Information left by an anonymous tipster could be the key to identifying “Baby Jane Doe,” a 3-year-old girl whose body was found 21 years ago encased in concrete inside a footlocker and left in woods near Waycross. According to the tip, the little girl could have ties to Tifton.

According to GBI Special Agent Russell Mansfield of the agency’s Douglas office, someone used the GBI’s Web site to leave an anonymous tip that the girl’s name could be Bridget and that her family at one time lived in Tifton.

“Our main focus right now is just to try to identify this little girl and give her remains a proper burial,” Mansfield said. “This wasn’t an infant born and abandoned, but a little girl who lived three years. Somebody cared for her and there are people who knew her.”

Mansfield encourages whoever left the tip to call him or Special Agent Dale R. Wiley, the lead investigator in the case, at 912-389-4103. Also, tips may be left at 1-800-597-TIPS, at the Ware County Sheriff’s Office at 912-287-4327 or online at the GBI Web site at www.gbi.georgia.gov.

“We would definitely like for them to contact our office,” Mansfield said. “We don’t think the person who sent the e-mail had anything to do with it, but that they are afraid to be associated with the case for some reason. The person can remain confidential, but we have to have some way to prove or at least substantiate that the information is accurate and the only way to do that is to talk to that person.”

It was Dec. 31, 1988 when loggers working in woods near Waycross stumbled across a television cabinet. Inside the empty cabinet was a black footlocker. When the loggers opened the locker, they found what they believed to be a small child’s hand sticking out of the foot locker that had been filled with concrete. An Albany Herald newspaper was also found near the body.

In 1988, law enforcement investigators didn’t have the technological devices at their disposal that they do now. Mansfield said computer teletypes were used to spread information about missing persons from county-to-county and state-to-state. He said that when the girl’s body was found, word was spread nationwide asking agencies if they had any reports of missing children.

“Nothing ever panned out on that at all,” Mansfield said. “There were no missing persons reported around Waycross whatsoever and that is why we believe that the little girl was not from Waycross and that Waycross is just where they decided to leave the body.”

An autopsy was conducted on the girl’s decomposed body, but no cause of death has been determined. Mansfield said medical examiners are hesitant to estimate when the girl died or how long she had been encased in the concrete because of variables such as the weather, but it is estimated that her body was in the woods for approximately two months.

A forensic sketch artist drew a composite of what the little girl might have looked like based on skull features. The little girl is black and was wearing yellow barrettes in her hair when she was found. More recently, an artist used the girl’s skull and built up facial and head features with modeling clay to form a bust of what she might have looked like.

“If you look at the picture of the sketch and at the bust, they are pretty similar,” Mansfield said.



To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.