Pima Jane Doe and the Flower Girl, Part 1

Unknown woman/Chelmsford, MA PD

One hand is loose in her lap and the other holds a spray of flowers. Her head tilts to the side and she looks at the camera like this pose somehow pains her. She might be annoyed. She might be scared.

Police in Chelmsford, Massachusetts want to know the Flower Girl’s name. They want to know if the girl traveled across the country from a green New England day, holding flowers in a flower-print dress, to die in the desert near Tucson, Arizona. For a few reasons, including a physical resemblance, they want to know if she became Pima Jane Doe.

In the database maintained by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Pima Jane Doe is “Jane Doe 1981.”

The NCMEC entry states that Jane Doe was found on April 8, 1981 “in a small drainage wash 3.7 miles south of the intersection of Interstate 10 and Houghton Road in Tucson, Arizona.”

Digital reconstruction of Jane Doe 1981/NCMEC

The 5’3″ woman weighed around 110 lbs. Like the mystery woman in the photo, she had light brown, possibly blonde hair. She had a white spot on one front tooth. When she died she was wearing brown suede shoes, ankle socks with pink pom-poms, size 3 jeans and a “Chain Reaction” brand blue blouse with puffy, flower-print sleeves.

An “Oops, California” brand denim jacket was found near her body. The Los Angeles-based brand, defunct since the late 1980s, catered to women. It is tagged in a trademark database related to clothing lines with floral designs.

In a 2013 report detailing the NCMEC reconstruction of Jane Doe’s appearance by the Arizona Daily Star, Pima County Sheriff’s Dept. Detective Mark O’Dell said Jane Doe had been in the desert for a few days when she was found. O’Dell also indicated her death had been a homicide. She had “obvious signs of trauma to her head and body,” he said.

Boston’s WBZ reported the bridge between the Flower Girl, whose photo was first posted on the Chelmsford PD’s Facebook page, and Pima Jane Doe may be a convicted killer named John Joseph Kalhauser (referred to as “Jack Kalhauser” in the WBZ article).

The photo was taken from Kalhauser, who was imprisoned in 1999 for killing his wife in Arizona. He has said nothing about the woman holding the flowers.

When Jane Doe died in Arizona, John Kalhauser’s pedigree as a homicidal psychopath had already been well-established in Massachusetts.

Paul Chapman was 52 when he died. His body was found near Route 3 in Massachusetts, not far from the New Hampshire border. Contemporary reports from the Nashua Telegraph stated that Chapman’s body was found after police in Tyngsboro, MA began investigating his bullet-riddled, abandoned car.

Chapman, director of industrial relations at the Johns-Manville Products Corporation, lived with his mother at the time.

He’d been killed with a .22 caliber weapon. At the time, police said they did not believe robbery was a motive.

On May 4, 1971, then 17-year-old John Joseph Kalhauser was arrested for his murder.

Kalhauser underwent a mental evaluation. He was found competent to stand trial. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

He served one year.

After his release, Kalhauser would tell a girlfriend that he’d killed Paul Chapman after Chapman made sexual advances toward him.

Almost exactly 8 years after Paul Chapman was murdered, John Kalhauser tried to kill again.

Pima Jane Doe and the Flower Girl, Part 2

[WBZ]

• This post was originally published at coldpapers.blogspot.com.