True Crime Collection

Lady of the Dunes

Lady of the Dunes is the nickname for an identified woman discovered on 26th July 1974 in the Race Point Dunes, Provincetown, Massachusetts. 

A 9 year old girl was walking her dog, and found the body of an unidentified woman on 26th July, 1974. The remains were just yards away from a road, and had a significant amount of insect activity. Two sets of footprints led to the body, and tyre tracks were found 50 yards from the scene. The woman may have died 2 weeks before her body was found.

The victim was face down on half of a beach blanket. There was no sign of a struggle; police theorised she either knew her killer or had been asleep when she died. A blue bandanna and pair of Wrangler jeans were under her head. She had long auburn or red hair, pulled back into a ponytail with a gold flecked elastic band. Her toenails were painted pink.

Police determined the woman was approximately 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighed 145 pounds, and had an athletic build. She also had dental work - including crowns - worth $5,000-$10,000; dentists call it the "New York style" of dental work. Several of her teeth had been removed. One hand and one forearm were missing. Most sources day she was between 25 and 40 years old. However, she could have been as young as 20 or as old as 49. 

The woman was nearly decapitated, possibly from strangulation; one side of her head had been crushed with a military entrenching type of tool. This head injury was what killed her. There were also signs of sexual assault, likely postmortem. 

Some investigators feel the missing teeth, hands, and forearm indicate the killer wanted to hide either the victim's identity or their own. 

The woman was buried in October 1974 after the case went cold. In 2014, one of the case investigators raised funds for a new casket, because the original thin metal casket was rusted and deteriorated. 

Police pored through thousands of missing person cases and a list of approved vehicles driven through the area; no matches were found. At the scene, the sand and beach blanket were not disturbed, suggesting that the body was possibly moved to that specific spot where her body was found. No other evidence was found despite extensive searches of the surrounding dunes.

The first facial reconstruction of the woman was created with clay in 1979. Her remains were exhumed in 1980 for examination; no new clues were uncovered. The body was exhumed again in March 2000 for DNA. In May 2010, her skull was placed through a CT scanner that generated images that were then used by the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children for another reconstruction. 

In 1987, a Canadian woman told a friend that she saw her father strangle a woman in Massachusetts around 1972. Police attempted to locate the woman but were unsuccessful. Another woman told police the reconstruction of the victim looked like her sister, who disappeared in Boston in 1974. 

Investigators also followed a lead involving missing criminal Rory Gene Kesinger, who would have been 25 years old at the time of the murder (she broke out of jail in 1973). Authorities saw a resemblance between Rory and the victim. However, DNA from Rory's mother did not match the victim. 

Two other missing women, Francis Ewalt of Montana and Vicke Lamberton of Massachusetts, have also been ruled out.

In August 2015, speculation arose that Lady of the Dunes may have been an extra in the 1975 film Jaws (filmed in Massachusetts in 1974). Joe Hill, the son of horror author Stephen King, brought this to the police attention. Joe had learned of the case after reading The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths are Solving America's Coldest Case just weeks before. Joe told an FBI investigator that during the film's "July 4th Crowd Arrives" sequence, he saw a woman resembling reconstructions of the victim. She is wearing a blue bandana and jeans, similar to those found with the body. 

Jaws was shot between May and October 1974. Principal photography was mainly in Menemsha on Martha's Vineyard, about 100 miles south of Provincetown. 

Although a lead investigator has noted interest in this, others have described it as "far fetched" and "wild speculation."

In 1981, investigators learned a woman who resembled the victim was seen with mobster Whitey Bulger around the time the woman presumably died. Whitey was known for removing his victims' teeth. A link to Whitey has not been proven, and he was murdered in prison in 2018.

Tony Costa, a serial killer in the area, was an initial suspect, but later eliminated. Tony died on 12th May, 1974. The victim was found in July 1974.

Serial killer Hadden Clark confessed to the murder, stating "I could have told the police what her name was, but after they beat me, I wasn't going to tell them... This murder is still unsolved and what the police are looking for is in my grandfather's garden." Authorities say Hadden suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, a condition which may lead someone to confess falsely to crimes.

In 2004, Hadden sent a letter to a friend stating that he had killed a woman on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He also sent two drawings: one of the handless, naked woman sprawled on her stomach, and another of a map pointing to where the body was found.

In April 2000, Hadden led police to a spot where he claimed he had buried two victims 20 year before. He also stated that he had murdered several others in various states between in 1970s and the 1990s.