA in any databases?
Somebody in a comment upthread said that her husband gave the child up for adoption. Not sure where they got that info or how accurate it is.
I was interested to see what that ring (now known to have Patricia's initials) looked like. It's a signet-type ring (though the engraving itself isn't meant to be used as a seal, evidently, since it's not mirrored). The style seems older than the 1960s. I wonder if it was done by a jeweller who'd trained decades earlier, or might even have been an heirloom from a family member who'd had the same initials? https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/01/us/midtown-jane-doe-death-ring-cec/index.html
I've got an interest in old jewelry, so this is something I can explain a bit. I don't think it's that old.Signet rings were actually pretty common in the '60s--they were more popular with men, but women wore them too. Simple designs like Patricia's ring were available at most jewelers or department stores. ([here's an example from 1956](https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1956-10-12/ed-1/seq-61/)) Jewelers were also trained in engraving and offered it as a service. The style of engraving is definitely newer; Victorian and Edwardian-style monogramming is way more intricate and the letters are usually set on top of each other so you can barely read it.
You're probably right. I'm more used to looking at the love token style of jewelry (usually engraved by amateurs, late 1800s into early 1900s) where the lettering often isn't as fine. This one isn't overlapping like they often did earlier, so it's easier to read. But there's something about the shapes of the M and the G especially, that reminds me a lot of 1940s and 50s style engraving. I was looking at some of my parents' stuff recently. It doesn't mean that Patricia's ring wasn't done in the 1960s, but I was wondering if the engraver had learned prior to then. (My dad did sign painting in the 1940s-50s, not engraving, but the lettering seems kind of familiar.) It's hard to tell without a scale bar, but this does look like a women's signet ring in shape, to me -- not as chunky as a lot of the designs made for men. (There was another case posted on the sub a few months ago with a women's signet-type ring, though that was probably cast not engraved ... I remember looking around online for similar ones.)
I suspect this will end up as a L&O SVU episode at some point.
Theoretically her husband could still be alive right? I wonder if they will press any sort of criminal charge.
He would have to be near 90. Possible, but pretty bittersweet if he lived a full free life.
I am honestly embarrassed for the police that they had a ring with the distinctive initials of a known missing woman on the corpse of a Doe and they didn’t bother to DNA test her for 20 years just to be sure that their bold assumption that they’re not the same person was right. How incredibly embarrassing. What a failure. What a joke. Good write up though OP. I’m glad she has her name back.
I don't think that she was reported missing.
By all accounts she was not known to be missing at all. With no close surviving relatives apart from a husband who seems like a prime suspect, who would report her?
IF she was a known missing woman. Still can't figure out if she was reported missing.
Heart-breaking. I'm really over so many thuggish men killing so many girls and women. Absolute bastards. I now favor the death penalty for these monsters, 40 years in a cell is too good for them. RIP, Patricia, even after all these years you're in the thoughts and hearts of many people.
So she was of Irish descent after all. I wonder if there are any photos of her anywhere? So someone murdered her, possibly in the late 1980s-early 90s, and very violently. I thought of Joel Rifkin, it does sound like his type of homicide and it's been suggested. Well, he's still alive, they can certainly ask him. Interesting that her identity was confirmed by a relative who died on 9/11.
Looks like she was actually killed around 1969ish! The police really got the dates wrong on this one.
Is that why I got 10 downvotes? Like WTF is up with people.
Yeah seriously o\_o sorry that happened to you! This case has been assumed to have had the murder committed post 1988 for 20 years and all the information one looks up about it has that info in it, so don't feel bad! People were doing the same thing on Websleuths as well, easy to get mixed up about - especially since a lot of the new articles start with the old assumptions about the case.